Together Retro: FMV Frenzy

[Key-Glyph]

Oh my gosh guys, I did it. I survived! But I didn't solve the mystery. Basically I got the Bubble Bobble "This is not a True Ending!" ending. I technically won, but I guess I have to go back and find a crystal ball and a mirror or something. Which I am definitely going to do!

Seriously though, I'm thrilled that I survived after all those deaths. So many deaths. At the end of this good run I was actually squinting and grimacing as the final incoming torpedo was bearing down and then gradually, miraculously, turned out to be a really lousy shot and flew by us. Phew!

It's kind of hard to describe the suspense of this game. I suppose you're familiar with it if you've watched submarine movies, but there's fair amount of watching the crew sweat it out and wonder if death is coming while the sonar guy keeps announcing the path of an incoming weapon. "Hydrophone effect! Torpedo has ACQUIRED... torpedo is ACTIVE... torpedo continuing to close... 150 seconds to impact... torpedo continuing to close..." Going back to Apollo 13 again, it's the same kind of suspense as the re-entry sequence, when the capsule is in radio blackout and it's out of everyone's hands and they just have to pray the heat shield holds. Just clips of the families and friends struggling through the four minutes until they'll know if their loved ones survived. "Odyssey, this is Houston, do you read?... Oddysey, Houston... Odyssey, Houston, do you read?...

"That's four minutes... standing by..."

There's something really compelling about these kinds of scenes for me.

But, I also found the 90s cheese. It is entirely encapsulated in the Battle Group helicopter team that shadows me. Its team code name is Ice Cream. One of the pilots brings Ding Dongs, and at one point they save me with the power of surf music.

They were perfect stupid comic relief in this slow-burn nailbiter of a tale. Now to find the True Ending...

[MrPopo]

I finished my replay of Corpse Killer on Sega Saturn while I was definitely NOT slacking during a boring professional development training. It's a shame because this game is ALMOST an improvement over the Sega CD 32X version...but there's one critical flaw here - the controls. Frame rate is better, visuals are better, and there are some quality of life tweaks and additions that were made that really improved the experience...but they took out light gun support. You can use actual light guns on the Sega CD version. And the Sega CD 32X version. And the 3DO version. But, despite having a light gun and some STRONG light gun game support, that was removed from the Saturn version. You HAVE to use the game pad's D-pad. It totally kills the gameplay. Because of that, this game's a tough sell even with the 90s cheese factor.

You know what this means now:

I remember one time as a kid I came with a big stack of quarters and beat the game. The enemies get weird by the end.

[Ack]

Apparently, Cyan Worlds has gotten the rights to the Ubisoft portions of the Myst series. While they have a Kickstarter for a 25ty anniversary collection, it also means titles like Myst 3 will likely end up on GOG and Steam soon.

[BogusMeatFactory]

Apparently, Cyan Worlds has gotten the rights to the Ubisoft portions of the Myst series. While they have a Kickstarter for a 25ty anniversary collection, it also means titles like Myst 3 will likely end up on GOG and Steam soon.

Yes they will, although I do not know if they will be pieced out individually or be bundled together. The set will be available in September. I will be backing the project to get the book set as a birthday present. This will be the first time 3 and 4 will be made commercially available on modern systems. I am curious to know what kind of stuff they will do to improve the visual quality... we will see! I am insanely excited as it may be my all time favorite game series.

[Ack]

Well, last night I made it farther into Toonstruck and found out that what I've actually been doing is furthering the work of the nefarious Fluffy Fluffy Bun Bun! Now I'm trapped inside the castle of the evil Count Nefarious. I have solved a puzzle involving a giant clown face and reaquired my gear, but I've only just begun exploring this place. I don't know how far I am into the game, but I'm guessing I've knocked out a significant chunk at this point. Hopefully I can wrap this one up this weekend.

[Exhuminator]

Last night I finished disc two of the three disc FMV game I imported from Japan. Hopefully I can finish the last disc sometime today. I regret to admit it's actually been good so far.

[Key-Glyph]

Having now seen the "true ending" of Silent Steel, I thought I'd chime in with some more reflections.

The first thing I want to say is, if any of you are interested in this game, I would highly encourage using a walkthrough if you get frustrated. After spending quite a bit of time trying to suss out the "true ending," I peeked at someone's solution because I was getting paranoid that it hinged on some arbitrary dialog choice I'd never made -- and I was right. There are actually two dialog options in question that might each have made the difference, if not both together. I don't know that I would have ever given them a whirl, especially since at the second juncture all three dialog options are the same choice, so-to-speak. You're just issuing them differently.

And this is the greatest weakness of the game: choices change things, but only in a handful of cases is there a hint or some logical process to help you guess which choices will ultimately be "right." It's not as if you can relieve an officer of duty, then understand that later your sub sinks because they weren't at their post. Almost nothing is that obvious. You really have to approach the experience like it's a choose-your-own-adventure book wherein you can't game your way through; the fun is in seeing which scenes lead to what consequences, understanding what is going out out there in the cold dark ocean, and eventually stringing along better and better stories.

That said... I really did enjoy playing it over and over again, trying to whittle down a good run, so who knows! You too might decide to dedicate a chunk of your life to this and try every option, delighting in the little differences in scenes and the varied information you can glean by going down different paths. I found the actors and characters highly enjoyable and was always excited to uncover something new. The quality of the cinematography was way better than I could have expected; true to the advertising of the time, Silent Steel really wanted to deliver on the "interactive movie" idea. You can even see this in the way the pop up window frames your session after you've blown yourself up: "We hope you've enjoyed this portion of Silent Steel. Play it again and see a different movie each time."

Actually, I think this game would be fabulous to play with a group of friends for a round or two at a time. "Guys, come on over for dinner -- and let's try to keep that sub from sinking this time!" I would have loved that, back in the day.

And while we're placing this in context of its time, I definitely want to acknowledge that the "play this over and over and over until you win" approach made sense in 1995 when you'd never seen anything like this before and you probably didn't have a huge pile of other games to play. Stewing on one title for several weeks or months was a lot more typical back then, just like shorter play sessions and less computer time overall was the standard.

And speaking of 1995, I had a passing thought the other day that I thought was really neat. It was twenty-ish years ago that I was first enthralled with this game's demo, and I'm still reveling in the fact that I finally got to play it. Baby Key never thought she would, and if I could go back and tell her how we did it -- that I was running a virtualized computer-within-a-computer on a portable, foldable laptop with a flat screen (!) -- man, she would have flipped. I mean, I can't tell you how much I'm smiling right now, allowing the part of me that's still eleven to revel in that wonder.

Also, I'm in the process of finalizing a two-part video of one of my favorite playthroughs for you guys to have a gander at. If you're curious, stay tuned! It's one of my early runthroughs and it has some spoilers, but it hints at so much more that yet needs to be uncovered...

[Ack]

Congratulations, Key! I'm glad you saw the "true" ending, even if it required a little finnagling to make the right choices. I look forward to seeing your video.

[marurun]

Silent Steel sounds really cool. It really does sound less like a game and more like an interactive movie. I mean, if every decision point were clearly interpretable it would definitely be more game-like, but the fact that it's somewhat nebulous makes it much more narrative in a way. I wonder how much total footage they had to film for it.

[Exhuminator]

Number 5 is down. I played through it twice just to be sure, but yeah, I finally played a good FMV game:



It's the well known mainstream favorite Alive for PlayStation!

This game was insane. I hated it. I loved it. It made me question everything I thought I knew about FMV.
If you wanna know why, read my review.

Ultimately I've decided Bogus and J T might just be right... there could be something to this whole FMV thing.

I guess I'll have to play some more FMV games to find out.