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What could have been!

Posted: Thu May 31, 2018 5:58 pm
by Kempyt
So I finally had some spare time today to give the old CD-I some play time. So I pick some of my favourites including, Pinball, Tetris, 7th Guest and finally today I finished with The Aprentice. It’s this game that along with a few others that makes me think of the wasted opportunities Philips missed when producing similar quality and still to this day very playable games. I have what must be nearly every title ever released for CD-I so I Know of the crap that is out there and if I was being honest it’s probably 80% crap. The Apprentice was made in 1994 yet no further releases that could have tweaked the original and been quite something were ever released. (I’m aware a 2nd was planned). Philips should have realised the small collection of quality titles and used them as a bench mark and as a platform to greater things.

Not many people like Pinball or Tetris on CD-i but again these are very playable games that were released I think around 1992! Where were the follow ups? (Two player added to Tetris for example).

Would love to know if anyone shares my thoughts on this. I collect many old consoles etc and I do think to this day that the few quality games on CD-I still hold up today and are enjoyable to play.

Cheers
Chris

Re: What could have been!

Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2018 5:44 am
by Kempyt
Thanks Omegalfa

Appreciate the reply,

Looking at the article in CDI blog, it’s really sad that the Apprentice 2 never got finished!

The graphic quality of the Apprentice should have been utilised and by 1996 could have had a catalogue of quality platform games and just imagine if the same team had been given the Mario named projects!

What could have been....😀

Re: What could have been!

Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2018 9:03 am
by Shikotei
Kempyt wrote:
Sun Jun 03, 2018 5:44 am
Looking at the article in CDI blog, it’s really sad that the Apprentice 2 never got finished!
As I have a special interest in The Apprentice (currently re-creating the game on PC linky), it's amazing what The Vision Factory was capable of making!
Kempyt wrote:
Sun Jun 03, 2018 5:44 am
... just imagine if the same team had been given the Mario named projects!
The funny thing is, that team pushed the boundaries of what the device is capable of. Even Philips thought that the CD-i was incapable of such mechanics.
And compared to other consoles of that generation (4th gen) it was a thing of beauty.

The sad truth still remains that 'the internet' only knows of the Mario and Zelda games through YouTubePoop videos.
Other games get some light, but they never outshine the darkness of Zelda.
Too bad though, as I think they're pretty decent 'dungeon crawler platformers' in a Legend Of Zelda setting.

If only Philips marketed the dang thing as a game console much much earlier.

Re: What could have been!

Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2018 7:15 pm
by cdifan
Kempyt wrote:
Sun Jun 03, 2018 5:44 am
Looking at the article in CDI blog, it’s really sad that the Apprentice 2 never got finished!
It would have been a different team, because the creators (both programmer and graphics designer) of the original Apprentice had long left the company. This was probably the reason that Philips got cold feet, although there could also have been market realities...
Shikotei wrote:
Sun Jun 03, 2018 9:03 am
As I have a special interest in The Apprentice (currently re-creating the game on PC linky), it's amazing what The Vision Factory was capable of making!
It was amazing for CD-i, yes. Most of the relevant CD-i people at The Vision Factory came from the Atari and Amiga demo scenes, were the techniques used were commonplace. However, they were applied "to the limit", on multiple instances these people were not satisfied until the "sustained 90% cpu usage" limit was reached :P

By the way, I do not in any way want to minimize the achievements of these games, I had some association with the team and it was an awesome set of people.
Shikotei wrote:
Sun Jun 03, 2018 9:03 am
If only Philips marketed the dang thing as a game console much much earlier.
I'm not sure that would have worked, compared to "actual" game machines the CD-i platform was underpowered quite a bit (and probably also priced quite a bit higher). At one point there was talk of adding a "game cartridge" with some sprite facilities and graphics coprocessing, not unlike the Digital Video Cartridge (it would have gone in the same slot which is actually a general purpose system bus interface), but this never happened.