This is one of the original stuffed Donkey Kong's from the early 1980's. Why does he have to have his hands like this? Like, what's he trying to tell us? And look at his face, he know's it's funny. It's like "Hey! Hey, you! You! Fuck you!" (ROCK MUSIC PLAYING) MAN: (SINGING) He's gonna take you back to the past To play the shitty games that suck ass He'd rather have a buffalo take a diarrhea dump in his ear He'd rather eat the rotten asshole of a road-killed skunk and down it with beer He's the angriest gamer you've ever heard. He's the Angry Nintendo Nerd He's the Angry Atari Sega Nerd He's the Angry Video Game Nerd! Oh, boy. Let's talk about the Philips CD-i. Now, if you're not familiar with the backstory, I'll give you a quick little rundown. Nintendo was working in conjunction with Philips to produce a CD based add-on for the Super NES, which never came through. Now, Nintendo was also working with Sony on the same concept, and we all know what came of that: the PlayStation. But as for Philips, they, too, made their own game console. However, they had permission to utilize some of the Nintendo franchises. Now, what came of that was a shitty Mario game and three shitty Zelda games. Link: The Faces of Evil, Zelda's Adventure, and Zelda: The Wand of...Gamelon... Okay... These games are notorious for their legendary ass-suckage, which is hard to believe. How could there exist a bad Zelda game? Let alone three of them! And on a console that's not Nintendo. Well, if you haven't heard of them, you might think you're living under a rock, but let me tell you: it's a rock worth living under. NERD: (V/O) Before we begin, let's talk about the console itself. To begin with, it barely fucking works. That's a good start, right? I had to buy three. Yeah, three CD-is before I got one that's functional. The first one wouldn't read the discs. The second one, right here, had the same problems. I haven't returned it yet, just because I wanted to show you what it looks like. So then finally, I got this big beast. Look how huge it is! It looks like one of those old VCRs! It is the biggest video game console I've ever seen. Literally, you could fit two of these inside it. And if you remember my Atari 5200 video, where I commented how big it was, well, both consoles are ridiculously huge, but the CD-i just barely wins. But does it work? Yes, it does, but at first I thought the controller input was broken. I have four different controllers and none of them worked, except for the wireless one, which sucks so bad it isn't even worth it. Then I found out that there's another input... on the back! So, the one on the front is either broken or intended for the second player. This means that every time I wanna swap a controller I have to pull out the whole console. (MUTTERING) Piece of dog shit... ...fuckin'...inhumanity to man... ...fuckin'... ...piece of shit! That is a pain in the ass. Why couldn't both be on the front? Seriously, I couldn't even imagine what they were thinking. Let's talk about the controllers. One is your average, regular-ass controller. The next one looks like a spoon. I really don't understand it. And this one has this awkward joystick. It's so stiff, it's basically just a stick on top of a regular D-Pad. Then you have the wireless one. This is the standard controller that comes with the system, but as I've said, it's terrible. Your finger keeps slipping off the joystick, and the buttons are too close. Imagine if you were trying to play Nintendo 64 and all of the buttons were clustered around the joystick. For your average point-and-click game, it's okay, but for an action game like Zelda, it is nearly impossible to use this controller. It's all worth it just to such classics as Stickybear Reading, Lamb Chop's Play-Along, Sailing, and The Flowers of Robert Mapplethorpe. Yeah, it had its fair share of educational games, some action games, but let's cut the bullshit and get to the ones you wanna hear about. The Zelda games are pretty rare, and kinda expensive. Zelda's Adventure was over $180 USD. Not counting the money I had refunded for the bad consoles, all of this in total cost about $700. I've been dying to do a CD-i review for a long time, and partly due to financial and technical difficulties, that's what's been holding me back. But before we get to the Zelda games, let's start off with Hotel Mario. The price on this one, I gotta be honest, was $0, because this one was a donation. Thanks, Casey! You might as well have sent me a turd wrapped in tin foil. -As the game begins, you get a ridiculous cutscene.
- (BOWSER LAUGHS EVILLY) "Nice of the princess to invite us over for a picnic, eh, Luigi?" "I hope she made lots of spaghetti!" Reminds me of the Super Mario Bros Super Show, but way more cheesy. The game is not what you'd expect. I mean, with a title like Hotel Mario, I guess I really didn't know what to expect, but not this. All you do is run around and shut doors. Yeah. Seriously, the goal is to shut all the doors before the time runs out, then advance to the next stage. Couldn't they have come up with something better? Like how about kill all the Goombas and Koopa Troopas, but shut doors? As much fun as that sounds, it's even more fun when the doors keep opening again. Just when you think you're about to shut the last door and beat the level, another door opens, and by the time you run all the way over there, another one opens. Also, it seems that there's always somebody in your way. Like, if I jump at the wrong time, I hit the Goomba on the top. Even if I try to stomp an enemy, I end up bouncing up and getting my ass killed. Ugh, look here. I'm totally fucked. Here I go, I'm kicking ass! Fuck, you gotta watch the doors. Speaking of doors, you can actually hide in the doors, which helps out sometimes. But these things with the arrows? Let's talk about them. They're elevators, or they could be stairwells, whatever. Where the arrow points makes sense: they go up, they go down, but the controls take some time to get used to. By instinct, if I see a down arrow, I press down, but that's not how it works. You have to hit up, regardless of which elevator you're on. And when you arrive at the other end, you're in that hiding position, so you have to hit down to step out. So, often, you find yourself having to hit up on the down arrow, and when you go down to the up arrow, you press down! That's fucking confusing! MARIO: (V/O) "Gotta be quick!" And the elevators don't always go where you expect. No! It takes me to the other side where I get killed by the fucking caterpillar! The game is actually more reminiscent of arcade games from the early 80s, like Donkey Kong and Mario Bros, and for something like that, Hotel Mario actually isn't too bad. It is challenging, I'll give it that, but the fact is, this was not the early 80s. This was 1994, and it was on a next generation console. Originally, they planned to release a sequel to Super Mario World, titled "Super Mario's Wacky Worlds", but it was cancelled, and what we got was this. (DOORS SHUTTING) End of story. Well, all this CD-i stuff is a shit sandwich that's too big for one mouthful, So check in for part 2, we're gonna look at the Zelda games. (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) [TIMING AND CORRECTIONS BY DANNY BURKE]
Each week, an episode will be picked so the community can watch it and share their thoughts on it, good, bad, and indifferent.
For older episodes, maybe certain jokes haven't held up, or maybe some lines ended up carrying new context. For newer episodes, perhaps they feel differently after letting them simmer for a few months.
If anyone has any suggestions for other CEotW posts, leave a comment here.
Isn't that a thing already on the truth sub?