"It should be noted that Hanna-Barbera’s Cartoon Carnival was Philips’ most popular title — I have the royalty statements to prove it! And though Philips gave up the ghost on CD-I in 1996, it is some consolation that CD-I sold more units than 3DO, a similar machine spawned by Electronic Arts whiz, Trip Hawkins.
Hanna-Barbera’s Cartoon Carnival was the first CD-I game to take advantage of Philips’ highly touted Full Motion Video cartridge. You could play Huckleberry Hound’s Gift Emporium, The Flintstones’ Balloon Ballyhoo, Scooby Doo’s Adventure Isle, Yogi Bear’s Pic-A-Nik Place, The Jetsons’ Space Race, and Top Cat’s Top Facts to earn letters. Once you earned all 15 letters of the words CARTOON CARNIVAL, one of 60 classic cartoon clips is your reward."
Gir from the CD-i Collective shared with us his view on this title: "I've always been a fan of Hanna-Barbara's animated works. Many memorable characters and fun stories that I have grown up with came back to memory playing this game. Even though geared down mostly for the kids, even the adults may find a chuckle or two out of this quite cute title. Personally, I found many cute things lying under the childish nature of this title.
Gameplay consists of basic arcadish and childhood game fare. Memory, mazes and such. But then there is trivia, and games of skill which require a bit faster hand, and may find the adults helping the kids out a time or two. Now if only they'd give the controler back. HA! Sounds are pretty firm, the memory game though brings to mind a few difficulties as some of the sampled sounds are a bit grainy. But not all in all bad. Music, and effects overall are very "cartoon-y". (A real plus)
The grahpics are pretty good, but a bit ragged. Seems that the anti-alias for most of the images was off, and really did detract from the over-all visual crispness. Not ugly, but not as sharp as it could have been. Control to me is where this game came into question.
While most could be played easily with the mouse, a few like the Flinstone's Balloon game (see right) need to be played with the pad. But then the Yogi's Picnic Basket game is less fun with the game pad. Also, it oddly seemed too clumsy to play with the childs roller controler. A big disappointment for my young nieces who think its "awesome" to use a big controler like that.
Still, to sum it all up, this is a great family title. Lots of games to play, each getting progressivly harder if you choose to play it again. And, if you can beat enough games to spell out CARTOON CARNIVAL, you're rewarded with a cute little cartoon. A very nice little extra. Combine that with some silly animations each time you add a letter to the sign, or click on the hosting character, and you're given a real treat thats fun for everyone.
[Thanks, Cliff Johnson, Yuri Melkov, Gir Draxa]
