3. Hotel Mario (1994) (Phillips CD-i)
Hotel Mario sounds like somewhere you'd stay should they ever create that Tokyo-based Nintendo theme park we've all been clambering for. Alas, it's actually the title of an ill-judged video game that Phillips Interactive Media conjured up when they briefly secured the rights that gave them the license to use both Mario and Zelda characters. And
Hotel Mario is just about as much fun as it sounds, and is arguably less fun than actually staying at that hotel in
The Shining. A puzzle game by definition,
Hotel Mario is set in a Mushroom Kingdom that has been transformed by Bowser into (sigh) a series of hotels. It's up to Mario and Luigi to travel to each hotel in an attempt to rescue Peach and blah blah blah... you know this already, don't you? Aside from being infused with some particularly questionable cut scenes (cut scenes which best resemble your little brother's ventures on MSPaint), the puzzle-based gameplay is dreary and bland. Thank God Nintendo had nothing to do with this abomination - if they did, it likely would've been the last Mario game
ever made. 'Cause it was so bad, see?