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Console Graveyard: The Philips CD-i

bryan.eddy@newretrowave.com — Fri, 06 May 2016 19:38:28 +0000

Once again we strap on our work boots, sling our spades over our shoulders, and shamble on over to the Console Graveyard. This time we’ll take a look at a system that never truly knew who it was. One that had the best of intentions, but just never committed itself. In a different time or place, it could have been a true legend. Sadly, its tale ended in slow death, and it came to rest with us here in the digital mausoleums of the Console Graveyard. Allow me to introduce today’s embalmed console corpse…

Typically, Japanese companies have dominated the console market. Names like Nintendo, Sony, and Sega have brought us the platforms we’re so intimately familiar with now, and only in recent years has the American giant Microsoft waded into this battle from the neighboring PC field. The CD-i, however, is a rarity; it was designed by the Dutch company Koninklijke Philips N.V. Founded in 1891, the company began by manufacturing carbon filament lamps and soon moved on to radios and engines. As electronics became the mainstay of the later 20th Century, Philips held its own in that market with a solid line of consumer devices primarily focused on media and home use. The company, along with Sony, helped standardize the format of Compact Discs. They even pioneered an early LaserDisc device, but held it back in fear that their tape device sales would suffer as a result. You know Norelco razors? That’s them; the name is just branding.

Their first factory is now a museum. That’s how long they’ve been around.

Philips had become a respectably successful company during the 20th Century, and it felt comfortable taking a shot at multimedia. They began work on the CD-i in 1984, and it first hit retail shelves in December of 1991. That’s seven (7) years of R&D. The CD-i was intended to be more than a gaming console. It was meant for use in a wide variety of applications, from education to music to the old standby of media playing. This is fitting, as the first model available to the general consumer market looked very much like a VCR with a gamepad plugged into the front.

This was the first of many forms the console would take as they tried and tried (and tried and f**king tried) to re-market it.

The CD-i was also one of the first home media electronics with the capability of accessing networks. By partnering with fellow Dutch firm CDMATICS, Philips was able to connect CD-i players to the Internet (in its early form). This concept went over better in the Netherlands than anywhere else; a native grocery chain even implemented it for home shopping and delivery.

Despite all this innovation, there were enough problems with the ambitious CD-i that it died a slow death worldwide. One major complaint was the price point; initially released in the USA for a retail price of $700, the Philips CD-i wasn’t seen as a toy, nor was it perceived as a casual purchase by any but the wealthiest (or most foolish) consumer. The system also got panned for its lack of true games and those games’ inconsistent quality. You see, Nintendo licensed the production of some Zelda and Mario titles for the CD-i, but refused to develop said games. The results are famous among gamers on today’s Internet, and while it’s funny now, no one was laughing in the 90s when they played Hotel Mario (or one of three separate Zelda games) on their 700 dollar CD-i and saw this kind of crap:

That’s it. Other than some cutscenes that look like they were made in MSPaint, that’s Hotel Mario.

These games were so goofy that later on, the Internet would use them to spawn creations like this (one of my favorites, and there are a lot of these):

Needless to say, dedicated game consoles were outperforming the CD-i, and they were doing it for less money at the retail counter. The CD-i’s controllers also caught major flak, often cited as “confusing” and “unresponsive.” There was a lot of variation in controller types across the different models, and none of them were well-liked.

So our console looks less like a VCR, but now we’ve got… How do I hold that? How do I play games with it? It looks like the Wii chuck, but the Wii can actually do stuff.

Philips even let Sony and Magnavox take shots at revamping the CD-i, to no avail. The combination of an exorbitant price, small selection of titles, and cumbersome controls took the device down. It would continue to pop back up throughout the mid 90s with some new attachment or another, but it remained unpopular as Sega and Nintendo continued to outperform it in gaming markets.

PCWorld, GamePro, and GameTrailers all ranked the Philips CD-i as the fourth worst console of all time. It was in this judgment that the benighted little high-dollar console finally found its consistency. While it had been flagging since 1993, and Philips planned a discontinuation in 1996, the CD-i persisted limply until 1998, when it was finally given a shot in the head and laid to rest. Philips remains a strong contender in the consumer electronics market, but it has never ventured into gaming or multimedia again. While the idea behind the CD-i was ambitious and even admirable, the execution once again fouled the whole deal. Lesson learned: if you’re going to pitch a console for $700, it had better be something world-shattering. It also better have a good game library and a controller that doesn’t look like a soup spoon.

I can’t get over it. Here we see that the tiny buttons are labeled, leaving you to guess wildly at the purpose of the big ones. We also see the word “interactive.” Thanks for the clue, because this doesn’t look like it’s used to interact with anything.

Thank you for joining me again in the Graveyard. There’ll be more to come; we’ve just recently cleared some space for a new set of digital catacombs. I’ll see you then, creeps.

The Legend of Zelda: 30th Anniversary (Nintendo, 1986)

bryan.eddy@newretrowave.com — Sat, 27 Feb 2016 23:14:33 +0000

It has been thirty years since the game in the golden cartridge impacted our hobby forever.

It kicked off one of gaming’s legendary franchises, and is still remembered as one of the best titles ever released for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It held adventure, danger, and for the brave, it held triumph. The Legend of Zelda, released on February 21st, 1986, set new standards in quality and embedded itself into pop culture (and our memories) in a way few games could.

Behold.

The game was developed by Nintendo R&D 4, headed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka (both under pseudonyms). This was the same R&D team (for the most part) that had developed Super Mario Brothers. The focus for Legend of Zelda‘s development was to produce a game very much unlike SMB, a game where things did not progress in a straight line… more of an adventure experience. As a matter of fact, the two games were developed (mostly) simultaneously, with the team deciding which concepts were “Zelda ideas” and which were better for Mario. Much of this decision-making and concept-shaping fell to Miyamoto, with Tezuka writing the storyline for the game. Miyamoto has said that the game was inspired by his childhood wanderings in the countryside near Kyoto, and that the game’s titular princess was named after the wife of author F. Scott Fitzgerald.

According to the manual, our story begins when Link stumbles upon a nursemaid named Impa, who is being attacked by monsters. Link drives them off, rescuing the old maid. She tells him of her mistress, Princess Zelda of Hyrule, and how Ganon (sometimes spelled Gannon) has gone to war with Hyrule to gain the Triforce of Wisdom, capturing Zelda in the process. Ganon already has the Triforce of Power, but Zelda managed to scatter the Triforce of Wisdom into 8 pieces and hide it from the monstrous dark lord before he imprisoned her. The princess told Impa to find someone brave enough to reassemble the pieces and use the Wisdom Triforce to defeat Ganon. Needless to say, Impa is pretty convinced she has her man.

Conan the Barbarian he is not, but hey, he’s got a cool hat. That’s a start.

Now, how Link managed to drive off monsters without even a sword is beyond me, since you start the game without it and can’t really do jack shit until you go get it. Thankfully, it’s in the very first cave you see.

Thanks. I might need one of those, you know, for like, everything.

Now it’s time to get to it! But… where do we go? Well, that was supposed to be part of the fun, according to the developers. Legend of Zelda is supposed to be unlike a typical video game of the time; players were encouraged not only to wander, but to communicate with one another when not playing, and share ideas or discoveries. Exploration also lent the game significant play time compared to a platformer, which many players will master and then only sparingly play again. To find the eight parts of the Triforce, you must wander about and find the dungeons they are hidden in. While there is a loose order to this quest, there is nothing stopping the player from making his or her own way and discovering this without being railroaded. Link must not only find the Triforce, but also must uncover certain items in these dungeons and elsewhere. Some of these are merely useful tools (like the boomerang), and some of them are necessary to bypass certain obstacles or discover new places in order to continue progress (such as the flute and the raft). In a way, the game itself is an intricate puzzle… far more intricate than was the norm in 1986.

The overworld. Well, at least, the obvious parts. Don’t be deceived… this is a weird-ass place.

This isn’t to say you’ll miss out on some intense fighting. In fact, Ganon’s amassed an army of horrible monsters to stop you. The list defies full cataloging within the scope of this article, but the foes you’ll face range from skeletons to snakes to armored men to ghosts to teleporting wizards and more. Many times (especially in dungeons) you can kill one monster, meant to be the leader of the mob, and all of them will disappear. Other times, you simply have to slog through everyone. Thankfully, there are two more powerful swords to find, as well as a bow and arrows, a magic wand, and bombs. It is a good general practice to keep your bombs well stocked. They not only come in handy for murder (and are the only way to hurt one of the bosses), but they can also blow holes in certain walls, which will become necessary later in the game. Once you’ve assembled the Triforce, gotten all the upgrades money and sweat can buy, and located Ganon’s well-hidden lair, you must venture into it and slay him. Ganon is no spring bitch. He is strapped and ready to party in the worst way possible.

Hyrule is a pretty brutal place… but Link is one tough little dude.

Oh, you say you’ve done all that? You’ve beaten the game? Well, turns out you can play it over again, with everything shuffled around and much more challenging. Good luck! You can also do this by naming your character “ZELDA” in the creation screen. This “2nd quest” is worth boasting about if you’ve conquered it. It was also novel for its time, or at least wasn’t a common feature in home video gaming. More replay value? You betcha. Hell, it pretty much comes with its own sequel this way!

The logo for the Japanese Famicom version.

Speaking of sequels… Legend of Zelda spawned one of Nintendo’s best known and most successful franchises to date, the first sequel being the mostly side-scrolling Zelda II: Adventures of Link. Since then, pretty much every Nintendo console or platform has received at least one installment in the series. The SNES’s Link to the Past is a notable entry in the saga, and later systems saw more Zelda goodness in the form of games like Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker, and Majora’s Mask. Each new game added new depth to gameplay, while preserving the original idea of an adventure game that encourages real exploration.

Legend of Zelda sold over 6.5 million copies, making it one of the best selling console games of all time. Any retro gamer can remember their first adventure in Hyrule… the glory, the danger, and the triumph. How it felt to be a hero. Thirty years later, that glory has not gone stale. It still glitters as golden as the cartridge we all slipped into our NES only to hear the theme that still gives me chills:

Happy 30th birthday, Link. I guess you really have come of age.

But not our story, dear readers. Stay tuned next month for more!

NewRetroGaming Interview – Crossing Souls Promises Nostalgia

Joey Edsall — Thu, 27 Nov 2014 14:51:00 +0000

Crossing Souls is an independent and retro-inspired video game currently looking for funding on Kickstarter. You can check out the trailer for the game on the Kickstarter page or on YouTube. Does the song in the trailer sound familiar? Yep, that’s Timecop1983! He is going to be contributing the soundtrack to the game. I had the chance to interview the Crossing Souls team.

We should probably start with the most basic question. What is Crossing Souls: An Adventure Between Life and Death?

Crossing Souls is an Action Adventure with an orthogonal 2D view with an 80s looking style, slightly similar to classics like The Legend of Zelda or the most recent indie game Hyper Light Drifter.

We’ll be able to control five different characters, each one has different abilities and weapons, which will have to be mixed in order to overcome all the challenges that are waiting for them: exploration, hundreds of NPC from different epochs, solving puzzles, looking for treasures and fighting against enemies.

The game will have plenty of references to films, TV shows and video games that marked an epoch in our childhood. We will look for an emotive touch that make the player remember those titles. Because it’s mainly based in the 80s, the “easter-eggs” will be related with audiovisual content of the decade, but we will also find references to more recent pieces.

How did the Crossing Souls team come together?

We were three friends who wanted to make something different. There are not too many jobs in Spain right now so we talked about starting up our own company. That was more than two years ago and since then, we have completed all kinds of jobs like websites, mobile apps and games but a year ago we decided we just wanted to make games so… here we are!

Which old-school video games served as inspiration for Crossing Souls?

Our main inspiration are Zelda games, mostly A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time. We LOVE that games and we would like to make an adventure similar to them.

We also are taking some inspiration from a French game that we love, a classic gem that unfortunately, many people don’t know: Little Big Adventure 2. If you haven’t played it yet, you’ll find it on GOG so run and buy it!!

Which modern video games inspired Crossing Souls?

We love indie games and they were the reason why we are making games, so we should say: Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery (although we love every game that come from Capy Games 😀 ), Paradise Lost: First Contact, Gods Will Be Watching and Hyper Light Drifter!!

We love Timecop1983. How did teaming up with him come about?

Hahah we love him too!! We think it just was our destiny! We love synthpop music and we listen to a lot of Soundcloud playlists while we’re working. One day, “Childhood Memories” came up and we fell in love with it.

Instantly, we sent him an email asking him to collaborate with us as we need some tracks in our Kickstarter video. He agreed and made “Mercury” which is one of the awesome tracks we use in our video. We knew people would love his music so we asked him to create the entire OST of the game. We’re really lucky for having him with us. Crossing Souls wouldn’t be the same without his wonderful music!

What step in designing a video game would you say is the most difficult?

As a good and rich plot is one of the most important steps for us while designing a video game, we believe that the process of looking for a set of fun mechanics and fit them with the plot in order to create what we call a “game” can be the most difficult and frustrating part of all.

Related tasks with development itself like pixelating, animating or programming can be a little tough sometimes but we really love that part as we’re creating what we really want 🙂

What aspects of gameplay are you most excited for players to experience?

The use of the DUAT stone of course! This is a mysterious stone that players will find earlier in the game and will be able to connect to the death plane and the thousands of souls that exist there, awaiting their trial to be able to finally rest in peace.

You will have to use it wisely to collect clues or solve some puzzles. Thanks to it, you will be able to interact with NPC from different times who can help you in your adventure. The character holding the Duat Stone will be the one we’ll be controlling in the dead zone and it’s the only one who can see the ghosts.

Besides, we really like the idea of controlling five different characters because it makes the game varied and players will have to mix the group abilities with the DUAT stone to overcome all the obstacles they will find along the adventure.

As the medium of video games matures, narrative becomes a focus as much as mechanics. How did the narrative of Crossing Souls come about?

The idea of Crossing Souls is born from the desperation of working in what you can, not in the things you want and it’s, undoubtedly, one of the best creative moments we ever had as indies. We sat down and thought what plot fascinated us more. Decide which gender it was going to be, the story and the background of your first game’s style is not an easy task. So it was time to look inside us, see what our concerns were and our strongest influences and pulling the thread out.

We basically found out that we missed being kids. In a moment that you’re planning your near future and your possible adult life you always look behind you and you remember what you were and you realize how things change over time. We missed those kind of adventures you used to see in films, where everything was possible and where any kid could become a hero living an unique adventure without stepping out from his town.

We think that epicness is somehow lost. We live more stressed and we don’t enjoy that “magic” anymore, as we call it. In current films more of the same happens. How many people think that Prometheus is not like Alien or that Super8 is far from the magic that E.T. or The Goonies had?

Is there any inspiration for Crossing Souls that isn’t a video game, such as films or music?

The game is very influenced by our entire childhood so we take inspiration from a lot of sources. Movies like E.T., The Goonies, Stand By Me, or Explorers are very important for us and we have very lovely memories from them so you can expect finding a lot of “easter eggs” in the game coming from them 🙂

We also want the players to remember their childhood while they are playing so we have included some cut scenes which are based on the 80s cartoon shows like TMNT, He-Man, Dungeons & Dragons, or Visionaries. We hope people enjoy watching them!

Gaming, and in particular indie gaming, has seemed to draw heavily from the 8-bit and 16-bit eras over the last five years. Why do you think that is?

Well, we believe that many people still miss the old classic video games. Those pixels had a special charm thats why many indie developers opt for that style. But it is also true that working with pixel is easier and simplifies the development of the game so it’s good for small studios that have few resources. You know, if you decide to make a 3D game you will need to know modeling, rigging, animation, illumination, etc… so the development will take ages! (or it would be really expensive)

If somebody was on the fence about contributing to the Crossing Souls Kickstarter, what would you tell them to convince them to support you?

Do you remember what you felt when you saw Michael J. Fox turning into the coolest werewolf ever? Or when Gary and Wyatt created the perfect woman with parts of a scanned magazine? When Elliot and his band of friends took off with their bikes? Or when you saw a DeLorean with a flux capacitor could travel in time? That was PURE MAGIC. The way the stories were told made you believe in them and you could step into the shoes of any character in a special manner.

With Crossing Souls the team wants to revive those childhood feelings. Those adventures that could happen to anyone. We want to develop a funny and profound game, with a great plot that can make the player remember those times with a bit of nostalgia: more than one has used a towel as a cape, a broomstick as a sword or have had a hidden cabin.

Help us to make this dream come true and we can make sure that you won’t regret it. You will live a great adventure filled with nostalgia that you will remember all your life!

You can support the release of Crossing Souls by contributing to the Kickstarter campaign.

– Joey Edsall

(@JoeyEdsall)