Console Debate #25 CD-i

[fox | 1,666]

*all CD-I/CD-i models and makers included

[Strange | 1,700]

I went on a date with a girl this past Saturday who has a game collection of her own and has two of each of the Zelda CD-i games.

Anyway that’s my experience with the CD-i, see you all next time!

Edited April 23, 2021 by Strange

[nrslam | 474]

Weird console.  The games were pretty forgettable, but mine got a fair amount of use playing both CD-i movies (pre-DVD) and for watching edutainment videos (pre-internet), both from a local rental store. And for a system that didn't sell all that well, Philips made over 20 different models for some bizarre reason (many not intended for home use, but still...).  But the games...Yuck.  I suppose the Nintendo games give the system some credibility. 3/10.

I've heard people describe this as the worst console of all time. Those people have never played a VIS.

Edited April 23, 2021 by nrslam
More info

[mbd39 | 2,020]

Didn't even the Sega CD have better games? Pass.

 

 

[Reed Rothchild | 9,520]

If the Zelda games were $25 each I'd maybe humor the thought of getting one to play them.  Maybe.

[Nintegageo | 582]

No interest.

[cj_robot | 540]

The CD-I is more of a video game console than your average DVD player, but just barely. It's got a Zelda game though, so it must be a 10/10.

[Sumez | 2,941]

I honestly love the CD-i, but a big part of that love is love for how shitty it is. I got a stupid collection of awful FMV games for it.

And as hated as the Zelda games are, it's probably not incorrect to say they are still the best games on the system (but if anyone else has some suggestions for another game to take that prize, please post them!). As crappy as they obviously are, I still find them pretty enjoyable.

3/10

[Webhead123 | 675]

Warp back to the early 90's, as I was pawing through issues of EGM and GamePro and saw advertisements for the CD-i, Jaguar and 3DO. "Wow! CD technology and full-motion, interactive video? That's the wave of the future, man!" Oh, how my young, naive, broke self wished for a spare $600 to buy one of those gaming beasts that would surely go down in history as the beginning of a genuine video game legacy!

I never did get any of them. 3 bullets dodged. Thank goodness.

Edited April 23, 2021 by Webhead123

[Reed Rothchild | 9,520]

9 minutes ago, Webhead123 said:

Warp back to the early 90's, as I was pawing through issues of EGM and GamePro and saw advertisements for the CD-i, Jaguar and 3DO. "Wow! CD technology and full-motion, interactive video? That's the wave of the future, man!" Oh, how my young, naive, broke self wished for a spare $600 to buy one of those gaming beasts that would surely go down in history as the beginning of a genuine video game legacy!

I never did get any of them. 3 bullets dodged. Thank goodness

I used to try and work out if I could sell my SNES and all of my games in order to afford a Genesis and 32X so that I could play Doom 

[Webhead123 | 675]

Just now, Reed Rothchild said:

I used to try and work out if I could sell my SNES and all of my games in order to afford a Genesis and 32X so that I could play Doom 

I hear ya! I had the incredible fortune to have semi-regular access to the University computer lab to get most of my Doom fix but had to settle for renting Doom on SNES at all other times because I couldn't afford any other platform on which it was available. Might be why I'm more forgiving of the SNES port than most. It's all I had, bro! 

[AstralSoul | 502]

I wanted to give this a 1 or 2 because of how bad I perceive it to be, and for the atrocities that are the Zelda games, but to be fair I never actually played one, or even seen one. I just have the absolute zeroest of interests. 

[final fight cd | 186]

I’m always intrigued by the obscure.  I’m sure it had a very good port of myst. Plus, wasn’t it the only way to play the 7th guest on a home console back in the day?

ive always thought about getting into it.

[nrslam | 474]

One of the weird/interesting things about collecting for this system is there seem to be a large number of "demo" discs supposedly used by reps to show off titles to potential dealers. These most commonly came in white, but sometimes in green or red, usually with "Not for Resale" on them and simple black & white text-only instructions. In some cases, the demos seem more common than the actual retail releases. Not sure how so many demos, if that's what they were, made it out into the wild.

[Inzoreno | 102]

From what I understand, it was supposed to be more of a multi-media machine that just happened to play video games. So you end up with Myst, The 13th Guest, Hotel Mario and the bad Zelda games, but then you also have things like The Flowers of Robert Mapplethorpe. I guess you could say that it was a very early incarnation of the all-in-one media boxes consoles have become today, but I still think that is being kind. No one cared for this thing back in the day and now we only care about it because if has some bad Zelda and Mario games that will never show up on any other platforms and it has a very interesting backstory connected to Nintendo and Sony.

2/10. 

[DefaultGen | 5,401]

2/10. I think some of the multimedia weirdness is interesting enough to be played. There's certainly some level of uniqueness to this kind of video game console. Nothing on Super Nintendo is like Wacky World of Miniature Golf for sure. The multimedia aspect means they don't even feel like console games, but really bad PC games. Oh well, still not as bad as a Hyperscan or R-Zone so it can't be a 1 IMO.

[Tanooki | 4,932]

I had trouble, had to think about this for awhile.  Why?  Because it honestly IS NOT a console.  It never was meant to one, they never later decided it had to be one either.  It was always a multimedia station where it was made to sell educational junk a bit, but largely as a VCD and CD music player.  Sure it had games, at least a 100 over the years, but they were a secondary interest.  And then I think about that last part, and well not sure how many here can probably say they owned one when it was on the market, but I did.

Because of that I may end up with one of the highest scores on it (6) and that's being pretty objective about what my expectations of it was, and what I did own for the thing.  At the time it came out, and not being made for games, it had a few short comings sure, like no dedicated controller to start, and not a big memory footprint either, so it had to do quite a bit of disc loading so you'd get pauses per section.

The system had a pretty decent grasp on its capability of doing two things pretty well, sprite and hand drawn style graphics, and then video/dvi digital video style games.  The hardware was there for it to handle quite a bit more than it got too, but where it did focus it did it pretty well.  For years it had the cleanest, nicest looking copies of games that follow the prompt, primarily Dragons Lair 1, DL2, and Space Ace, and also others too like Escape from Cyber City, and Maddog McCree (I had Cyber City and Space Ace.)  it also was pretty great too with rail shooter games, and I had a real winner that made it to PC too -- Chaos Control which is quite good.  Sprites and drawn, people love to sheep into crapping on them, and 1 out of 4 case righly so, and that's the Nintendo licensed stuff they had no hand in.  Zelda's Adventure the one seemingly unfinished buggy beta disaster is awful, but the other 2 Zeldas (I had Faces of Evil) are really good, play well, if you go in expecting a sequel to the style of Zelda II.  And Hotel Mario, it's a weird bastard child of Mario Bros (with SMW graphics) combined with Elevator Action and is enjoyable.

I had some other games, a range, Caesars Boxing, Lords of the Rising Sun(love this version of it), Tetris, Pinball, Namco Museum, Voyeur, Lil Divil(also made it to PC) and I got quite a few hours of enjoyment out of the stuff as it was on par or above with 16bit consoles in various ways, or with laserdisc/rail gun style games on some others.  One stand out I liked a lot was Mutant Rampage Bodyslam, think of it as like Double Dragon/Final FIght style brawler, but with mutants (like Neo Geo Mutation Nation) and it really was entertaining.

That said, it had a lot of turd games too, far more than good, and outside that, edutainment(ugh), learning apps on disc, a huge ton of VCD movies, and other oddities.  It's a good catch all system, ahead of its day, and yet out of date in its prime, a weird pass/fail there.  So it's pretty good, but not really good, or great, or excellent by any means but it's also not crap.

[Tanooki | 4,932]

Shame about things with it, I wish it wasn't so collector toxic and for years now.  I'd like nothing more than to own one again, and the few discs (dozen~) I had.  But then I see the prices on one with a new battery in good shape, cost of a gravis pad clone, and the heavy hitters I had (Faces of Evil, Hotel Mario) and I'm put off it.  I wish they were 100% emulated, I'd just like to dabble again, but not to the tune of what $500+ easy.

[Koopa64 | 51]

I've been a CD-i owner for a grand total of two days now. I've tried a few games including Hotel Mario and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon. Honestly they're not terrible games, pretty good actually. Zelda has a fair bit of challenge to it, but it's nothing compared to the worst examples on the NES like Battletoads. The in-game graphics in Zelda are quite impressive, they scanned in what look like watercolor painted backgrounds. The cutscenes are goofy and a bit frightening but I like stuff that's unintentionally funny. It's still cool seeing what a 16-bit Zelda II: The Adventure of Link game would be like.

Maybe it was underwhelming when it first came out, maybe people have oddly high expectations of what is essentially just an upgraded CD player. I don't think it's that bad at all.

[JamesRobot | 5,798]

No real interest but I'd play it if it was in the room.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,520]

21 minutes ago, Koopa64 said:

maybe people have oddly high expectations

I only expect one things: good games

If you don't provide that, you haven't done your job.  How many consoles throughout history offer a worse library?

 

[Koopa64 | 51]

The games aren't that bad though. What are you comparing CD-i games to?

A console with a worse library? Honestly the WonderSwan is pretty terrible. It's full of licensed schlock based on anime, manga and toy properties. The good games are far and few between. If you took the Game Boy Color, removed all the Nintendo and big name third party titles and changed the region on the licensed garbage from USA to Japan, you'd have a WonderSwan.

Edited April 24, 2021 by Koopa64

[Reed Rothchild | 9,520]

8 minutes ago, Koopa64 said:

The games aren't that bad though. What are you comparing CD-i games to?

Every other console library.

The N64 and Wii U took a lot of shots in these debates for their library sizes.  Both are absolute powerhouses in comparison to the CDi.

[Koopa64 | 51]

I think a more fair comparison would be against systems like the Amiga, Atari ST and MS-DOS PCs as they all have fairly similar types of games and developers to one another. Lemmings is available on all four of those platforms, for example.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,520]

I'd say comparing it against the Amiga or PCs of the era is also quite unfavorable to the CDi.  It's a lackluster library any way you cut it.