It’s time for the Phillips CD-i episodes of the Angry Video Game Nerd. Not one, not two, but three episodes were devoted to this console and some of its games. Namely, the ones featuring Nintendo properties.
For a very, very brief back story, the CD-i (Compact Disc Interactive) hardware was the end result of Phillips working with Nintendo on a CD-ROM addon for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System which would use the CD-I specification that Phillips had been working on (with Sony) since the 80’s. On paper it sounds like a good idea but plans fell through, and Phillips took the technology they had and did their own console (I hate to call this thing that, it really wasn’t a game machine by design.) Due to the way the agreement with Nintendo went, Phillips still had rights to the Mario and Zelda franchises, and developed some games based on these properties. Terrible games, but still perfectly legal under the contract they had with Nintendo. An interesting situation, to say the least.
It should be noted that Phillips and Sony had been working together since the 80’s on the CD-i specification and standard. The story is actually pretty interesting and is something I hope to write about in the future.
Naturally, it was inevitable that James would do an episode on these games. The thing is, as mentioned above, he didn’t do one episode, oh no no.. he did 3, and right now, we’re going to look at the first one which discussed the basics of the CD-i and our first game, Hotel Mario.
The opening of this episode, alone, is a bit special, in that it shows much of the collection James had by late 2008. He certainly had come a long way from the early episodes and the old apartment over the past 2 years, and what would become known as the “Nerd Room,” while still in its early stages, was already quite impressive — honestly, my favorite “YouTuber” game room, by far!
James opens the episode by telling the story of the CD-i — basically a more condense form of what I said above, minus some details! He then goes into a bit of detail on the console itself and his experience with it. Well, more correctly, his experience with the multiple ones he had to buy, all of them different! Once he gets a hold of one that works, it’s still a mess — I actually don’t know if the controller input issue he had is normal or if it was a special case for him, but what a mess. Doesn’t matter, the controllers are mostly terrible, and the game selection is apalling… so bad, in fact, that I personally (as mentioned above) DO NOT consider the CD-i a game console. If you look at much of the other software available, you will notice it’s really just more like an interactive Laser Disc or DVD type of experience, as opposed to proper video games.
Still, games it had, and uncommon they are. James spends a bit of time talking about the cost for getting games and equipment for these episodes and, from what I can gather, they certainly would have been probably the most expensive episodes of the series at that time! Quite impressive, really, and it shows the kinds of growth the Nerd series had in those first two years on YouTube.
We finally get to Hotel Mario for it to be not what one would expect. It’s a kind of arcade style action puzzle game where you have to close all the doors in the level to advance. That’s it. It’s one of those “this didn’t need to be a Mario title” kind of games — you could replace the characters and it would still be the same game! Sure, it has Goomba’s and Koopa’s but the point is closing doors. It has some good aspects but on a whole is a mess — a possibly decent game with some good elements but one that’s overall a mess. Can’t really say much more about it from what The Nerd says here, so, take it for what it is.
Final Rating: 3.5/5
This episode is a starter for the upcoming ones — it sets the stage for properly covering the Zelda CD-i games and, while not too special on its own any episode with a focus on the hardware and history of gaming, from James’ perspective, I’ll always have a soft spot for, and this one I like. It’s nothing special on its own but for what’s to come, well, you can imagine how well it sets the stage. The Nerd is coming in full force, and it’s going to be quite the fun time!
Enjoy. Next up is Zelda: Wand of Gamelon!