Forbidden Fruit

When I was about twelve or so, my mother's friend Tina had a garage sale. Now this was your basic garage sale, nothing to talk about there.

No, the real fun was inside. Because inside, these folks, who probably had a little more money than they knew what to do with, had a Phillips CDi. Now, for the uninitiated, this is one of the first CD-based game consoles ever made.

It also debuted at something like $700. Yes, you read that correctly.

Now with this story comes a confession: As a kid, I loved infomercials. I loved how they only came on late--when I was supposed to be asleep--and I loved how their products worked like magic. Everything about them was shiny, glossy, and flawless.

I could go from Ron Pompei to Amazing Discoveries to Bowflex ads all the live-long night. I distinctly remember waking my mom up one night at some godawful hour asking if it was okay to request free information for a NordicTrac. Yes, I'm cringing. But I still got that free video. And watched it. I can't tell you how disappointed I was when the video turned out to be a mish-mash of their four or so infomercials they already had out. But you probably wouldn't want me to tell you that anyway.

Anyway, while this fascination wore off eventually, one of the biggest proponents of infomercials was Phillips. Whenever they came out with another bullshit product that would break immediately (I've had nothing but bad experiences with their products, for the record), I would watch in wide-eyed wonder at how it worked. How it improved your life. How, in just three years of $19.95 a month, it could all be yours.

And one of those products debuting at the height of my infomercial fascination was the CDi. Now the CDi was outmatched in virtually every aspect by other systems, but what it did have was full motion video. And that ever important acronym, FMV, sold a lot of systems back in the day. To see sprites moving and acting like actual humans...man, it didn't get any better than that.

And better yet, the CDi had an adult game. Holy shit, break out the beers. This thing's got boobs!

Or, at least, it hinted at them. And hints in infomercials were as good as promises. From lepers. Or something.

So upon finding this sitting on top of Tina's television was an inspiring experience. This was the thing! The thing I saw on TV! The thing that cost a bajillion dollars! And it's HERE!

I was hopping with anticipation. I anxiously approached Tina outside.

Tina was totally cool with it. "Sure honey, play whatever you like," she said.

Sweeter words had never crossed my ears.

They had three games: Mad Dog McGee, a popular arcade shooter like Hogan's Alley where you pointed and shot at the screen, Burn Cycle, a FMV game that looked like a 'hardcore' Johnny Mneumonic, and underneath those, right on the bottom...

...Voyeur. The game. The one from the infomercials. The one that hinted, oh so lovingly and slyly, that FMV interactive porn was here. Watch people cheat and lie and (hopefully) embrace in intercourse...all with exciting gameplay!

But I played it cool. I tried the other games first. I'd save the best for last.

In a word, the system was horrible. Absolutely dreadful. It featured the most awkward 'game pad' ever, a cross between an Atari joystick and a VCR remote. You couldn't aim very well and to not be able to move the cursor accurately...in a shooting game...ugh.

Next was Burn-Cycle. This game looked really, really cool. I mean, cyberpunk, death, mysteries, etc.

And...FMV blowout was achieved. You did, essentially, nothing. It was an animated Choose Your Adventure. They presented you with options, you chose them, you choose the wrong one, you die and start over. Literally you could just write down the correct choices on a sheet of paper until you watched all of it in one sitting, albeit hampered via multiple choice questions throughout.

At least Dragon's Lair and Space Ace gave you the illusion of gameplay. This one didn't even bother. Worse yet, it was a horrible, cliche-ridden story. No one to care about. Somebody died, blah blah.

So, onto the holy grail of gaming. The boobs that Night Trap on SegaCD never gave me must be in there.

I held my breath. I checked to make sure mom and Tina were out of sight.

And as soon as I put the game in, a password screen came up. Son of a bitch! What is the code?

It was four digits long. How can you mess up four digits? How many four digit codes could there be? (Don't answer that, thanks.)

I looked for scraps of paper, and came up empty. I looked for hints around the console. I tried the last four digits of their phone number. Their street address number (which I thought would be clever, as it was exactly four digits), but no. I tried 1111 and 9999 and everything else I could pull out of thin air.

So, not to be let down so easily, I walked outside.

"Hey Tina," I said casually.

"Yes?"

"What's your birthday?"

That didn't work. Dammit.

I went outside again.

"What's your husband's birthday?"

She smiled "Why?"

"I ah...there's this game..." I knew I was busted. I laid it out there. I acted as if I didn't know what kind of game it was. She at least bought this. She then mentioned it was an 'adult' game, but I assured her I could face the peril.

"Well, he set it to 7343, last he told me."

Ever see a fat boy run?

But it didn't work. %)*&#^$%

Pretty soon they were all in there--Me, mom, Tina. Trying codes, one after another.

"What kind of game is this exactly?" My mom asked.

"I dunno," I lied through my teeth. Digital boobs, I mantra'd as I tried code after code. We tried social security numbers. Phone numbers. Birthday combinations. Nothing worked.

Soon there was a customer outside, looking to buy their junk. They left me with the password screen staring at me. Mocking me. Haunting me.

I never figured out the password. And the games they had were so bad I'd rather watch boring Saturday afternoon television than suffer through another.

Voyeur had defeated me. But it was probably for the best. Whatever gameplay expectations I had hoped for out of the system were already dashed. The thrill was gone. It was time to go home.

And finally, after a few hours of watching dreck like fishing shows and lumberjack competitions (that I sorta enjoy, in a strangely fascinated way), it was time to go home.

An alternately dim and frightful waste
You disrupt the world's disorder just by virtue of your grace