With Halloween upon us, I think it's time to do a Gaming Trends on something that's been haunting gamers for a long time. But wait! This isn't going to be some old generic column about survival/horror games. Oh no, what I'm about to talk about is MUCH scarier then whatever you find in the fog of Silent Hill, or what creepy noises you hear in Resident Evil, or...whatever other survival/horror game you play. I'm talking about FULL MOTION VIDEOS!AAAAAHHH...wait, what?
What are these so called Full Motion Videos? Back in the early 90's when CD's and Laserdiscs were the popular formats, game developers were making FMV games that played like interactive movies, while others decided to add cut-scenes with real life actors. The only problem was that since gaming was still somewhat of a cult rather then mainstream, the actors hired were basically the kind you'd find in a lousy B-Movie or worse, and so FMV's using real actors came to an end. For this Gaming Trends, let's look back at the games that used the full motion video.
Sewer Shark
What the hell is going on here?
Quite possibly the worst game on the Sega CD, Sewer Shark was an on-rail shooter that used mostly FMV footage for the game. Because it was one of the first FMV games, the footage looks really terrible by today's standards. Seriously, take a look at that screenshot and tell me if you can understand what's going on. Besides the crappy footage, the acting was bad like all other FMV games and the gameplay was as dull as you can get. Shoot some stuff, shoot some more stuff, get blown up for no reason sometimes, and repeat. Shortly after it's release this game was packed with the Sega CD, so anyone who actually bought the system were kind of forewarned of how long their system was about to last.
The 7th Guest
One of the first games to start using FMVs in it's gameplay, The 7th Guest was a horror point-and-click adventure and one of the first games that had to use a CD-ROM for it's amount of content. Unlike most other FMV games, the real-life videos didn't hinder the gameplay at all, and even though it started the trend of using FMVs, many adventure game enthusiats remember The 7th Guest as being a great point and-click adventure game. It seems that this game was able to get the use of FMVs right, but sadly, the games that were released afterwards couldn't seem to follow up.
Night Trap
This infamous title is pretty much hated by everybody. Parents and lobbyists hated this game because of it's violence and sexual content, which led Lieberman to take action against the game industry. Gamers hated this game because the gameplay was completely awful and the acting was terrible. The gameplay had you switching from different cameras in the room to capture this "Augers" that looked really freaking retarded and activating traps by pressing buttons at the right time. If you're interested in playing a simulated version of this game, head over to newgrounds.com and play the Night Trap flash game that features Taco-Man rather then the late Dana Plato.
Phantasmagoria
Besides having one of the most absurd names I've ever heard of, this game used so many videos that it took up SEVEN disks to play. And I thought Final Fantasy's 8 and 9 were a pain in the ass. This game was a point and click adventure that used a real actress as the character avatar, and was infamous for containing a heavy amount of violence and gore and even included a rape scene. Despite the amount of money and time that went into this, the gameplay overall was average and the script left more to be desired. So basically, this was basically a movie that was all about violence and sex with a somewhat interactive gameplay experience.
Fox Hunt
This game was a "comedy spy thriller" in which you take control of Jack Fremont, a TV trivia buff in need of some rent money (sounds like a B-Movie already). The only comedy found in this title was just how bad it really was. The comedy wasn't funny at all, the gameplay w awful, and the whole FMV look felt really grainy. Fox Hunt bombed on both the PlayStation and PC so very few people know about this game. This game is basically the best example of why games no longer have FMVs in them.
Original Resident Evil
Many fans believe that the Resident Evil movies suck. Would you believe, however, that the trilogy starring Milla Jovovich wasn't the worst time in bad RE movie history? Pick up the original copy of Resident Evil for the Playstation 1 (or the "remake"/uncut version on the DS) and check out the lousy live-action sequence used for the intro of this game. If that wasn't enough of a B-Movie feel for you, keep playing throughout the whole game and listen to all the terrible acting that has been burned into the minds of Resident Evil fans for years. Mmmmm...Jill Sandwiches.
Original Command and Conquer (aka Tiberian Dawn)
Very much like Resident Evil, the original game in this series also featured FMVs. Unfortunely the only video I can for this game was the intro, and wow was it bad. The intro begins with someone flipping channels of news reports about the terrorist attacks, but for some reason they had to put in random unrelated stuff, like this commercial with two hockey players on the street drinking something that looks like motor oil. If this was just for the intro, I hate to see what they used for the cutscenes. Thankfully, the weird FMV scenes were overlooked for Command and Conquer's excellent RTS gameplay, and even more thankfully, FMVs for the game were gone quickly.
Wing Commander III
While most other FMV games had a bunch of D-Listers that couldn't act to save their lives, this game had Star Wars star Mark freaking Hamill! Yes, Mark freaking Hamill is in this game! Unfortunately I couldn't find any online videos to see it myself, but I'm sure Mark Hamill did a good job of acting. Although it wind up costing $4m which was a big amount at the time, it shows that when you decide to use an actor who can, you know, actually ACT, then FMVs in games won't suck so much! And it also helps that the gameplay is actually good, too.
Can it come back?
So as you can see, full motion videos in games did not last very long, and soon enough graphics had gotten to the point where the people in it look so realistic you didn't need any kind of FMV. But perhaps...it's time for FMV's to make a comeback? Here are a couple reasons why I think they come back and this time NOT suck like they used to.
All those realistic graphics used for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 games come with a hefty price. Rising development costs create rising game costs. But instead of wasting tons of money trying to create a realistic looking character, why not use a real actor instead? Of course you might thinking "but the actors would probably be terrible again", but if you look at video games today, they are more mainstream then ever, and with that mainstream publicity came real actors. Before where games were acted out by nobodies, we now have professionals like Sam Jackson and Burt Reynolds doing video games. So instead of trying to waste more and more money on graphics to make them look real, why not use people that are ALREADY real?
Happy Halloween mostly everyone.
