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2017/12/3: Philips CD-i: Christmas Country

Posted: December 3rd, 2017, 10:37 am
by VideoGameCritic
The first new Christmas game review of the season. Also added it to the Christmas special. Comments?

Re: 2017/12/3: Philips CD-i: Christmas Country

Posted: December 3rd, 2017, 6:16 pm
by goldenband
Awesome, a new CD-i review!

That said, I haven't really this one (or if I did it was only for a couple of minutes), so I can't comment on the game itself. I have been playing a fair bit of CD-i lately, though -- I beat two European imports, Steel Machine and De Zaak van Sam, earlier this year -- so it seems that, with appropriately low expectations, I should add it to my list to fire up for Christmastime. :)

Oh, and the no music thing has to do with hardware limitations of the CD-i, I'm sure. I don't remember the details, but apparently getting both music and sound effects to play simultaneously required some fairly clever programming. From all reports, many things about that platform's architecture were pretty messed up.

Re: 2017/12/3: Philips CD-i: Christmas Country

Posted: December 4th, 2017, 1:08 pm
by Retro STrife
Nice! - we were talking about this game last Christmas, so it's good to see you were able to track it down. Good review, even though I was hoping you'd find it more enjoyable. I have two thoughts:

1. I'm not sure that Christmas Country was technically a follow-up to Christmas Crisis, because they were made by different developers. You are correct, however, that it came out a year later, has a similar name, and certainly feels like a spiritual follow-up, even if unintended.

2. I feel like the low score for Christmas Country and high score for Christmas Crisis have more to do with their Christmas cheer than their game quality. Crisis is one of the most Christmas-y games you'll ever play, and you gave it an A-range score. However, I think Country is actually a better platformer, as it's gameplay and control is better IMO. Yet it got a D. I feel like it was docked a lot for its lack of Christmas spirit. By CD-i standards, I feel that it's a good game.

Re: 2017/12/3: Philips CD-i: Christmas Country

Posted: December 14th, 2017, 7:51 pm
by GameOfThrones
i always wanted to try the Philips cd i. I loved the idea behind it. Though it was years ahead of its time as an educational tool. Too far ahead. Though just not up with the standards in most of the games. Though they did give it a go.

Re: 2017/12/3: Philips CD-i: Christmas Country

Posted: December 24th, 2017, 12:28 am
by Retro STrife
Today I played the two CD-i Christmas games again, and spent a lot more time with Christmas Country than I had last year. A few new thoughts:

1. I agree with you that this is a "second-rate Mario clone", although I still like it more than Christmas Crisis. By CD-i standards, it's not too bad. The only big advantage that I think Crisis has over this game is the in-game music.

2. By the review, it sounds like you stopped around level 4, but I think you might like some of the levels that come after it. There is a Level Select cheat, if you check on GameFAQs.com, which will allow you to select any level you want. There's 16 total.

3. There's also some decent bonus levels in the game, including one right after level 4. You fly horizontally across the screen while throwing presents in chimneys for bonus points. Surprisingly, it even has music playing during the bonus stages. Here's a photo I took of the bonus level:

Christmas_Country.jpg
Christmas_Country.jpg (22.5 KiB) Viewed 1944 times



VideoGameCritic wrote:Also added it to the Christmas special.


I agree that the lack of music in the game is a real downer, but overall I think it could be worth more than 1 candy cane for its Christmas cheer. Lots of Christmas settings and characters. It even has a lame Christmas backstory, about retrieving Santa's list of good kids from an evil elf. And you even get to climb on Santa and jump on his head....