Together Retro: FMV Frenzy

[Ack]

Well, I've done it. Toonstruck has been successfully completed. I will type up something for the Games Beaten thread soon enough, but for now, I am quite pleased. That game was a lot of fun.

[Exhuminator]

I tried some more FMV games in the past few days. Some on SEGA CD, some on Windows PC.

SEGA CD:

I've been trying to find a legit good SEGA CD FMV game. I've tried Crime Patrol, Ground Zero Texas, Loadstar: The Legend of Tully Bodine, Mad Dog McCree, Midnight Raiders, Star Strike, Supreme Warrior, Sewer Shark, and Tomcat Alley. None of those were winners for me unfortunately. Most were just banal shooting galleries punctuated by short FMV cutscenes. Supreme Warrior had a cool concept but was the worst (terrible controls), and Tomcat Alley was the most interesting technically and mechanically. Unfortunately Tomcat Alley got too repetitive too quickly, but it was worth playing for a little while. Well there's a few other SEGA CD games I plan to try, so maybe one of those will stick.

Windows PC:

I went through some shenanigans to obtain and install Black Dahlia on my old XP desktop. Black Dahlia has exceptionally high production values, it's super atmospheric, with well produced / acted FMVs. A lot of money was spent on this game and it shows. However its pacing-progression has been too unintuitive for my tastes. I've read Black Dahlia has some ridiculously difficult puzzles (so much so that you can use passwords to bypass specific puzzles). Many critics of its day raged about those puzzles... I'm not looking forward to that sort of thing. However, Black Dahlia also stars Dennis Hopper in a cameo role! That's pretty rad man. I don't know guys, I'm not feeling it with Black Dahlia right now. I do love me some noir detective stuff, absolutely I do. But Black Dahlia's byzantine progression just isn't very inviting. I'm not at all saying Black Dahlia's a bad game, I don't think it is. Black Dahlia may be quite exceptional if you're willing to spend a lot of time on it. And who knows, someday I might want to play a slow burn adventure like Black Dahlia. But not presently.

There are two other PC FMV adventure games I'm going to try soon. One is well known and fondly remembered to this day. The other was well received in its day, but then quickly forgotten about. I'm hoping at least one (if not both) of these two will be super great. I'd like to end this TR on a high note(s).

[alienjesus]

I e heard good things about Snow Job for 3DO, if you’re looking for other stuff to play

[marurun]

You could sample one or both of the FMVZork games. And there’s also the more investigative style FMV games like Sherlock Holmes.

[Exhuminator]

I e heard good things about Snow Job for 3DO, if you’re looking for other stuff to play

I'll look into it, thanks. The cover does looks promising.

You could sample one or both of the FMVZork games. And there’s also the more investigative style FMV games like Sherlock Holmes.

I have downloaded Nemesis and Inquisitor after Bogus praised them. I've looked at the Sherlock Holmes series from the early '90s, they look "OK".

What I'd love to play is J.B. Harold - Manhattan Requiem on LaserActive. There are other versions of that game, but the LaserActive one is the only version that looks good to me. Unfortunately finding an ISO of the LaserActive version has proven extraordinarily difficult, not to mention LaserActive emulation is spotty. To buy the real thing (hardware / disc) is CRAZY expensive, so it looks like it's just not gonna happen.

I think the next two FMV PC games I've picked out are gonna be winners, honestly. I'm looking forward to trying the first one out tonight, provided I can get it to run properly.

-

Well there's two weeks left in April. Here's what's been going on so far best I can tell:

Ack - Beat Phantasmagoria, beat Toonstruck.

Bogus - Played Wing Commander III.

Crazythink4 - Played realMyst, played Myst.

Elkin - Beat Night Trap, beat Corpse Killer.

Exhuminator - Beat Double Dragon (Neo Geo version), beat The Yakyuu Ken Special: Konya wa 12-kaisen, beat Dennis Miller: That's News to Me, beat PYST, beat Alive, played various SEGA CD games, played Black Dahlia.

Gunstar Green - Playing Crusader: No Remorse.

J T - Played Temujin, played Double Switch.

Key-Glyph - Beat Silent Steel.

Laurenhiya21 - Played The Book of Watermarks.

Michi - Beat Phantasmagoria.

nullPointer - Played A Fork in the Tale.

Prfsnl_gmr - Played Double Switch, played Mad Dog McCree.

Sarge - Beat Wirehead, beat Shinobi Legions.

SpaceBooger - Played Shinobi Legions.

Decent participation thus far, but lately this thread's been slow. We still have two weeks left this month folks. That's plenty of time for more TR club members to ride the FMV train.

[alienjesus]

I played through some Shinobi X yesterday, but I've not managed to finish it yet (stage 7 is hard)

[laurenhiya21]

Ah I guess I did try out another FMV game for this month, but unfortunately it did not play nice in an emulator so I couldn't get very far.

The game was The X-Files for the PS1. I know next to nothing about X-Files, other than the tune and that it deals with supernatural stuff, but it came up as a recommendation when I was looking for something to play. It's pretty impressive, with nearly everything being done in live-action FMV (and you move around the office in a first-person view which I thought was neat). During certain sections you will be asked to pick a certain emotion to react with, but I have no idea if that changes anything, since the guy I talked to just grumply walked away after I selected my reaction. Other than that it's pretty much an adventure game I think, where you have to solve a mystery by talking to people and picking up stuff.

Anyway it's a bit too tricky for my PS1 emulator to handle, unfortunately. It took a while to figure out how to even boot the game without it glitching, but even after fixing that it was pretty much impossible to select any options on any screens I had to interact with. Since I had to interact with a screen to go to a new location, I couldn't continue. To be fair, even if I got it working it might have been pretty difficult for me to enjoy (I had to use a walkthrough just to find the boss's office right from the start!), but it's always disappointing when I can't get something to emulate right It might be worth a look though if you enjoy puzzley adventure games!

[Exhuminator]

It might be worth a look though if you enjoy puzzley adventure games!

That's actually one of the two games I plan to try next. I'm going with the PC version though.

What PS1 emulator were you using?

[laurenhiya21]

It might be worth a look though if you enjoy puzzley adventure games!

That's actually one of the two games I plan to try next. I'm going with the PC version though.

What PS1 emulator were you using?

Nice

And I'm using ePSXe to emulate. No clue if that's a good one or not but that's just what I've been using haha.

[Ack]

X-Files is interesting, though I feel you'll probably get a bit more out of it if you're a fan. It has a lot of lore that the FMV game connects with. As for technical issues, that may not entirely be your fault. X-Files is problematic when not played on original hardware. I played through it on PS2, and menu options, the occasional sound queue, and even the pointer were garbled messes. It just doesn't play well with others.

Anyway, I still haven't done my write up for Toonstruck, but I'm a bit stuck on what to play next, partly because I am worried about time. I will be out of town for the last week of April, so making a big commitment may be tough, and I'm mainly interested in stuff I can play via GOG while my girlfriend sits next to me and wonders what the hell I'm watching. I got through the gory bits of Phantasmagoria when she wasn't at home...