And this is why FMV is superior to CG.

Drathnoxis

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FMV


Seriously though, does anybody else actually miss FMV games? I thought they were pretty terrible when I first found them, but after watching a bunch of let's plays of FMV games I've found I've grown really fond of their awkward charms. Realms of the Haunting is such an interesting and unique game that clicks with me on so many levels. It wouldn't have been nearly as good without the FMV.

Ripper and Phantasmagoria were probably the best things Spoony ever did. Does anybody else really wish he would have done more full LPs rather than just the shorter review style he settled on? I think those two series were funnier than almost anything else he did, and better than most LPs out there.​
 

Hawki

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Drathnoxis said:
Seriously though, does anybody else actually miss FMV games?
Not really. There's a few reasons, but in the scope of my experience with FMV games (mainly limited to Command and Conquer), there's a sense of disconnect between the live-action segments and the in-game stuff. Doesn't always gell well.
 

Chimpzy_v1legacy

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Is that Christopher Walken?

Well, that conclusively proves the superiority of FMV then. No amount of CG can properly convey the Walkeness of Christopher Walken.
 

Callate

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I kind of do- enough to pick up a cheap copy of Late Shift, at least. (Decent production values and acting, mediocre plotting, poor sign-posting of cause and effect.)

For all that it was rather a mess if you just played it once, for example, I thought some of the things Psychic Detective tried to do were quite interesting.

And I enjoyed Command and Conquer's cut-scenes. (No, I'm not proud.)

It's sort of odd that, for all that we've all but abandoned FMV filmed with real actors, we're still stuck with many of the weaknesses of the genre- the need to plot everything into limited dialogue trees and branching paths, pinning everything back into bottlenecks (sometimes, only ONE bottleneck) to prevent the number of options that are available from becoming too diverse to be workable for the development team.

I'm waiting for the resources of a AAA game (or even a single-A game) to be thrown at a text adventure. Now that could be a more accurately described "open world game".
 

gigastar

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The CG in Grey Goo was really good.

Id rather have decently directed FMVs tho.
 

Samtemdo8_v1legacy

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Of course you used Mass Effect as your example, funny enough when I first saw Mass Effect 1 I was blown away by the graphics and how realistic the human characters looked at the time, never seen anything like it in video games before. And we have since progressed beyond Mass Effect's still faces:

 

Gordon_4_v1legacy

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Samtemdo8 said:
Of course you used Mass Effect as your example, funny enough when I first saw Mass Effect 1 I was blown away by the graphics and how realistic the human characters looked at the time, never seen anything like it in video games before. And we have since progressed beyond Mass Effect's still faces:

I think the Mass Effect faces are more limited compared to Vaas here (aside from advances of course) is that Mass Effect's main character is supposed to be customizable so that limits their ability to emote compared to a character who's design is set in stone. That and the ME1 engine is janky as fuck.
 

Erttheking

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Hawki said:
Drathnoxis said:
Seriously though, does anybody else actually miss FMV games?
Not really. There's a few reasons, but in the scope of my experience with FMV games (mainly limited to Command and Conquer), there's a sense of disconnect between the live-action segments and the in-game stuff. Doesn't always gell well.
Also Command and Conquer had a bit where a live action person is giving a speech to a CG army and it just looks uncanny. Like you just walked into the Twilight Zone.
 

Bad Jim

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Gordon_4 said:
I think the Mass Effect faces are more limited compared to Vaas here (aside from advances of course) is that Mass Effect's main character is supposed to be customizable so that limits their ability to emote compared to a character who's design is set in stone. That and the ME1 engine is janky as fuck.
The difference is that the Vaas cutscene is important. If it doesn't look right, they do the mo-cap again until it does look right. Mass Effect has too many minor cutscenes for that kind of perfectionism, so in most cases they piece together premade animations, which keeps them within budget but looks a bit janky.
 

Vigormortis

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I miss FMV's combined with a mixture of cheap CGI and pre-rendered ingame assets.

Or, more to the point, I miss the point-and-click adventure games akin to Myst and Zork. A lot of modern takes on the genre feel devoid of that certain charm. They just don't feel right having high-budget in-game animations or CGI.

Having said that, I wouldn't trade our modern high-quality in-game cutscenes or high-budget CGI for a forced return to old FMVs. The cutscenes in games like Halo Wars or Grey Goo look incredible, while in-game cutscenes or cutscenes that use in-game assets, like those in games like Farcry 3 and Dota 2, look equally as fantastic.
 

BreakfastMan

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Man, if we could get a sequel to full Harvester, in that same style, I would die happy. That games was miles more fucked up than like 90% of horror games (especially modern ones), and it rules.
 

Drathnoxis

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CaitSeith said:
Drathnoxis said:
Seriously though, does anybody else actually miss FMV games?
One of the worst games of this year is FMV. So, no.
Which one was that? All I can think of is The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker, but that came out last year and was pretty interesting.
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
I think this says it all.
 

RobertEHouse

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"O" how memories fade of the past mistakes of FMV, bad acting and limited player interaction.

Because a few "indie" games made it look reasonable does not mean we should totally embraced it. As we might end up with major publishers thinking its a great idea to start again. Point and Click FMV Dragon's Age , anyone?... no thank you.
 

Recusant

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If I had to guess, Drathnoxis, it's not the FMV part that you find charming, it's the games themselves. And many of them were charming, in a lot of different ways; when I first played Riven, I had to stop every hour or so and go for a quick walk outside because the graphics were so good it was genuinely disconcerting.

And anyone who says we couldn't use more Wing Commander is just flat-out wrong (granted, it'd be made by EA, who killed the series even though the last game in it sold so well that they released the expansion pack for free, but the point stands).

The lure of FMV was in making things more "realistic", which is rarely a good motivation to do something in a video game- why would we even need games if reality was all that great?