CD-ROM Fossil

By: Zach Zimmerman, Contributing Writer

Hello everyone, you’re probably excited for the new adventure that the Fossil gang are embarking on at CD, I mean UMD Headquarters. We’re exploring the vast media capabilities of the Universal Media Disc.  I mean when you label your fancy optical disc with the universe in mind, you know that intuitive application and quality was a top priority. Which is why the PlayStation Portable uses it!

This high-tech fancy disc with plastic casing ensured that literally all the data of the world, or even the universe, could be protectively stored (up to 1.8 gigabytes of data per disc) conveniently for consumers and hackers from 90s films.

Now while we are kicking things off with the PSP’s gaming software over on YouTube with the premiere of Daxter, we’ll be also looking at the UMD Video library one film at a time.

Remember The Rock? Before he was The Rock? Or at the very least just as he was turning into The Rock? Remember all the other guys and all the crazy space marine future stuff that we see in the Doom movie that barely had anything to do with the actual series of games it was titled after? We sure do, considering we just watched it!

Now we understand that taking one pissed off doomed space marine, and his shotgun sidekick, running at the speed of light wouldn’t make for a very engaging film. Even though one could argue that the romantic tension between the previously mentioned shotgun and doomguy is one of the most captivating love stories in all of video games. No instead we have a science fiction story of exfiltration SNAFU with a buffet of guys arguing and standing around and a little bit of demons just to ensure they stayed on brand.

Realistically, it’s hard to really parse out what is happening. Even though the video is probably a 480 resolution, it is further scaled down on the PSP and on top of that. Trying to watch this while on the go is just giving me motion sickness.

Guys wander around, everything is boring and the movie ends after CGI The Rock gets possessed and eats a big fruit gusher BFG blast. A solid B+ film, and a definite recommendation for those who want to watch Doom on their PSP while playing Doom on their computer or console or pretty much anywhere else.

Look forward to our next video recap where we look at Ghost Rider (2007) on the UMD Video catalog. I heard there’s a little mouse in it!  Wait no, that’s Stuart Little… What the hell is Ghost Rider about?