Full motion video games: did you play them?

As far as I know it was this game along with Mortal Kombat that was responsible for the introduction of a video game rating. Making this the “Night Of The Living Dead” of videogames I guess. Writing that feels so wrong, even if it´s technically correct…

The '90s was a different time, indeed. I remember when Married With Children was a super-controversial show. These days the show’s idea of pushing boundaries seems downright quaint.

That and Beavis & Butthead are great examples of people not getting satire.

I first played the English CD version (still sold in Germany) and later got my hands on German dub version. And I couldn’t stand that they redubbed the policeman to speak Bavarian. :sweat_smile:

“Weeeeeeer siiiiiie siiiiiind!” :smile:

What´s even funnier is that, with the language barrier removed it makes the whole conversation even more awkward.

It´s a bit like in Inglorious Basterds where “I need you to translate” became “I need you to hold hands” in german.

I have just finished one of the games cited in the first post: Late Shift.

I have to confirm that my first impression was correct and that the game is a well-crafted interactive movie, if you compare it with other similar “games”. Production values are very high, the actors are quite good and some choices had actual consequences on parts of the story.

Being just an interactive movie, the “gameplay” is very thin: you watch the movie and every now and then you have to take a decision that usually leads you to a different branch of the story.

This is a screenshot of my stats:

I have seen only one ending, so far, and probably I’ll play the movie again to get a different ending. Replayability is somehow debatable, because to reach a part of the story that you never saw, you still have to watch large parts of the movie that you already saw.

As a game it can be a bit boring, but as an interactive movie it does a good job, if you don’t expect a Hollywood blockbuster.

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One of my favorite adventure games is Harvester. It’s FMV but not an interactive movie. It plays like a traditional p’n’c game, just happens to use actors and video cutscenes. It’s dark, disturbing, weird, sometimes experimental. It’s absolutely unlike anything I’ve ever played. It’s an old game but I played this just a few years ago and my mind was blown. Seriously, I didn’t expect any game to move me this much at my age, or jump into my favorites next to games like MI. It’s not for everybody though, that’s for certain. Those who get it, are often hardcore fans as can be seen on FB fanpage (getting a Harvester tattoo is pretty hardcore IMO).

I bet there will be a sale on Halloween, so maybe it’s worth checking out for 1$. I bought it on GOG.

I played:
Rebel Assault demo
Novastorm
Dragon’s Lair
Braindead 13
But I never finished any of them. I guess, I get bored pretty fast with that kind of game.

I don’t think that will qualify. “Full motion video” in this context means prerecorded motion of the scene, which includes backgrounds. But the backgrounds are still images in this game, so it clearly doesn’t qualify.
Also if a game only uses full motion video for intro, cutscenes and/or transitions doesn’t qualify as a full motion video game either, as it is not “full” but only parts of the game then. Many CD exclusive games before 3D accelerators took of are of that kind.

Nope. Technically you have a point but that’s not how the term was understood back then. Even Phantasmagoria has static backgrounds and it’s pretty much the ultimate FMV game.

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FMV games I’ve played in the past include Wing Commander III, Return to Zork, and Zork Nemesis.

At the time I played them, I enjoyed them. I felt it helped with the immersion, and it seemed to combine what I liked about movies with what I liked about video games. Return to Zork was done in a pretty cheesy (but fun) way, but Nemesis was fairly impressive I felt. I enjoyed the acting in Wing Commander III, quality-wise - it was the best of the 3, however for this one, the FMV elements were really just long cutscenes and less integrated in the game.

Late Shift looks very interesting.

If you are willing to accept the fact that it’s more a movie than a game, yes.

It’s probably the only FMV game that had a production quality so high that I felt it would have made a decent real movie.

There is a sale on Steam for “The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight® Mystery” (which I have always called “Gabriel Knight 2”) so I have watched the intro of the game on YouTube and despite not being sure when I’ll play it, I have decided to purchase it.

Yes, it seems quite cheesy but I think that it might be part of its charm. Jane Jensen never disappointed me and I hope that she will provide a good experience this time as well.

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The german dub turns the cheese up to 11.

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And is that a good thing?

Depends on how much you enjoy it based on that. Many of the intentional and unintentional hilarious parts make the intended shockinging/creepy scenes seem all the more absurd. It´s tonally really all over the place.

One game came to my mind - it’s not classic FMV but very related and I liked it very much, have to set up DOSBox again and play it:
The Riddle of Master Lu

Some screens from the game:

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Late Shift is now on Gog:

@LowLevel: Have you finished the game already? Can you recommend it?

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Did you talk to him lately? He hasn´t been seen here since late in the last year…

I am aware of that. But maybe he’ll be back some day. :wink:

I expect to be mainly a lurker, here. :slightly_smiling_face:

@Someone : I finished “Late Shift” and shared my opinion in a previous post of this thread. It’s a good “choose your own adventure” experience, if you like the acting. Just don’t expect a different kind of “game”.

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