Modern Full Motion Video Games

[MadJackalope]

Howdy, I'm new around here, been listening to the podcast for awhile but recently figured it would be cool to join in on the forums. 

So I've been watching a lot of videos for old MS-DOS games. These games were slightly before my time, but just barely. I didn't seriously begin gaming on the PC until 2006 and before that most of my exposure to gaming was through consoles. 

Anyway one kind of games that I've found really interesting are the FMV games, like 7th Guest, Hot Wheels Stunt Driving, and Ripper. I've heard them talked about on Idle thumbs before but never really seriously thought about them until I watched these video reviews. 

Of course there's the more traditional FMV games that Idle Thumbs types probably know of, the adventure games ones. And those are really cool, and there's been a modern resurgence in them that I find pretty neato. There's this new [Tex Murphy game on steam] that seems really smart and engaging. That said what I'm most interested in are more like the

 which uses pre-rendered graphics to make up for the lack of computing power at the time. 

It seems to me this offers an interesting avenue that has been abandoned in the wake of better and better hardware. But just because we can now fully render 3D doesn't mean that this kind of thing couldn't be used in an interesting way. I wonder what an intense hi-fi render game would look like. Pixar film level, you know what I mean? Ray-casting and all that jazz. I don't personally care too much for graphic wars debates, I much prefer something with a strong aesthetic, but I wonder what could be done with this kind of tech. I was pretty impressed with that Hot Wheels game, I didn't even realize the backgrounds were pre-rendered until the reviewer pointed it out. And maybe it's also just nostalgia but I find the particular look of pre-rendered graphics interesting from an aesthetic perspective (very similar to the way I feel about Claymation). Nintendo actually continues to use some of those methods in their modern games, such as the flat photographs of food in Smash Brothers. (in general the inclusion of photographic elements in games is a funny/weird thing to me I find fascinating). 

Anyway, thoughts? Do you know of any other cool uses of FMV in modern games? Would you like to see more? What are some cools ways it could be utilized with modern technology that in the past was not possible?



 

[tegan]

I have nothing of value to contribute, but I personally consider it the greatest tragedy of our time that Duelin' Firemen for the 3DO was never released.

 

 

I love how the footage includes both an airplane and the fucking Space Shuttle Columbia crashing into a New York skyscraper. It's two sad ironic predictions for the price of one!

[Roderick]

But what would the game have been like? 'Run and gun'? Firstperson shooter? Turret sequences?

[chummer]

In terms of pre-rendered stuff, The Swapper and The Dream Machine each look really wonderful in their own way:

 

 

Aside from Tesla Effect, the only other recent project I can think of that used lots of FMV was The Wavy Tubeman Chronicles that played off of Mad Dog McCree:

 

 

I haven't played either of them, but both Tesla Effect and TWTC don't seem to use FMV in any interesting way; more like they're intentionally recalling its goofiness.

 

If I were to use FMV today, I would use it specifically to highlight the juxtaposition in fidelity between the game-world and video. Not in a silly way, but rather to create some sort of dissonance for the player.

 

Hmm. What just popped up in my mind was The Darkness. There's an early scene where the player can just sit on a couch and- I think- watch the entirety of To Kill A Mockingbird:

 

 

It might be outside the idea you're getting at, but I've always found it kind of... unsettling(?) that I could just play a video game while watching a movie in that video game; not the idea itself, but just the actual action.

 

Also Remedy! Alan Wake actually used a few bits of FMV here and there. Now that I think of it, they even used it a bit for that dissonant effect I mentioned earlier, as the video portrayed a nega-Alan Wake that taunted the player. All of that video was also shown on in-world televisions, which I thought was a really neat way to do it.

 

I'll also point out that currently Zoe Quinn is making Camp 's Not Dead, which is apparently an FMV game in the style of 3DO stuff.

[SecretAsianMan]

Based on the title, I thought this thread was going to be about motion controls.  I am pleased it is about something else altogether.  I have nothing of value to add though.

[syntheticgerbil]

In terms of pre-rendered stuff, The Swapper and The Dream Machine each look really wonderful in their own way:

 

I suppose on the stop motion note, Armikrog will be coming out soon and also use the live action aesthetic.

 

I don't think I actually considered going back to FMV as a viable way for video games to go until the new Tex Murphy game, since the HD video and all really helps it not look so cheap. It also puts more pressure on higher production values though, which Tex has always gotten by since it's a B movie aesthetic and doesn't every try to act like it's not. I think a lot of what killed FMV the first time is so many companies thought it would be an easy and cheap way to make a game and maximize profit by having people around the office do the acting and then put out press releases that claim you feel like you are watching a Hollywood movie. That's so undoable now for even the biggest budgets to compare so I think that I would enjoy seeing more low budget efforts but doing something other than replicating 7th Guest or something.

 

I really didn't find Wavy Tubeman Chronicles funny or enjoyable after the first 7 or so scenes. It just became as painful and obnoxious as Mad Dog McCree after that.

[TheLastBaron]

Also Remedy! Alan Wake actually used a few bits of FMV here and there. Now that I think of it, they even used it a bit for that dissonant effect I mentioned earlier, as the video portrayed a nega-Alan Wake that taunted the player. All of that video was also shown on in-world televisions, which I thought was a really neat way to do it.

Infamous also did the same thing where all the things you see on the TV are live action video and it was kind of weird.

[elmuerte]

Speaking of Tesla Effects, it's now on steam sale for 50% less

[chummer]

I don't think I actually considered going back to FMV as a viable way for video games to go until the new Tex Murphy game, since the HD video and all really helps it not look so cheap. It also puts more pressure on higher production values though, which Tex has always gotten by since it's a B movie aesthetic and doesn't every try to act like it's not. 

 

I would say that Tesla Effect's heavy green-screening still made it look really cheap though. It also might put pressure on devs who are trying to use FMV earnestly to up their production quality, but I feel like most of the time that it's being used, it's done so in a way that points out how silly FMV is. The Twilight Zone-y stuff in Alan Wake was treated w/ that tone, for instance.

 

The Armikrog and Dream Machine videos make me think that maybe one of the better uses of FMV is when it's made up of the visual pieces of the game.

[MadJackalope]

Yeah there def seems to be a tendency to using it as a gag rather than as creative aesthetic toolbox. :/

I mean I like Tesla Effect's use of it, I think they use it well, but it's still really cheesy and not what I'm most interested in. The cheesy stuff is well done and self aware but I wonder what could be done with it more. 

ChoAniki used to do that a lot with the Saturn games, where they'd use photo and video as part of the sprites for enemies. In general that sort of melding between rendered elements and photo/video is weird, kind of neato. I feel like you also see that kind of mixing and matching of different levels of abstraction in Jazzpunk and stuff like that. 

I seem to remember an FMV/pre-rendered sprite fighting game being on kickstarter awhile back but I can't for the life of me find it. I can't remember the name and can't find a video of it on youtube. It was the pretty typical "MORTAL MOTHERFUCKING KKKKOMBAT!!!!" kind of aesthetic, but was really really well done, with high definition post effects and stuff added in seamlessly. I thought that was pretty neat use of the tech but I can't remember what it was called. 


I liked Dream Machine a lot though I never actually finished it. Also there's those weird hybrid claymation things like Paranorman. Dam, could you imagine that in a game?

The 1st person sequences in Neverhood. Oh soo cool. A modern first person shooter like that would be interesting. I guess you couldn't do true FMV for that though, you'd need to do some kind of special shader instead, but anyway that kind of look is really cool. (I guess Ninty is kind of doing that with those Epic Yarn games...oh wait, yeah they also had that kirby claymation game too, though that's side scrolling so it might actually be real claymation, it's hard to tell). 

In particular this stuff might useful for Oculus (though I find myself saying that for pretty much everything these days. In general I just think oculus is cool I guess hahaha)

[chummer]

I seem to remember an FMV/pre-rendered sprite fighting game being on kickstarter awhile back but I can't for the life of me find it. I can't remember the name and can't find a video of it on youtube. It was the pretty typical "MORTAL MOTHERFUCKING KKKKOMBAT!!!!" kind of aesthetic, but was really really well done, with high definition post effects and stuff added in seamlessly. I thought that was pretty neat use of the tech but I can't remember what it was called. 

 

 

Damn it. This made a couple of things rush back to my head, courtesy of Giant Bomb.

 

First, Dong Dong Never Die:

 

 

Also, Stay Dead:

 

[chummer]

Oh, also I guess it would be relevant to note that they're trying to do something w/ Night Trap again.

 

Looking at Zoe Quinn's twitter feed, her response is more a less that FMV stuff should be bad. This was explicit in Camp's Not Dead title, but it takes away a bit of hope that she'll still do something interesting w/ it instead of just another Wavy Tubeman Chronicles-esque thing.

[SecretAsianMan]

I just remembered this exists.  Seems relevant.

 

http://www.polygon.com/2014/7/21/5923327/full-motion-vision-quest-every-fmv-game-reviewed

[tegan]

Oh shit, Dong Dong Never Die. I forgot all about that.

[MadJackalope]

I thought it might be Stay Dead but it had a bunch of particle effects and things. I asked my roomie who showed it to me and he can't remember the name either. Dagnabit. 

[MadJackalope]

Found it!!!!

Death Cargo: 

It's pretty goofy looking but it does a pretty good job of using the HD FMV in a seamless-ish fashion. 

EDIT: Apparently the game turned out to be fake... or something? Kind of hard to tell, it's an Italian studio which puts them in a weird gray area compared to the rest of the English speaking development community.  http://kotaku.com/the-curious-game-that-might-not-exist-1574075044

Sounds to me like some Italian indie horror studio made a fake trailer for fun, and when it exploded on them they tried to cash in on it, only to find out that they are not actually game developers and got in too deep over their heads. The original teaser video is nowhere to be found, and the remaining gifs from it I can find look pretty different from the original. The new stuff looks not quite as good, or as smooth. 

[chummer]

Found it!!!!

Death Cargo: 

 

That's visually pretty impressive! I don't think I'd ever be into it because I'm not into fighting games, but yeah, it's got a unique look and if that could be translated into a video game I'd be interested in checking it out.

 

This makes me wonder, could there be a Flashback/Another World type game where the character is done in this style? Has this been done before?

[MadJackalope]

Ooooh check this out. This looks really neato from an adventure game perspective: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/139513174/contradiction

[chummer]

Ooooh check this out. This looks really neato from an adventure game perspective: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/139513174/contradiction

 

Watched the pitch video, but I'm still not sure how I interact w/ the game. It uses a lot of the rhetoric of "choice-driven" video games w/o any of the details. That's not unique to this, but it's just frustrating when I see it.

[MadJackalope]

Hey hey! Just saw this new game that got greenlit that uses pre-rendered graphics FMV, and it looks real spoopy

Basically you're a security guard manning cameras in a Chuckie Cheese overnight, and you have limited power resources to juggle while trying to watch your back. Very smart use of limited resources and also it has that sweet pre-rendered look. 

[lizzyinthesky]

Zoe Quinn is working on an FMV game project, starring Greg Sestero (Oh, hai Mark) from the Room. http://campsnotdead.tumblr.com/

She approached Carl Weathers to be in it on twitter and his entire response was #BePeace

[Jedi425]

So, do games like the later Journeyman Project games count in this context, or no? (I'm pretty sure the first one doesn't, since it was all static images and maybe a bit of CGI in a corner of the big-ol' UI.)

 

Basically, I'm just looking for an excuse to remind people that the Journeyman Project existed and was great.

[MadJackalope]

I think it's related, but not quite the same as FMV stuff. While I didn't get really into PC games when I was younger I did play Myst which also has a similar pre-rendered thing going on. I think one of the things that makes FMV pre-rendered interesting is you could do some really crazy stuff that's not possible on normal hardware. Same is true for pre-rendered still images, though anything that could be done on still could also be done FMV these days really. I remember that in order to even have rippling waves in Myst they had to pull graphical tricks on the pre-rendered images instead of actually animating and rendering as an FMV because even rendering it before hand would have been too taxing for the computers they were using at the time. 

I never actually played the Journeyman Project, but it seems interesting, in the same way that Myst sticks out in my mind as interesting. The lack of violence in Myst was particularly novel for it's time, and I think we're seeing a resurgence in 1st person adventure games with Gone Home and Silent Hill P.T. etc. I'm excited by that prospect. 

Myst was the only PC game my dad every bought. He was pretty old fashioned about violence in games, sort of a hippie type dude, and while I went on to play my fair share of run and guns, I do find that avenue interesting in game design. 

[Nappi]

 

The videos are simply delightful! The game is worth checking out for the cutscenes alone.

 

Oh, and the gameplay if awesome as well.

[elmuerte]

Was that Danny B in the limo?