61 Frames Per Second : fmv hell

FMV Hell: Mystic Midway: Phantom Express

Nadia Oxford — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 03:50:00 GMT

I'm saddened by the sight of bare-footed orphans selling cast-away cigarette butts for a few pennies, but I'm devastated by the over-eager acting that accompanies some game FMVs. It wasn't so bad in the Playstation era: most of the voiceovers for early anime cutscenes deserved to be ridiculed, and at least the “actors” got to live in infamy.

But for a mercifully short time, gamers were infatuated with turtle-paced CD games that featured real actors, and not just a voice transplanted to a flapping mouth. These are the games that lived and died on the Sega CD and CD-i. Most FMV-based games were as much fun as sitting on an upright knife, but sometimes you have to look at the actors and think, “God bless them. They tried so hard, but to what avail?”

Mystic Midway: Phantom Express is an on-rails shooter for the CD-i that stars an unapologetically sarcastic carnival barker. The barker heckles you mercilessly, opening the game with a joke he cribbed from the tuff grade two kids who hogged the sand pits at recess: ”I was just reading the most hilarious story! It's called...YOUR LIFE!”

If you have at least one eye and/or one ear, you should be able to surmise why this guy's drama major probably never found use beyond a bottom-feeder game console. Still, he throws so much into the whole performance that just want to stand there and take his jabs. Yes, yes, my life is pitiful and my memory swarms with chilling instances of abuse and neglect. Shhh. It's okay. Go to sleep now.

Yeah, actually, this whole game is pretty depressing.

Related Links:

FMV Hell: Zombie Dinos from the Planet Zeltoid
FMV Hell: Mega Man X4
FMV Hell: Sonic CD

30 Years Ago This Week: The CD

Joe Keiser — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:00:00 GMT

We’re taking a break from our regular 10 Years Ago column this week, but only because nothing happened ten years ago this week—unless you are some kind of terrible extreme sports game aficionado, in which case you can talk about EA’s Rush Down by yourself. Fortunately for the rest of us, something great did happen this week. It’s just something we have to go back a little bit further to discuss.

The Compact Disc (released, sort of, on March 8th, 1979) was first publicly demoed thirty years ago this previous Sunday. It went on to become one of the major driving technologies of the digital media revolution. It also broadened the horizons of videogames as a medium, and to an extent democratized the industry as well.

The Compact Disc format originally began as an audio-only format: the standard for recording sound to CD was codified in 1980, five years prior to the buttoning up of the CD-ROM standard. Even then, it would take several more years before economies of scale would finally become such that the games industry would be able to take advantage of the disc. And it would be even longer before the technology would be able to take root—the earliest adopters of CD media (besides the PC, which is always first) were fringe players, with NEC’s TurboGrafx CD the noted trailblazer for CD on console. It would be quickly followed by other quirky systems including the Amiga CDTV and the CD-i. The end of 1991 would see the market leader of the time acknowledge the format in the form of the Sega Mega CD, but even that was at best a limited success.

Although CD represented some tangible benefits over the cartridge formats of the period, it was by no means obvious that the disc would become the format of choice for games manufacturers. It had problems cartridges didn’t have, like a lack of durability (an SNES cart is more or less indestructible, whereas one scratch can permanently incapacitate a CD) and slow seek speeds that necessitated load times, the great bane of game pacing. Even its major advantage, the 650MB of space, started off as a disadvantage as developers used to 2MB cartridges or 1.44MB floppies struggled with how to fill this incredible new expanse.

This struggle produced early results both banal (the practice of piling dozens of floppy-based games on to CD, which gave us the term “shovelware”) and interesting (full orchestral scores on console titles, the “talkie” versions of adventure games), but nothing particularly ambitious. The format’s software breakthrough wouldn’t come until 1993, when the twin PC releases of The 7th Guest and Myst spurred drive adoption and set the industry down a treacherous path. Both games were potent cocktails of simple puzzle mechanics, high-res still graphics and low-res video, a multimedia blend that would have been impossible had it not been for the copious storage space of CD. A lot of developers misread the tea leaves here and turned the CD into the medium of choice for FMV games. This was fortunately short-lived.

The hardware breakthrough came for CD games in the form of the PlayStation. Although the use of CD was just one of many canny decisions Sony made in development of the console, it was an important one, as the biggest advantage CD has over cartridge is that it is cheap and a lot of them can be made quickly. This had obvious advantages for gamers, as CD allowed Sony to adopt the $50 pricing standard that represented a significant drop from the wild west of Nintendo cart prices. But it also had advantages for publishers, who no longer had to worry about sitting on expensive cartridge inventory should a game fail to sell and so could afford to gamble on riskier projects. This was a major contributing factor to the decade-long wane of Nintendo, which suffered enormously for its decision o stick to cartridge. It’s also partially responsible for the burst of creativity that happened in mid-90s game development. Works like Parappa the Rapper, Resident Evil, and Final Fantasy VII made lasting contributions to the medium at this time, contributions that may not have been possible without the advantages of CD.

The CD disappeared from consoles at the turn of the century, replaced with newer optical media technologies like DVD and GD-ROM (PC stuck with the format for quite a while longer, to ridiculous multi-CD effect). These newer formats are just evolutionary advances on the Compact Disc, however—this 70s-era technology continues to shape the medium to this day, and will for the foreseeable future.

Previously on Ten Years Ago This Week:

Army Men 3D
Silent Hill
Syphon Filter
Alpha Centauri

FMV Hell: Moses and Me

Nadia Oxford — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 01:04:00 GMT

Last week, a member of the Gamespite forums put together a Let's Play for Link: The Faces of Evil. I can only guess he's tired of life. I suppose living has lost its lustre for me as well, as I followed his progress throughout the weekend.

The CD-i's Zelda atrocities are heckled at every opportunity, and with good reason. The controls are intolerable, the characters are abominable, and the cut scenes are indescribable. But I was shocked to learn through this particular Let's Play that the CD-i slopped its userbase with worse material through its “career”.

See, the CD-i's Zelda library could at least legitimately be called games. Not good games or even functional games, but games nonetheless. There were items to collect, a goal to reach, terrain to navigate. Moses: The Exodus on the CD-i, on the other hand, didn't offer any gameplay aside from “Sing along to songs that are too bland for Sunday School.” Admittedly, that was a clever way to skirt around the controller issues that plagued Faces of Evil.

The Angry Video Game Nerd already made a passing mention (rather, a passing rant) about the dreary song collection, but its champion, “Moses and Me” is worth another look. The song is about a school kid who's pressured into whispering test answers to his lazy-ass classmates. The choice is clear: do as they ask, or “end up all alone.”

Much as I hate to admit it, “Moses and Me” tackles a conundrum that every kid finds himself in sometimes, particularly shy, brainy kids desperate for friends. Unsurprisingly, the song pitches forward and lands flat on its face with its proposed resolution: believe hard enough in Moses and he will somehow come down from Mount Sinai to protect you from bullies like a shiny Gyrados.

I showed this video to some of my friends, and we asked each other important questions:

-Is Moses responsible for the graffiti at the start of the video?

-Why didn't the yard monitor come running when a wrinkled old Moses cosplayer showed up in the vicinity of young boys?

-Is Moses buddies with this guy?

I suppose only the Lord knows.

Related Links:

FMV Hell: Star Studded Casts: Do You Give a Crap?
FMV Hell: Mega Man X4
FMV Hell: Sonic CD

Need For Speed is Hilarious: Return of the Live Action Cutscene

John Constantine — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

First, the tiny confession: I have never ever played a Need For Speed. I’m no racing fanatic, but I’m shocked I’ve managed to avoid them this long. I tend to play one racer obsessively every couple of years, a cycle that began with Rage Racer way back in, yes, 1998. (It actually came out in mid-’97, but I didn’t play it until a full year later, curious after reading previews for R4: Ridge Racer Type 4. That year really was awesome, wasn’t it?) The arcade-style delights of Ridge Racer are really what appeal to me in a racing game, something Need For Speed has in spades, so it’s surprising I’ve never played one of its fifteen different entries until this week. If Need For Speed: Undercover is anything to go by, I haven’t been missing much. The game’s something of a poor man’s Burnout: Paradise, giving you an open world to drive your licensed rides about but not letting you do much interesting inside of it. You can’t just stumble into races, you’ve got to select them from a menu or press down when driving near them, prompting load times and cutscenes. The driving is no great shakes, either, fast and presentable but with none of the edge of your seat spectacle that makes the aforementioned Burnout such a treat. I’m going to keep playing Need For Speed, though, for no other reason than to keep watching it’s hilarious live action cutscenes. Check out the goods a couple of minutes in:

Now that’s the kind of campy deliciousness that we haven’t seen since the halcyon days of Wing Commander. The weird color saturation in NFS’ scenes doesn’t quite compete with lumbering cat people, but it’s a close second. I have to wonder, though, why EA put the money into hiring these, ahem, actors. Yes, Maggie Q is a sexy spokesperson and all, but cutscenes with flesh and blood folks died with FMV games back in 1996. Have there always been live action scenes in NFS? Is EA trying to get post-modern with their franchise?

Second, and much bigger, confession: I have never ever played a real-time strategy game. It’s not that I’ve avoided them on purpose, it just happened somehow. Well, that’s all changing, because I am going to play the hell out of Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3. Why? Two words: Tim. Curry. I know that cheesy live action cutscenes have been a Command & Conquer staple, but I feel like I need to indulge in this new treasure trove. Look at this:

Curry’s accent here is almost as funny as the one he had in Congo.

EA, I am disappointed in you for disbanding Blueprint. But if you keep putting archaic nonsense like live action cutscenes in your games, I will forgive you.

So, reader? Thumbs up or thumbs down for live action cutscenes?

Related links:

A Decade of Gaming Excellence
Love-Hate: In Defense of the Cutscene
FMV Hell: Star Studded Casts - Do you Give a Crap?
Alternate Soundtrack: Need For Speed: Underground vs Justice's †

FMV Hell: Mega Man X4

Nadia Oxford — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 23:06:00 GMT

Let us board our DeLorean and travel back to 1997. Gaming was going through a massive transition, as was American culture in general. We were still excited about anime and wanted nothing more than to lick rigid Playstation cutscenes up and down.

We pressed our noses longingly against the panes of computer shops that ran the Mega Man X4 intro over and over. We said "Ohhhh!" Now we say, "Ohhhh," as in, "Oh God, my eyes feel like moles are scratching them."

I'm not even referencing Mega Man X4's awful English voice acting. I don't need to. The low quality of the anime stands by itself, like a putrid pair of underwear.

Maybe it's not the worst thing to crawl out of the FMV Hell pit, but it's definitely reeky budget anime. The stiff movements, the lack of backgrounds--

Okay, Sigma and Zero tearing shit up was pretty cool, if not speared by a few too many speedlines.

The quality of the voice acting in Mega Man X games improved as years went on, but Sigma only stopped sounding like Oscar the Grouch by Maverick Hunter X. Which, by the way, contains an OAV that's far less repulsive than Mega Man X4's cutscenes. Alas, it is entirely too short.

I guess I should appreciate game history for what it is now...but I wonder how much it would have cost the animation team to colour in X and Zero's eyes.

Related Links:

FMV Hell: Star Studded Casts: Do You Give a Crap?
FMV Hell: Sonic CD
FMV Hell: Lunar, the Silver Star

WTFriday: Goldman's Drama Academy

Bob Mackey — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week.

I have to apologize because today's WTFriday is more than a little dated; but since my buddy picked up The House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return (not exactly a graceful title) for the Wii, I've had Goldman on my mind. Who's Goldman? Why, he's the series' recurring villain, whose plan to "cleanse the world" involves filling it with the most disgusting, abhorrent creatures to not really exist: zombies. But the important thing here is that he's clearly voiced by someone speaking English phonetically. The original Resident Evil tends to come to mind when we think of bad voice acting, but House of the Dead 2 is much, much worse--and rarely ever gets the credit it deserves.

Check out the following video and dare to tell me that stuff like "the master of unlocking" is even half as bad the marble-mouthed Goldman:

I have to give Sega credit for making sure that every line reading was performed completely out of context; in the lead up to the epic final battle, Goldman sounds more like a passive-aggressive biology teacher than a madman bent of world domination. Making something this terrible in 1998 was also pretty ballsy; remember, Metal Gear Solid came out just a month later. Sega and Capcom may have retconned their poor choices later in life by claiming that bad voice acting added to the B-Movie charm of their games--but it's more than obvious that back then they were being sincere.

Once again, I apologize for the old news; it's just that I'm personally bummed that Goldman never found a home in our land of video game memes; but maybe that's what makes him so special. In the end, though, I think we've all learned something from House of the Dead 2's voice acting: shouting "No! Don't! Come!" is no way to stop a zombie. Or an accidental pregnancy.

Related Links:

WTFriday: Play it Loud
WTFriday: Frawless Victory
WTFriday: The Adventures of Sonichu

FMV Hell: Star Studded Casts - Do you Give a Crap?

Cole Stryker — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Boy, I don't.

EA has announced that the new Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 will star the following B-listers:

Gemma Atkinson (the UK's Hollyoaks), Tim Curry (Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Hunt for Red October), Andrew Divoff (LOST), Kelly Hu (X2, The Scorpion King), Jenny McCarthy (Scream 3, former Playboy Playmate of the Year), Ivana Milicevic (Casino Royale), Jonathan Pryce (Pirates of the Caribbean), J.K. Simmons (Spider-Man, Juno), Autumn Reeser (The OC), Peter Stormare (Prison Break, Armageddon), George Takei (Star Trek, Heroes), and two of the most recognizable names in competitive mixed martial arts Randy "The Natural" Couture (former UFC Heavyweight champion) and Gina "Conviction" Carano (Undefeated Elite XC fighter, American Gladiators).

Jenny McCarthy was just blown away:

"I wasn't sure what to expect when I came in to work on a video game," said Jenny McCarthy from the set of Command & Conquer Red Alert 3, while playing Tanya, Allied commando and the most beloved heroine in the history of the Command & Conquer universe. "What I realized is Red Alert 3 is not just a video game, it's absolutely an interactive movie.

Ho ho HO! Absolutely!

Diff'rent Strokes' Dana Plato in Night Trap, Mark Hamill in Wing Commander III, Dennis Hopper in Black Dahlia -- live-action Full Motion Video has historically been populated by washed up Hollywood rejects. In the go-go nineties, development studios could only afford also-rans, which brought middling acting to the medium. Within a few years of FMV's birth, 3D rendering technology evolved to the point where developers could easily create pretty characters at a fraction of the cost of hiring from Hollywood. It was too expensive, not that fun for players to watch, and eclipsed by superior technology. The infamous live-action sequences from Resident Evil could probably be considered the swan song of live-action FMV.

And yet, some folks are still utilizing it. Why? Does a "star-studded" cast really move more units? Would the inclusion of celebrities (even real ones) inspire you to pick up a game?

My personal favorite celebrity FMV: Dennis Hopper in Black Dahlia, which also boasted the talents of Terri Garr.

FMV Hell: Lunar, The Silver Star

Nadia Oxford — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 23:07:00 GMT

Time once again for a brief look at the Sega CD games that made us women and men (if you're currently a twenty-something, I mean).

The full-motion video in games like Lunar, The Silver Star is unique stuff for a few reasons. First, it was an unfiltered assault of glittery, shojo-eyed anime during an age when most game localisers struggled to hide any cultural evidence that video games indeed come from Japan. Of course, Working Designs is still known for taking some, er, extreme liberties with their own translations and localisations, but by God that's another tome for another night. All you need to know is that Lunar saw its US release in 1993, ages before Pokemon made anime mainstream (bonus fact: anime became mainstream in Canada in 1996, thanks to Sailor Moon recieving an after-school time slot).

The intro for Lunar is also made special by its...lack of animation. Maybe we were too busy drooling on the television screen at the time, but when you watch Sega CD intros in today's age of a thousand frames per second, you begin to notice that the "cut scenes" that wowed us over a dozen years ago are little more than kindergarten-grade cut-outs with pinned, movable limbs.

I'm being a little cruel, however. Lunar might not be the best-aged RPG out there, but like Sonic CD, it contains a lot of heart. And the voice acting, though nothing spectacular, is still a few notches above the horrors that would assault us on the Playstation five years later.

Still, a friend of mine claimed that the singing practise scene in Lunar (about 5:40 into the video) beat the hell out of the opera scene in Final Fantasy VI.

I'm...I'm really not sure about that.

Related Links:

Sega CD on iPhone: I Like Where This Is Going
FMV Hell: Sonic CD

FMV Hell: Sonic CD

Nadia Oxford — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:40:00 GMT

I'm pretty sure most original prints of Sega CD games were long ago ground up into dog food, but the resurrection of Vay on the iPhone got me nostalgic for the anime cutscenes that used to preced certain Sega CD games. Each scene employed about sixteen on-screen colours and had about thirty frames of animation, but there was something charming about those florescent marionettes. They were like figures drawn in an Autistic kid's painting: clumsy, but admirable for the attempt.

(And vasty preferable to the grainy live-action FMV that usually gummed up the games in the Sega CD library.)

The Sega CD is largely considered a failure, but every failed system has its must-own games. Sonic CD was certainly a gem, easily the highlight of Sonic the Hedgehog's up-and-down career. Sonic CD began with the standard Sega CD animated intro.

It's interesting to note that there are a few versions of the anime. Most obviously, there's a Japanese intro and an American one. The animation in both is more or less the same, but wars have been fought over which country has the better intro song. America long ago became familiar with Spencer Nilsen's "Sonic Boom, Sonic Boom, Sonic Boooooom" whereas Japanese children got to hear a song about leather and lace and what might possibly be a chorus that begins with "Toot toot Sonic Warrior."

Here's the Japanese intro stacked up against the American one. Engage comparison.

Either way, the Sonic CD intro is garish and choppy thanks to technical limitations (watch the PC version for a far smoother ride), but it's strangely compelling to watch. Sonic darts across Mobius, racing towards Eggman's latest threat--he's all business, but at the same time it's obvious he enjoys the thrill of simply cutting loose and running. And with no people or vehicles or annoying tag-along friends to slow him down, he can just do what he was born to do: race. It's a bit of well-choreographed simplicity that's absent from games today and Lord knows that especially applies to Sonic games.

By the way, the title of this little "series" is a tribute to AMV Hell. Before I thought of it, my husband and I had a little discussion about what the series name should be.

Him: "How about 'Seedy CD?'"

Me: "Nah, you can't really tell that it's a Sega CD feature."

"All right, what about 'Sega Seedy CD?'"

"That's no good."

"How about, 'My Wife is an Uppity Bitch Who Doesn't Like My Ideas?'"

"How about, 'My Husband's Ideas Are Not Funny?'"

It sounds like the beginning of an epic nerd fight, but we were laughing too hard to take a swing at each other.

Related Links:

Where Is Yu Suzuki?
Sega CD on iPhone: I Like Where This Is Going
Do You Hold Any Hope For Sonic Unleashed?