Welcome to the twentieth entry of this column in which I review forbidden (and forgotten) retro games with adult contents.
A lot of the games that will be revisited here will have, as well as adult themes, some contents that may offend somebody. But please remember, we are here just to re-discover something rightfully forgotten, so don’t take it so seriously, we don’want to offend anybody. Just have fun and laugh 🙂
Today’s game is Voyeur for CD-i.
Developed by Philips POV, a second party company on the Philips family and released by Philips itself, it was of the interactive movies developed for the CD-i. The genre was on fashion back in the early 90s and Phiips tried to ride the wave. The POV division also released games of other genres, like Defender of the Crown (1991), Tetris (1991) and the sport game NHL Hall of Fame Football (1994) before their swan song that saw their return to the origins with Thunder in Paradise Interactive (1995).
Why is forgotten?
The game itself it not really BAD, of course compared with other interactive movies. The fact is that if you’re not an owner of a CD-i (and most of you probably don’t own it) it’s difficult that you have played this game on computer. Otherwise if you’re crazy like I am (I own two CD-i) it’s possible that you have this game. However, even though there was abundance of IM back then, their quality was generally low and they quickly fell into oblivion.
Why is forbidden?
A lot of interactive movies tried to intercept a bigger audience of gamers taking advantage of the CD-based technology that out of the blue gave the developers an immense quantity of memory for their games. And what’s better to include some alleged sex scenes in a game to sell some more copy of the game? It’s exactly what games like Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties did (Night Trap is a huge misinterpretation, since it didn’t have any adult scene) and, although in a softer way, Voyeur also did.
Why is fun?
Let’s say that playing a “game” on the CD-i with the official “controller” it’s an experience everyone should try sooner or later in life. It’s like life testing you. Of course a mouse would be better since you have a short time to navigate the different windows of the mansion across the street. And if you run too late you’ll only be able to hear only part of the conversation and most important you won’t see anybody having sex! 😀
All joking aside, it’s not so bad to try to frame one of the members of the family using audio and video footage and the fact that everytime you play the games the clues are different adds a bit of longeviti to a game otherwise quite short.
How can I play it?
If you own a CD-i this is one of the cheapest games and you can find it for like 5€. I got mine from an italian seller for 5€ and it’s a pristine copy, it looks like it has never been used. And I can guess why…
Something similar but a bit less crappy???
- Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties. Nothin more to say. Released 1993 on Windows and the year after on 3DO;
- Night Trap, the most
infamous interactive movie, released in 1992 for Sega Mega CD; - The 7th Guest, ok this is actually less crappy then the others and has been released in 1993 on PC and the year after on CD-i
And finally, if you need other games related to this which are crappy and adult oriented like Voyeur, stick around, more games will be covered soon!
I have not played this game or used a CD-I. The designs for the game seem unusual, with videoed people standing in slightly pixelated rooms. A lot of these forbidden games seem to be interactive movies. It seems unusual for a game to follow a story independent of the player’s actions and the player has to use the controls correctly to watch parts of the story.
How is the game played? What makes the CD-I controller difficult to use?
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