British 90s nostalgia and shite

In 1997, my dad bought a Packard Bell computer:

Packard Bell threw in around twenty CDs to sweeten the deal. The CDs came in a yellow and white cardboard box:

The CDs were an eclectic mix of games (yay!), and encyclopaedias and demos (boooooo!).

I found a full list of the CDs at pbclub.pwcsite.com.

• Batman Cartoon Maker
• Civilization 2 Demo
• CorelDRAW 4
• Corel WordPerfect Suite 7
• Ecco the Dolphin
• ELLE 2000 Recipes
• Encarta
• Language Learning with Asterix
• Magix The Mutlimedia Pool
• Michaelangelo Demo
• Microsoft Oceans
• My First Encyclopedia
• Orsay Demo
• Sid Meier's CivNet
• Student Reference Library
• TelePower Pro
• The Louvre
• Thinkin Things 2
• Trudy's Time and Place House

Since I'm unemployed and have nothing to do, I'll go through each CD one by one. Or at least some of them, until I get bored and stop.

Batman Cartoon Maker

Batman Cartoon Maker was, as the name suggests, Batman-themed animation software.

The best thing about this game was that you could make Batman do backflips (or should that be BATflips?) all over the screen. You could also arrange a queue of a dozen Batmen in front of a firetruck, as someone has chosen to do here:

But making movies was too difficult for me. I could never figure out how to make a movie as good as the demo one. You had to be as clever as the Riddler, I reckon.

Ecco the Dolphin

I like Ecco the Dolphin. It's like no video game I've ever played. But I couldn't get past second level, probably because I was only eight at the time. I got lost and couldn't figure out what to do. I was also deeply afraid of Ecco running out of air.

Pro tip: By pressing Alt + F4, you unlock the 'hot dolphin' mod where you can have sex with other dolphins.

Language Learning with Asterix

Bonjour Asterisk! Bonjour Obelisk! I was a big fan of the Asterisk comics, but did I want that petit blonde cunt and his fat ginger friend to teach me a language? The answer: 'non'.

Microsoft Oceans

Microsoft Oceans was basically a virtual encyclopedia about ocean life. I remember being frightened by a big whale. Here it is:

What scared me was how big the whale is compared to the person - the person is a tiny white blob in comparison. Imagine swimming in the ocean when this thing comes out of the depths. Chilling.

Sid Meier's CivNet

CivNet was fun. I played this a lot. But Gandhi and Queen Victoria kept getting angry at me. I swear, all the CPUs had personality disorders. Behind their smiling facades, they were all evil monsters. I mean just look at this screenshot of Gandhi declaring war:

Encarta 95

I only used Encarta for Mindmaze. Mindmaze tried to teach me stuff, but I didn't mind because it was a game.

Other shitty games

• My First Encyclopedia
• Thinkin' Things 2
• Orsay Demo, which was a virtual tour of Le Musée D'Orsay in Paris. Booooooooring.
• The Louvre, which was a virtual tour of the Louvre, as the name suggests. I think I put this in my CD ROM drive for less than one second before playing Batman Cartoon Maker instead. Why did these assholes keep trying to educate me?
• CorelDRAW 4, which I tried once but gave up because it was too complicated.
• ELLE 2000 Recipes, which was also boring. BORING. Kids don't cook. That's mom's job.