So I've been playing dozens of Philip CD-i games for the past couple days

[Bonkers225]

And unsurprisingly, majority of them sucked. However there were several good interactive educational ones like Richard Scarry, Titanic, Peanuts, Sesame Street, and Pecos Bill. They really reminded me growing up in Elementary school. Very nice nostalgia feeling.

In terms of gameplay, I've tried the best games for CD-i which were Burn Cycle, and 7th Mansion. These were supposed to be system sellers. Well, I died 10 seconds in Burn Cycle, and all I did was press left, and got game over. And I'm not even exaggerating, go try it yourself. 7th Mansion didn't even run on Retroarch, I had to do something extra, but at this point, I said fuck it, and skipped it. Hotel Mario was ok, until you repeatedly run into the game's biggest flaw: Jumping on the opponents will bounce you off and hit the enemy above you which will kill you, and you have to start over. The Apprentice was solid. Great, big colorful graphics, downside is that it's a one hit kill game, and majority of the time it will be from background drops you didn't see that will off you, like a tiny drop of slime from the ceiling as example. Tetris was Tetris. Fun, with nice real backgrounds of nature, and that good ol' 90's infomercial music. A winner, but again, it's Tetris. If you fail at making a good Tetris game, I don't know what to say. So that's it. A fair amount of good educational stuff, and 2 solid games to play.

Yes, it's quite possibly the worst gaming console of all time, but the positive side is no other gaming console nails that nostalgia 90's feel perfectly like the CD-i does imo.

 

[nobitakun]

I've been playing lots of games on CD with my friend Philip. We have something in common :D

 

[RustySK]

Kudos to you, I've never had the stomach for CD-i level jank.

Out of curiosity I gave the Zelda games and Hotel Mario a shot - hot damn, absolute garbage. Then I kept seeing peope praise The Apprentice - roaring trashfire.
Good to know they managed not to mess up Tetris though, by their standards that's an achievement!

Totally agree about the 90s nostalgia aspect though. Pop culture-wise that era had so much bizarre, kind of creative, all-out stupid nonsense going on that the CD-i, height of hubris that it was, kind of encapsulates that well.

 

[ZombieFish]

Braver than I. If I had a physical console I’d feel obliged to at least sample the library, but tbh I never even considered the possibility of emulating it. What’s next? 3DO? Jaguar? Game.com?

 

[RustySK]

Braver than I. If I had a physical console I’d feel obliged to at least sample the library, but tbh I never even considered the possibility of emulating it. What’s next? 3DO? Jaguar? Game.com?

Hey the 3DO at least has like 3 okay games - Battle Blues, Space Hulk and Doctor Hauzer, to be specific.
And from what I hear the Jaguar actually has the best version of NBA Jam on it!... for whatever that's worth.

 

[petran79]

I remember an interactive soccer game at a store back then, not sure if it was Philips CDI or other system.
Basically you had a live action soccer goalkeeper in front of a goal post and you had to kick the ball and score the goal. You controlled a pointer and directed it to where you wanted in the goal post.

Sometimes you'd score, others it would hit the post, other times ball would go out and others goalkeeper would catch or hit away the ball and would praise or ridicule you accordingly. It was a fun little game.

 

[Dyne]

Richard Scarry is a name I have not heard in a loooong time.
Wow.
That is a DEEP cut from my childhood, thanks.

 

[nobitakun]

Braver than I. If I had a physical console I’d feel obliged to at least sample the library, but tbh I never even considered the possibility of emulating it. What’s next? 3DO? Jaguar? Game.com?

Never understimate Game.com Resident Evil 2 :)

 

[qw90700]

They really reminded me growing up in Elementary school.

Good to know. Every day I see nightmares regarding my elementary school experiences already!!! "No more learning about echidnas and jabuticaba. You can't even see them around in this country!!! Who cares about Jupiter's moons!! Noooooo!!" lolol.

 

[ZombieFish]

Never understimate Game.com Resident Evil 2 :)

No need to estimate; I played it. Best of the big-boy console ports, which is to say; hot trash vs actively on fire trash. <3

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

You, sir, are a real trooper *salutes".

 

[Jeff]

Good for you! I played a few CD-i games and there's another good educational game called The Bernstain Bears: On Your own. Which has really good fluent animation and plays really good for an interactive point & click game.

 

[sijaab]

nlg the cd-i (atleast the 210 model that i have) has REALLY good video output via scart
(better than most nintendo consoles lol)