Let's face it: watching those Zelda CD-i movies was disturbing, like going home in a moment of weakness with the belching sow at your local pub. So sometimes it's hard to believe that the Phillips CD-i actually had a lot of potential... potential that was largely squandered. And even harder to believe that some decent CD-i takes on Nintendo properties were nearly realities.

Press the Buttons has a look at one such title, Super Mario Wacky Worlds, which was undertaken as a direct spiritual sequel to Super Mario World. The game looks as if it had a lot of potential, but unfortunately never got off the ground. Apparently, the CD-i was never meant to do sprite based platformers and a great degree of technical ingenuity went into tricking the hardware into doing it.

One weird revelation about Super Mario Wacky Worlds that took us back was that one of the programmers was Silas Warner... as in, the guy who created Wolfenstein! And here's an even weirder revelation, from Silas' Wikipedia page: "Former coworkers state that he was a prototypical "geek" in the best sense of that word: smart, inventive, and totally uninterested in conforming. He was a very large man, 6'9" and over 300lbs. Legend has it that he would typically program while wearing only his underwear, even in the office."

A three hundred pound man dressed only in his underpants hammering out the code to the CD-i adventures of one of gaming's most beloved characters. Talk about a recipe for success!

Whatever Happened To Super Mario Wacky Worlds? [Press the Buttons]

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