Right so the Philips CDi might be one of the most hated system ever.
Mostly for butchering the Zelda franchise in extension its thought that the entire system is rubbish.
I have to defend it a little first of all its not strictly a Video game console even though it have games. I see people getting that wrong time and time again. They put in cd´s with the title encyclopedia and expect a game.
Its more of a multimedia system. It played movies and audio cds and had various programs and things.
Of course this dosent change the fact that when you buy a stand alone game you expect a good game.
And yes it appears that the Zelda games arent that good but i cant really talk about the Zelda games since i dont own them and thus havet played them yet.
However i can talk about another title that people like to smack around alot, Hotel Mario.
It starts off with the famous cartoon, its goofy, not the best voice acting in the history of games but its fun to watch i think. Then after the second video the game starts. And what is this?
Yes it sure aint a regular Mario game as we knew them in the 90s.
But i have to say i like it, its not what you expect from a game in the fourth generation, no. If the gameplay is fun and addicting i cant really give it a bad score.
You close all the doors in order to advance into the next level avoiding the Koopa Troopas, Goombas, Evil coins and those centipede things. Not really anything more to say about this game, if you have a CDi you might wanna consider it, its not my favorite game for it but its alright.
Again im limited to the games i own so i dont have a huge library of games to choose from and most being bad finding good ones are going to be a problem. Just keep going.
Yes i am but first i want to mention something that surprised me when i got the system, the gamepad.
To my knowledge they released 2 primary gamepads and 4 different media controller (Im probably wrong here) Yes you probably are.
In any case one gamepad looked like a twisted Supernintendo controller and the other a Megadrive/Genesis looking thing i have the latter. As you can see it has 3 buttons a turbo switch and a D-pad. What you probably cant tell from the picture is that on button one there one square on button two there are two squares and on button three theres one plus two squares. What the heck does that mean? That means that pressing the third button is like pressing button one and two simultaneously. That seems stupid. Yes it very much is and another thing thats stupid when making a Genesis clone is to have no Start/Pause button. That dosent even make sense for the multimedia aspect of the console. Despite this though i kinda like it. Its thick the buttons feels good and the D-pad feels good too. So all in all i like this gamepad. Cant speak for the other one though.
As for the media controller, the one i got with it seems to be the most basic one they made. It has four directional keys and two action button. Its really awkward to use even as a remote for just the menus.
Now to the next game. Zenith. In this game your a metal ball trying to get to the end of the stage, preventing you to reach the goal are holes in the ground, bombs and other obstacles. To be honest i havent gotten to far in this game i always get a bit bored. Its fun for a short time but can tend to be frustrating and get a little old. But non the less the control is fine and it plays smooth so its not bad.
Then we have Lemmings. Lemming is Lemmings. Nothing more, nothing less but definitely not nothing more. To be seriously though it playes good and it looks just like you would expect.
I personally prefer to play this with a mouse but if your going to play it on a console this works just as well as on any other machine i think. Its a good game.
Pac-Panic, here is my favorite Cdi game. Its a simple puzzle game and its really well down. Like Tetris Pieces drop down from the top but unlike Tetris the objective is to get rid of all the evil ghosts. Sadly all the ghostbusters are out of town and so they have to call in you Pac-man. You are not funny, dont try to be funny. In all seriousness though ive been sitting infront of my Cdi for hours playing this game. It looks great an it plays like a dream. You also get these fun looking animations after completing a level. He looks stressed if it was close to the timer running out and give you a thumbs up if you get well within the time limit. The time limit is a strange thing in this game though as there isnt a timer. But still awesome game with the shortest sweetest password system ever only 3 letters. Thats great.
I have a couple of good ones im going to save until i finished them, mainly Burn cycle and 7th guest. I think im going to have to see the ending before i can give an honest opinion.
I also have Cluedo, a game im really looking forward to playing but i wanna save it for when i have a friend to play it with. Good luck with that. I dont wanna spoil it in case its really funny.
Then i have defender of the crown too, anyway i have a bunch more games i havent gotten around to yet. Some i havent tried at all that seems alright like Flashback.
Tetris, i know the title of this promised the good games, but this is a game i just have to talk about. Your such a liar. I love Tetris, its one of my favorite games ever. Having tried Pac-Panic before this was i though thi would rock.
They might even have good music as its on a cd but i was wrong.
The butchering of Tetris they made really shows that they dont understand the game. I dont understand what the developers were thinking. When your in game it plays fine except for the fact that you can only rotate them one way but thats forgivable. So then whats the problem? Yes, like in regular Tetris you level up making the pieces fall faster making it harder. Well since they had a CD to fill up they decided to have a montage in the background, pretty pictures to go along with the game, its fun i guess but it has to load and each level they change the picture putting the game on hold and not only that but they have a loading screen and not just a freeze putting you off the game making you loose concentration. Because of this its one of the hardest version of Tetris ive ever played. This is unforgivable. Holy crap, how do you ruin Tetris? HOW? Calm down its only Tetris. Shut up, Tetris is holy and this is an abomination.
To summarize: The Cdi as a game system especially for its time wasent a very good system, in fact it was bad.But as a media center its alright, ive seen movies on it or a movie rather and it works alot like a DVD player the quality is solid not DVD quality but its good, better than VHS anyway. As a cd player its good too and its certainly alot flashier that a regular cd player. To bad they didnt release enough movies for it.
So should i get one? Well that depends, are you looking for a piece of videogame history or a nice retro system to play some fun games on. If your a collector then certainly, its fun to collect, its pretty cheap and it brings back that certain “coolness” about playing CD games we all had in the 90s.
But if you just want to have some fun times and is looking for a somewhat odd system to add to your casual collection, no. There are alot better systems for you.
The reason i wanted it was first of all to see what all the fuzz was about and get a piece of videogame history but also because i like playing FMV titles, now turns out that, that was kind of a bust. Not many exclusive FMV games were released for it. Should have done your homework. Yeah i should have bought a 3DO instead, but dosent matter as i got it cheap. I got the 450 model probably the one least in demand, i however think it looks the best, it looks like a games console should and also it looks pretty good in my opinion.
Yeah one last thing, storing CDI games is pretty annoying. I like having my games in Alphabetical order neatly on a shelve. Or of its cd games in a cd stand. Dosent work with Cdi games, they for some reason felt it necessary to make them different sizes, no not just different from normal cds but different from eachother. So ugly stack of games in a cardboard box it is. If they all were the same size i could easily have custom made a cd stand for them but there you go.
If they all jut came with like a cardboard outer case or something like Nes, or just all in the normal Crystal case like half the games. Someone was not thinking ahead.
Anyways, i know there are alot of things i missed but im doing this post in kind of a hurry. The criticism of the console is valid but sometimes people are complaining without even having played it. Solely based on seeing the cut scenes
in the Zelda and Mario games. Thats silly, its not a good console and its probably on my top 10 worst console list but still it had a few good games and i do like the Megadrive looking controller.
A good site if you want to read further or check for games is this one http://www.philipscdi.com/
See you guys next week /Mr.F
fuzzygamers 
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