Yeah, for a while there it looked like FMV games were destined to be the future of gaming. Thank goodness they weren't lol. But there are some good ones, but there's a TON of bad ones.
I still own nearly all of these Sega CD full motion video games, many of which were showcased but not mentioned, and others that were still displayed on the screen. During that time, I thoroughly enjoyed playing them. My personal favorites included titles like "Road Avenger," "Space Ace," "Mad Dog McCree," "Crime Patrol," and "Who Shot Johnny Rock?". Additionally, I had the opportunity to play "Mad Dog McCree" and "Crime Patrol" at my local arcade. The arcade versions provided a superior experience. I played them so frequently that I reached a point where I could complete them flawlessly without ever making a mistake or dying. Consequently, games such as "Revenge of the Ninja," "Dragon's Lair," "Tomcat Alley," "Surgical Strike," and similar titles typically lasted around 30 minutes. As mentioned by yourself and others, in order to truly appreciate them, one had to be present in that moment.
About the Congressional Hearing of 1993, I remember reading that Howard Lincoln bashed Night Trap stating that "you'll never see a product like that on a Nintendo console". The irony is that 25 years later it got ported to Switch.
All it took for Nintendo to backtrack on video game violence was the low sales of Mortal Kombat on the SNES compared to the Genesis and low and behold Mortal Kombat II on SNES had blood and all the fatalities.
Lol the fact that game was considered controversial is hilarious when you consider Mortal Kombat was released only a year later and was far more graphic
At 1 point in high school, I had the whole thing built (gen 1 Genesis, cd, 32x) and I fondly remember having these CD games: sewer shark, tomcat alley, jurassic park and racing aces
I was enamoured by the look of FMV and in my last year of school when the Mega CD released, I worked a weekend job solely to save up to buy one. It was also my/our first CD player and hooking it up to my Dad's stack system and hearing music not played on tape or record is a memory I'll always cherish. What I don't like to remember is selling the system (along with a copy of Snatcher) so I could afford to buy an N64...
Silpheed was great on Sega CD. You're absolutely right about it being a great template for what devs could've accomplished on the platform, but alas... And Merry Christmas, Sega Lord. Thanks for another year of amazing content.
I'm so glad you included Ground Zero Texas. It was my absolute favorite as a kid. I was super into sci-fi and so this game was perfect for me. I still play it occasionally, I really like the initial mystery of the alien invasion and then the 2nd half with the full invasion. Also, thumbs up for Night Trap and Sewer Shark. I loved the remaster of Night Trap. I hope someone gives the same treatment to Sewer Shark.
I played Sewer Shark a lot, and the biggest problems back then was figuring out when the next turn point was because the screen was a mixture of being too small, too pixelated, and not enough colors making it hard to see the upcoming turns.
That was the first FMV game I ever played. I remember being amazed by it, even though the picture quality was terrible, it was still an interactive movie
Thanks for dedicating an episode actually naming & praising FMV games. Sure, gamers in that era (like me) can say iykyk, but spelling out why these cheesy but ahead-of-their-time games were fun is important for appreciation & game conservation 🧙🏿♂️🎮✖️
Double Switch was my favorite FMV from back then. I enjoyed Ground Zero Texas as well but only played it briefly as a rental. Screaming Villains brought back several of these FMV games on PC (Corpse Killer, Double Switch, Ground Zero Texas, and Night Trap ).
I'm another fan of Double Switch. I wrote a long list of activities/events that were required to advance in the game, and eventually watched the ending.
@@jeremyf1901I called William Sessions, the former head of the FBI, whose name was on the screen that said "winners don't do drugs". He's going to come to your house and send Officer Justice Fist from N.A.R.C to punch you out for emulating ROMs that you don't own. You just admitted it. Please don't leave home until you have been punched, sir. Since you admitted breaking federal copyright law, you have to stay at home or else you can get busted on RICO charges of crossing state lines while emulating. This is a serious offense. Haven't you ever seen "Scared Straight"? Some big biker dude is gonna sell your virgin butthole to Big Jim for a deck of smokes. You don't wanna go to prison, do ya? They'd turn you out. 😂😮
Thanks for covering this. What a great list! I too remember what it was like to see FMV come out and play on my 16-bit Genesis via the Sega CD for the first time. I actually was a fan of Sewer Shark and played that game all the way to the end a couple of times. I also loved Tomcat Alley. Say what you will but these FMVs made me want to be a retro gamer after I sold my orginal Sega CD. These games have a charm of their own. These games are also the reason why I prefer to use a composite video connection with my Sega Genesis because it helps to blend the graininess of the video and help produce colors on screen well beyond the 64 color limit of the hardware. What is great is that many of these games are now on Steam with improved picture quality.
Enjoyed your picks! I still watch playthroughs of Dracula Unleashed and the Sherlock Holmes series to this day for some nostalgia and mental recharging. Happy to see someone covering FMV games positively.
I think a lot of people just shoot down a lot of titles hearing “FMV” in the description and never give it a chance, like if Dracula Unleashed was a 100% sprite-based point & click game like the LucasArts SCUMM titles it would’ve been considered a classic.
I'm always impressed with how you keep coming up with fun ideas for your videos. You never fail to keep us entertained with this stuff. Road Avenger is the one I remember most vividly. First time I saw that game running at a Toys R Us, I really I thought it was the start of an age of playable anime movies!
Not only did Road Avenger feature a new song, but ALL of the sound was redone with the exception of the little ditty that plays right before the J-WALK song starts. That alone makes it 10x better than other versions which use the wimpy original sound. They also redid all of the sound for Cobra Command, which might be my #2 FMV game on the platform.
Digital Pictures was responsible for shooting the video in a lot of the titles you listed. Tom Zito headed them up back then and said they always recorded in HD. It was Sega’s horrible video and audio compression that turned things “grainy”. I loved FMV games! But as most are aware…. Even great games would have FMV scenes repeat frequently. Still…. Grinding through TomCat Alley and Ground Zero Texas were some of my all time favorites. Ground Zero Texas actually just recently got a full HD remake!!! Side note…. I picked up the entire library of Sega CD titles for $5 each back in the day when Toys-r-Us pulled the products off the shelves. I was so proud of my sweet score.
Sega CD FMV was my jam back then. The grainy video was just cool to see a video game console be able to do that. Played pretty much all the Digital Pictures games and enjoyed most of them. They all had some pretty entertaining plots.
I couldn't agree with you more Sega Lord X. Road Avenger was my absolute favorite the songs get stuck in your head just a great game. Awesome ending everything. Thanks brother nice walk down memory lane for 47-year-old me.
I will try some of these old classics for the first time in many years this weekend. Thanks for the memories1 By the way, Night Trap, Corpse Killer and Double Switch are available in anniversary editions on modern consoles.
Mansion of Hidden Souls was incredible on Sega CD. The music and voice acting created such a beautiful yet terrifying ambiance. Top recomendation. Way better on Sega CD than Saturn.
So many good ones! Some I didn't know about. I still remember when dad got me the sega CD. That night we stayed up late taking turns playing Sewer Sharks.
tomcat alley will never not be immensely funny to me (i'm french, and the french version has *atrocious* voice acting), but i think my favorite "pure" fmv game is rebel assault, despite the immense loss of video quality compared to pc. i feel games like rdf global conflict and iron helix are worth mentioning, too ; they weren't stricktly "fmv" games and only used them as actual cutscenes (rdf being basically a tank version of wing commander, and iron helix always felt like a robotic space survival horror to me) and that's the way fmv always felt better used to me : to boost the narrative element without compromising the gameplay, not with full-on "interactive movies". that's also why "background fmv" games like silpheed (which actually is my favorite mega cd game, period, i still remember how it felt seeing this for the first time in 1993), starblade or novastorm work so well.
The FMV background and sprites really mesh well in silpheed All other shooters that use FMV background that I've seen have the interactive graphics that really clash with the FMV background
I liked Sewer Shark. It was the game I had the most fun with, when I got a Sega CD at Christmas 1992. Merry Christmas to you and yours, Lordster! SEEEEEEEEGAAAAAAAAAAA!
Yeah it will always baffle me why Sega didn't up the color palette. That, for me, was the biggest disappointment with the platform, cuz it was the biggest difference between Sega and their main competitor. (In my view.)
If the fantastic Silpheed is included, I think that just about allows one of my all time favourites from the days of the Mega/Sega CD which was Jurassic Park. I put a lot of time into that one and played it over and over. I was 12 when JP came out, and it absolutely blew me away, I watched it 5 times in the cinema with anyone I could convince to go with me. So, that may have something to do with it as I also loved the Mega Drive/Genesis JP games!
I was in 5th grade. I was only allowed a glimpse at fmv games from 5 minutes I ended up in a cool older stoner kid’s house during a comic book trade. He made it seem like some next level that I wasn’t cool enough to be privy to. I believed it. I spent months saving up. And I got a very, very valuable lesson in books and their covers.
I enjoyed that Sherlock Holmes FMV "game." It was even less a game than Dracula, but I liked the acting and it was nice to play a part in a Sherlock mystery.
Night Trap, Ground Zero Texas, as well as Double Switch, Corpse Killer, and Kids On Site are all on Steam with updated higher quality video. I really wish they would put out Sewer Shark.
Shout out to Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective (at 19:06) It actually decent because it's first and foremost a game, and then just uses FMV to give it some Sherlock Holmes TV show vibes - it's not an FMV game, it's a game that uses FMVs. Dracula Unleashed looks like it would be a similar game, but from your description it's essentially a Visual Novel? Going to try it out for sure, thanks for highlighting it! Mansion of the Hidden Souls reminds me of The 7th Guest, at least on initial impression. Going to check it out as well
Dracula Unleashed was actually done by the same developers as Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective games, ICOM Simulations, the same studio that did Shadowgate! In fact, it was the last one they did before being engulfed into Viacom's gaming division. All three of those games are great adventure titles! A shame though the never ported Consulting Detective Vol. III anywhere outside PC/Mac.
@@DatBeastard Oh, and they made Deja Vu as well - their portfolio of unique adventure experiences is pretty awesome! Now I definitely will check out Dracula Unleashed.
2:46 Actually, it is a common misconception that Toei created the animated cutscenes in Sonic CD. That work was ACTUALLY done by Studio Junio. So no, Toei has NEVER “touched Sonic”, as you said. Have a Happy New Year.
I was a Sega fan through and through and somehow convinced my patents to buy me the Sega CD on release day. As others here commented, you had to be there. These blew me away at the time and i still enjoy a lot of them. Road Avenger will always be my favorite, but i really liked Dracula Unleashed (?) and quite a few others .
I didn't get to play most of these because my Sega CD died on me. I had just rented Bram Stoker's Dracula from Blockbuster when I realized my system was dead. I did get to enjoy Ground Zero Texas.
I somewhat enjoy the FMV games of the time for their simplicity. Not to say there are some absolute stinkers for sure but there's something about playing games like Time Gal or just sitting back and piecing together the clues in Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective that I enjoy. Great video and picks! I'll need to check out that Kamen Rider game.
I wish they adder the 32x chip inside the sega cd add-on in place of the scaler and cpu. If they wanted scaler and cpu with it then, they'll have to delayed it and still add the 32x vdp.
@@maroon9273 it was a bit of a mess but also kinda cool that the 32x was an upgrade for both the CD and the cartridge console. That zombie lightgun shooter looked pretty cool at the time on 32X CD.
I got Night Trap with the Sega CD, or as the first non pack-in game atleast. As disappointing as it was I spent alot of time replaying and trying to learn it. Its part of the memories I have with the system even though I dont like the game. In the end I wrote down all the camera times, password changes on an envelope, after getting them out of a magazine and I used that to easily beat the game. Road Avenger and Sewer Shark were my favorite FMV games, and ones that I really enjoyed. They hit right. Time Gal was also a quality FMV game. Sewer Shark had pretty solid and engaging gameplay and the presentation was very unique to me at the time. Biggest anoyance was unclear instructions on how to turn into the re-fueling stations which I could not figure out for a while. Once I figured out how that worked I really enjoyed the game and completed it. Beating it again on the 3DO through emulation I still enjoyed it. It was more impactful at that time though. The tech was what made it more exciting. Road Avenger has great animation and made me want to see it through to the end. Simple controls but it kept me engaged until I memorised it. The best games on that add on definately werent the FMV games, but it was something new at the time. Lethal Enforcers just came to mind too. I had some fun with that one as well. Will have to give Silpheed a second look. Completed the PS2 version and really enjoyed it.
I think I wrote down when and where the passwords were changed so I could get the information. You can definately use notes to easily beat the game.@@GeorgeWeeman
Full motion, video games are what made the Sega cd great I’ll never forget playing mad, dog and crime patrol with the light gun good times revolutionary for the time
I love Road Avenger! Just yesterday, I was talking about it to my son (who was born in 1992) and trying to explain why I loved it so much. Glad to see I'm not alone.
Thanks for the FMV/Laserdisc love SLX, as these types of games are often the "red headed" step children of the industry. I love these types of games, and they never get the appreciation they sorely deserve, as some really created games came from this technology. My biggest issue with these games on the SEGA CD happened to be with the grainy video quality, and not so much the actual games themselves.
I think games like the Batman racers and Soul Star show that the Sega CD was actually a pretty significant upgrade over the base system, and I wish there were more games that used it to it's full potential. There were a number of adventure games on the PC that used a mix of FMV and regular point and click gameplay that I think would have been a much better fit. As opposed to all the quicktime stuff we ended up with. Phantasmagoria 1 and 2 are good examples of this. Also, games like the MacVenture series ( Shadow Gate, Uninvited, De Ja Vu ) could have been made as well.
I ABSOLUTELY LOVE Sewer Shark! It's my favorite Sega CD game. Robert Costanzo's Stenchler is hilarious! David Underwood as Ghost is fun as hell and always reminded me of Christian Slater. Catfish was funny. And Keri Peyton (Falco) and Stevie Sterling (Friday) were entertaining and gorgeous.
I personally think Fahrenheit is pretty good, it really does feel like you have the choice of where to go and it is rewarding when you try something and it works. I also turn off the assistance menu for more immersion. It looks like they just used primitive filters and simple effects to make the building look like its on fire which is fun to try and spot. I have always hated those fmv games where you are moving a cursor over the screen to shoot the background, lots of fmv pc games are like that.
The Lawnmower Man on Sega CD (I've played the DOS version though) is one of the craziest games I've ever played. You should see it just for the sheer madness of it.
sega's decision making regarding the cd add-on will always be a perplexing case of what could have been. i mean, it had two competing 16-bit platforms in nec and nintendo to emulate into leveraging their cd technology into some kind of success. nec used their cd tech combined with memory upgrades to fill their library with games that featured arcade quality effects along with improved stereo sound. practically every variety of game genre was represented on the cd platform. nintendo; while lacking a cd platform of its own, utilized specialty chips to do essentially the same thing as nec; pack its library with games featuring arcade-like visual effects with great sound. all sega had to do was replicate its competitors moves, and while the sega/mega cd might not have become a runaway hit, it would at the very least have been a fruitful experiment. i'd like to imagine in an alternate universe somewhere, there's a version of sega that has a library of cd exclusive versions of its popular cartridge titles like ninja turtles cd, street fighter 2 cd, golden axe cd, super monaco cd, thunderblade cd, etc...that used more arcade accurate color palettes, larger arcade-like sprites, and hardware scaling. And in that alternate universe there is a version of me who has overwhelmingly positive memories of owning a sega cd rather than someone who feels cheated out of $300.
I had a lot of these titles back then. It was definitely something different. I was just getting into Anime at the time and enjoyed those FMV games: Road Avenger, Cobra Command, and Time Gal.
I remember my cousin got his hands on the Sega CD first, and at the time, Sewer Shark was mind blowing. We had never seen anything like it, grainy screen and all, and were mesmerized. Great memories.
I've just recently been able to play the Sega CD FMV games for the first time, and Revenge of the Ninja is the most addicting for me. It jumps right in, there's no huge plot-heavy intro or any of that.
i absolutely loved road avenger ( i've always wanted a clear copy of that intro song- sadly its apparently lost media D:) and played a ton of mansion of hidden souls- though over here we got it as 'Yumemi mystery mansion' - its hallway always reminds me of resident evil 1's mansison!
Totally agree with Road Avenger as number 1, the intro got me into the band Jaywalk (the Japanese version of the intro also sung by them is also great), Tomcat Alley took so many post school evenings away from me, would finish it and replay it. Another good FMV title was Time Gal, though the levels were short at around 20 seconds in some cases.
Yes Mansion of Hidden Souls is great for what it does and how it presents it. When the Saturn port came around I was pleasantly surprised that it /wasn't/ a bad rehash of a good game.
Years ago, I was trying to spread the idea to Sony to do a full VR remake of Sewer Shark for a pack-in on the PSVR2...and get Michael Ironside to play Ghost. A full VR game in actual video with Ironside yelling at you the whole time. Sign me up.
I remember playing the lethal enforcers games and some other western style light gun a lot on my sega cd. Supreme Warrior was fun for me too because I love old school kung fu movies and Dracula Unleashed was fun for the time. I don't think I could go back and enjoy many of these games now but back then they definitely were different than your other home console games at the time.
Back in 92 we knew nothing about the mechanics behind the gameplay of these games. We saw the beautiful images on the magazines and thought that we could control every movement of those characters in real time.... Well, the truth couldn't be more shockingly desappointing. 😢
Night Trap - When I first played this, I thought it was a pretty original and well done use of FMV. The way everything happens in real time really gives the illusion that you're watching actual security camera. Unfortunately, while the biggest draw of the game is watching the goings on in the house, you don't get to enjoy any of it because you have to devote 100% of your time to catching the Augers and watching for the code changes. In the later portion of the game, you have to frantically switch cameras and even then sometimes the timing is so tight that you start missing your chance to trap Augers and then it's game over. I once tried using a walkthrough that told you which camera to switch to and when, and I still wasn't able to beat it. I think the absolute best use of FMV I've seen in a game was in one of Densha De Go games, although I forget which platform it was for. Since you're controlling a train, which is literally on rails, real video can be used to depict the route, simply being sped up or slowed down to match your train's speed. The only thing to break the illusion are things like cars or people. but I don't recall seeing too many in the video that I watched.
When you mentioned Sewer Shark in your Mini Genesis 2 video, you said it was a turd and not worth anyone's time. I responded that it was a victim of people not reading the instruction manual and that it was pretty fun if you took the time to understand how to play it. You then responded that I was wrong and that it was total shit. Thank you for whatever chance you gave it to have your opinion shift, since then.
Different frame of reference, man. As I made the point in the video, I do not hold any love for these games today. Most would be on a worst of list against traditional gaming on the Sega CD. FMV is definitely a love/hate thing even if you have some fond memories of this stuff.
Never having played an FMV game, i must withhold judgement. But i always drooled over Dragon's Lair in the arcade. I just didn't wanna fork put the $1 for one life.
After the fall of TellTale games I wonder if FMV story driven games are simply a cyclical fascination that will rise and fall every few years. I'm still such a sucker for them that I'm just glad they happened in the first place. Also Sewer Shark was amazing just for the way it lampooned 90s EXTREME pop culture as it was already happening. What a time to be alive.
This stuff was mind blowing in 1992. Again, you just had to be there.
Amen brother
Although not a Sega game I'll never lose nostalgia for wing commander
Yeah, for a while there it looked like FMV games were destined to be the future of gaming. Thank goodness they weren't lol. But there are some good ones, but there's a TON of bad ones.
I was there and it WAS mind blowing to see games with FMV after playing 8 and 16 bit games. It was an exciting time!
Yup
I still own nearly all of these Sega CD full motion video games, many of which were showcased but not mentioned, and others that were still displayed on the screen. During that time, I thoroughly enjoyed playing them. My personal favorites included titles like "Road Avenger," "Space Ace," "Mad Dog McCree," "Crime Patrol," and "Who Shot Johnny Rock?". Additionally, I had the opportunity to play "Mad Dog McCree" and "Crime Patrol" at my local arcade. The arcade versions provided a superior experience. I played them so frequently that I reached a point where I could complete them flawlessly without ever making a mistake or dying. Consequently, games such as "Revenge of the Ninja," "Dragon's Lair," "Tomcat Alley," "Surgical Strike," and similar titles typically lasted around 30 minutes.
As mentioned by yourself and others, in order to truly appreciate them, one had to be present in that moment.
About the Congressional Hearing of 1993, I remember reading that Howard Lincoln bashed Night Trap stating that "you'll never see a product like that on a Nintendo console". The irony is that 25 years later it got ported to Switch.
All it took for Nintendo to backtrack on video game violence was the low sales of Mortal Kombat on the SNES compared to the Genesis and low and behold Mortal Kombat II on SNES had blood and all the fatalities.
Lol the fact that game was considered controversial is hilarious when you consider Mortal Kombat was released only a year later and was far more graphic
At 1 point in high school, I had the whole thing built (gen 1 Genesis, cd, 32x) and I fondly remember having these CD games: sewer shark, tomcat alley, jurassic park and racing aces
I was enamoured by the look of FMV and in my last year of school when the Mega CD released, I worked a weekend job solely to save up to buy one. It was also my/our first CD player and hooking it up to my Dad's stack system and hearing music not played on tape or record is a memory I'll always cherish. What I don't like to remember is selling the system (along with a copy of Snatcher) so I could afford to buy an N64...
Silpheed was great on Sega CD. You're absolutely right about it being a great template for what devs could've accomplished on the platform, but alas...
And Merry Christmas, Sega Lord. Thanks for another year of amazing content.
I'm so glad you included Ground Zero Texas. It was my absolute favorite as a kid. I was super into sci-fi and so this game was perfect for me. I still play it occasionally, I really like the initial mystery of the alien invasion and then the 2nd half with the full invasion. Also, thumbs up for Night Trap and Sewer Shark. I loved the remaster of Night Trap. I hope someone gives the same treatment to Sewer Shark.
I played Sewer Shark a lot, and the biggest problems back then was figuring out when the next turn point was because the screen was a mixture of being too small, too pixelated, and not enough colors making it hard to see the upcoming turns.
When I first heard that name I couldn't imagine anything except a turd lol
That was the first FMV game I ever played. I remember being amazed by it, even though the picture quality was terrible, it was still an interactive movie
You use the arrows down at the bottom of the screen and, later, the bird typically gave at least two full seconds of telegraphing each turn.
My biggest issue was how slowly the reticle moved across the screen with the game pad.
@@ShaneRimmerWorld
The more you play it, the more you'll find you don't need to move it that far, honestly.
Thanks for dedicating an episode actually naming & praising FMV games. Sure, gamers in that era (like me) can say iykyk, but spelling out why these cheesy but ahead-of-their-time games were fun is important for appreciation & game conservation 🧙🏿♂️🎮✖️
Cobra Command was where it was at for me. I absolutely loved that game.
Same here. My friend could finish it on one credit.
You nailed it with your thoughts at the end. Sega CD forever fam.
Double Switch was my favorite FMV from back then. I enjoyed Ground Zero Texas as well but only played it briefly as a rental. Screaming Villains brought back several of these FMV games on PC (Corpse Killer, Double Switch, Ground Zero Texas, and Night Trap ).
Double switch was great it was way better then night trap
I'm another fan of Double Switch. I wrote a long list of activities/events that were required to advance in the game, and eventually watched the ending.
Your vids are making me want to invest in a bunch of old tech I don't need.
Right! I’m settling on emulation
Who doesn't need a Sega CD?! Lol
@@ienjoihopps2767 I dunno...Sounds to me like someone needs a Sega CD haha
@@jeremyf1901I called William Sessions, the former head of the FBI, whose name was on the screen that said "winners don't do drugs". He's going to come to your house and send Officer Justice Fist from N.A.R.C to punch you out for emulating ROMs that you don't own. You just admitted it. Please don't leave home until you have been punched, sir. Since you admitted breaking federal copyright law, you have to stay at home or else you can get busted on RICO charges of crossing state lines while emulating.
This is a serious offense. Haven't you ever seen "Scared Straight"? Some big biker dude is gonna sell your virgin butthole to Big Jim for a deck of smokes.
You don't wanna go to prison, do ya? They'd turn you out. 😂😮
I believe some people don't even know what emulation @@jeremyf1901
Happy Holidays Sega Lord X! Partly thanks to your Sega enthusiasm I started collecting Mega CD and Sega 32X. I just completed the NTSC 32X set, CiB.
Sewer Shark blew me away at the time. It sucks as a game but it's fun as hell to watch. My buddies and I still quote it to this day. Classic.
I never liked the actual game, but the actor who played the evil commissioner was great.
Shoot the tubes, Dogmeat!
@@billcook4768 Who doesn't love Dime Store Danny DeVito?
@@chrisbg99 Put some respect on Robert Costanzo's name
@@billcook4768
He was also Arnold's best friend, the construction worker, in Total Recall.
This is the first time I've heard anyone say anything nice about Sewer Shark. I remember magazines roasting it brutally even when it was new.
When I think of FMV games I think of Night Trap, I think that's absolutely the most well known one by miles! Wish we had more stuff like that now
You are weird man.
Thanks for covering this. What a great list! I too remember what it was like to see FMV come out and play on my 16-bit Genesis via the Sega CD for the first time. I actually was a fan of Sewer Shark and played that game all the way to the end a couple of times. I also loved Tomcat Alley. Say what you will but these FMVs made me want to be a retro gamer after I sold my orginal Sega CD. These games have a charm of their own. These games are also the reason why I prefer to use a composite video connection with my Sega Genesis because it helps to blend the graininess of the video and help produce colors on screen well beyond the 64 color limit of the hardware. What is great is that many of these games are now on Steam with improved picture quality.
Enjoyed your picks! I still watch playthroughs of Dracula Unleashed and the Sherlock Holmes series to this day for some nostalgia and mental recharging. Happy to see someone covering FMV games positively.
I think a lot of people just shoot down a lot of titles hearing “FMV” in the description and never give it a chance, like if Dracula Unleashed was a 100% sprite-based point & click game like the LucasArts SCUMM titles it would’ve been considered a classic.
I remember back in the day they thought this is how the future of movie theaters would be the audience would have some kind of interaction lol
I'm always impressed with how you keep coming up with fun ideas for your videos. You never fail to keep us entertained with this stuff. Road Avenger is the one I remember most vividly. First time I saw that game running at a Toys R Us, I really I thought it was the start of an age of playable anime movies!
I used to play Sewer Shark and Corpse Killer a lot as a kid. I never beat Sewer Shark but I did beat Corpse Killer a few times
Not only did Road Avenger feature a new song, but ALL of the sound was redone with the exception of the little ditty that plays right before the J-WALK song starts. That alone makes it 10x better than other versions which use the wimpy original sound. They also redid all of the sound for Cobra Command, which might be my #2 FMV game on the platform.
Cobra Command would have been #11 for me. I enjoyed it as well.
Digital Pictures was responsible for shooting the video in a lot of the titles you listed. Tom Zito headed them up back then and said they always recorded in HD. It was Sega’s horrible video and audio compression that turned things “grainy”.
I loved FMV games!
But as most are aware…. Even great games would have FMV scenes repeat frequently.
Still…. Grinding through TomCat Alley and Ground Zero Texas were some of my all time favorites.
Ground Zero Texas actually just recently got a full HD remake!!!
Side note….
I picked up the entire library of Sega CD titles for $5 each back in the day when Toys-r-Us pulled the products off the shelves.
I was so proud of my sweet score.
Tomcat Alley 😄😍😍 great call, Sega Lord!
Sega CD FMV was my jam back then. The grainy video was just cool to see a video game console be able to do that. Played pretty much all the Digital Pictures games and enjoyed most of them. They all had some pretty entertaining plots.
Sonic CD and Silpheed sold me on the Sega CD. Never regretted my purchase. Didn't realize the stages In Silpheed were FMV.
You are the best. Funny how excited I can get over content like this. Thanks.
Glad you enjoy it!
I remember playing Time Gal on the Sega CD and thought how cool it was to play an anime game
I couldn't agree with you more Sega Lord X. Road Avenger was my absolute favorite the songs get stuck in your head just a great game. Awesome ending everything. Thanks brother nice walk down memory lane for 47-year-old me.
These reviews are golden. 🎄
Thanks from New Zealand Mr. Lord. Still spinning SEGA CDs down by the south pole
I will try some of these old classics for the first time in many years this weekend. Thanks for the memories1 By the way, Night Trap, Corpse Killer and Double Switch are available in anniversary editions on modern consoles.
Mansion of Hidden Souls was incredible on Sega CD. The music and voice acting created such a beautiful yet terrifying ambiance.
Top recomendation. Way better on Sega CD than Saturn.
So many good ones! Some I didn't know about.
I still remember when dad got me the sega CD. That night we stayed up late taking turns playing Sewer Sharks.
tomcat alley will never not be immensely funny to me (i'm french, and the french version has *atrocious* voice acting), but i think my favorite "pure" fmv game is rebel assault, despite the immense loss of video quality compared to pc.
i feel games like rdf global conflict and iron helix are worth mentioning, too ; they weren't stricktly "fmv" games and only used them as actual cutscenes (rdf being basically a tank version of wing commander, and iron helix always felt like a robotic space survival horror to me) and that's the way fmv always felt better used to me : to boost the narrative element without compromising the gameplay, not with full-on "interactive movies". that's also why "background fmv" games like silpheed (which actually is my favorite mega cd game, period, i still remember how it felt seeing this for the first time in 1993), starblade or novastorm work so well.
The FMV background and sprites really mesh well in silpheed
All other shooters that use FMV background that I've seen have the interactive graphics that really clash with the FMV background
Night Trap is a cheese classic!
I have the anniversary release on modern consoles
I liked Sewer Shark. It was the game I had the most fun with, when I got a Sega CD at Christmas 1992. Merry Christmas to you and yours, Lordster! SEEEEEEEEGAAAAAAAAAAA!
The game was challenging, fun, and the "SEGA 90s attitude" was off the charts, with the actors in the game. 😂
Yeah it will always baffle me why Sega didn't up the color palette. That, for me, was the biggest disappointment with the platform, cuz it was the biggest difference between Sega and their main competitor. (In my view.)
If the fantastic Silpheed is included, I think that just about allows one of my all time favourites from the days of the Mega/Sega CD which was Jurassic Park. I put a lot of time into that one and played it over and over. I was 12 when JP came out, and it absolutely blew me away, I watched it 5 times in the cinema with anyone I could convince to go with me. So, that may have something to do with it as I also loved the Mega Drive/Genesis JP games!
Sega Lord X Merry Christmas Happy New Year thanks for all you do
Thank you. Appreciate the comment.
I was in 5th grade. I was only allowed a glimpse at fmv games from 5 minutes I ended up in a cool older stoner kid’s house during a comic book trade.
He made it seem like some next level that I wasn’t cool enough to be privy to. I believed it. I spent months saving up. And I got a very, very valuable lesson in books and their covers.
Surgical Strike is incredible as well. It really feels like you're blowing everything to Hell.
Road Avenger not being on the Sega Mini 2 was a crime.
this channel never fails to bring me back to my own childhood.
SEGA Lord X was there when it all went down, and you can tell
I just love how many FMV games are on the PS4. ❤
I enjoyed that Sherlock Holmes FMV "game." It was even less a game than Dracula, but I liked the acting and it was nice to play a part in a Sherlock mystery.
idk why but you saying "the Drac is back" made me laugh
I love how you continue to time stamp just like your classic videos!
Thanks!
Night Trap, Ground Zero Texas, as well as Double Switch, Corpse Killer, and Kids On Site are all on Steam with updated higher quality video. I really wish they would put out Sewer Shark.
Oh man, The moment i saw sewer shark at my pals house in ‘93
Vs 10 min later when we popped Sonic back in.
The right choice.
Shout out to Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective (at 19:06) It actually decent because it's first and foremost a game, and then just uses FMV to give it some Sherlock Holmes TV show vibes - it's not an FMV game, it's a game that uses FMVs. Dracula Unleashed looks like it would be a similar game, but from your description it's essentially a Visual Novel? Going to try it out for sure, thanks for highlighting it!
Mansion of the Hidden Souls reminds me of The 7th Guest, at least on initial impression. Going to check it out as well
Dracula Unleashed was actually done by the same developers as Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective games, ICOM Simulations, the same studio that did Shadowgate! In fact, it was the last one they did before being engulfed into Viacom's gaming division. All three of those games are great adventure titles! A shame though the never ported Consulting Detective Vol. III anywhere outside PC/Mac.
@@DatBeastard Oh, and they made Deja Vu as well - their portfolio of unique adventure experiences is pretty awesome! Now I definitely will check out Dracula Unleashed.
Aw man, no Time Gal? I loved that one. But yeah, FMV is so weird, but so unique....
2:46 Actually, it is a common misconception that Toei created the animated cutscenes in Sonic CD. That work was ACTUALLY done by Studio Junio. So no, Toei has NEVER “touched Sonic”, as you said. Have a Happy New Year.
I loved FMV games. My favorite still on the Sega CD is Sewer Shark
ROAD AVENGER! My third favourite Sega CD game only next to Snatcher and Space Adventure Cobra
I was a Sega fan through and through and somehow convinced my patents to buy me the Sega CD on release day. As others here commented, you had to be there. These blew me away at the time and i still enjoy a lot of them. Road Avenger will always be my favorite, but i really liked Dracula Unleashed (?) and quite a few others .
I really like the genre. Plus it was very impressive to see at the time. Ground Zero Texas, Surgical Strike and Night Trap are some of my favourites.
more sega cd content, love to see it
I didn't get to play most of these because my Sega CD died on me. I had just rented Bram Stoker's Dracula from Blockbuster when I realized my system was dead. I did get to enjoy Ground Zero Texas.
I somewhat enjoy the FMV games of the time for their simplicity. Not to say there are some absolute stinkers for sure but there's something about playing games like Time Gal or just sitting back and piecing together the clues in Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective that I enjoy. Great video and picks! I'll need to check out that Kamen Rider game.
19:40 As for the colour palette. The 32x paired with the MegaCD addressed that.
I wish they adder the 32x chip inside the sega cd add-on in place of the scaler and cpu. If they wanted scaler and cpu with it then, they'll have to delayed it and still add the 32x vdp.
@@maroon9273 it was a bit of a mess but also kinda cool that the 32x was an upgrade for both the CD and the cartridge console. That zombie lightgun shooter looked pretty cool at the time on 32X CD.
I got Night Trap with the Sega CD, or as the first non pack-in game atleast. As disappointing as it was I spent alot of time replaying and trying to learn it. Its part of the memories I have with the system even though I dont like the game. In the end I wrote down all the camera times, password changes on an envelope, after getting them out of a magazine and I used that to easily beat the game.
Road Avenger and Sewer Shark were my favorite FMV games, and ones that I really enjoyed. They hit right. Time Gal was also a quality FMV game. Sewer Shark had pretty solid and engaging gameplay and the presentation was very unique to me at the time. Biggest anoyance was unclear instructions on how to turn into the re-fueling stations which I could not figure out for a while. Once I figured out how that worked I really enjoyed the game and completed it. Beating it again on the 3DO through emulation I still enjoyed it. It was more impactful at that time though. The tech was what made it more exciting. Road Avenger has great animation and made me want to see it through to the end. Simple controls but it kept me engaged until I memorised it. The best games on that add on definately werent the FMV games, but it was something new at the time.
Lethal Enforcers just came to mind too. I had some fun with that one as well. Will have to give Silpheed a second look. Completed the PS2 version and really enjoyed it.
Writing down the passwords didn't really help much considering they were randomly picked. Great game though!
I think I wrote down when and where the passwords were changed so I could get the information. You can definately use notes to easily beat the game.@@GeorgeWeeman
I like the new outro! ❤❤
Thanks for letting me know.
Full motion, video games are what made the Sega cd great I’ll never forget playing mad, dog and crime patrol with the light gun good times revolutionary for the time
No Double Switch? 😳😭
Some of these I never seen before, great vid dude!👍👍
Loves this video. I will never forget the first time I saw Sewer Shark and Sonic CD cutscenes.
I love Road Avenger! Just yesterday, I was talking about it to my son (who was born in 1992) and trying to explain why I loved it so much. Glad to see I'm not alone.
Thanks for the FMV/Laserdisc love SLX, as these types of games are often the "red headed" step children of the industry. I love these types of games, and they never get the appreciation they sorely deserve, as some really created games came from this technology. My biggest issue with these games on the SEGA CD happened to be with the grainy video quality, and not so much the actual games themselves.
I think games like the Batman racers and Soul Star show that the Sega CD was actually a pretty significant upgrade over the base system, and I wish there were more games that used it to it's full potential. There were a number of adventure games on the PC that used a mix of FMV and regular point and click gameplay that I think would have been a much better fit. As opposed to all the quicktime stuff we ended up with. Phantasmagoria 1 and 2 are good examples of this. Also, games like the MacVenture series ( Shadow Gate, Uninvited, De Ja Vu ) could have been made as well.
I ABSOLUTELY LOVE Sewer Shark!
It's my favorite Sega CD game.
Robert Costanzo's Stenchler is hilarious!
David Underwood as Ghost is fun as hell and always reminded me of Christian Slater.
Catfish was funny.
And Keri Peyton (Falco) and Stevie Sterling (Friday) were entertaining and gorgeous.
David Underwood reminded me a lot of Dennis Quaid in Innerspace, with a touch of R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket.
Catfish reminded me a bit too much of Slim Pickens voicing the old robot they found in Disney's The Black Hole, but I guess I might be showing my age
@@swampdonkey4919 yes. Definitely Dennis Quaid
@@ShaneRimmerWorld I remember that movie. I guess I can see the comparison.
I personally think Fahrenheit is pretty good, it really does feel like you have the choice of where to go and it is rewarding when you try something and it works. I also turn off the assistance menu for more immersion. It looks like they just used primitive filters and simple effects to make the building look like its on fire which is fun to try and spot. I have always hated those fmv games where you are moving a cursor over the screen to shoot the background, lots of fmv pc games are like that.
The Lawnmower Man on Sega CD (I've played the DOS version though) is one of the craziest games I've ever played. You should see it just for the sheer madness of it.
sega's decision making regarding the cd add-on will always be a perplexing case of what could have been. i mean, it had two competing 16-bit platforms in nec and nintendo to emulate into leveraging their cd technology into some kind of success. nec used their cd tech combined with memory upgrades to fill their library with games that featured arcade quality effects along with improved stereo sound. practically every variety of game genre was represented on the cd platform. nintendo; while lacking a cd platform of its own, utilized specialty chips to do essentially the same thing as nec; pack its library with games featuring arcade-like visual effects with great sound. all sega had to do was replicate its competitors moves, and while the sega/mega cd might not have become a runaway hit, it would at the very least have been a fruitful experiment.
i'd like to imagine in an alternate universe somewhere, there's a version of sega that has a library of cd exclusive versions of its popular cartridge titles like ninja turtles cd, street fighter 2 cd, golden axe cd, super monaco cd, thunderblade cd, etc...that used more arcade accurate color palettes, larger arcade-like sprites, and hardware scaling. And in that alternate universe there is a version of me who has overwhelmingly positive memories of owning a sega cd rather than someone who feels cheated out of $300.
Brutal Paws of Fury, Sewer Shark and Microcosm were the 3 sega cd games i owned back in the day
I had a lot of these titles back then. It was definitely something different.
I was just getting into Anime at the time and enjoyed those FMV games: Road Avenger, Cobra Command, and Time Gal.
I remember my cousin got his hands on the Sega CD first, and at the time, Sewer Shark was mind blowing. We had never seen anything like it, grainy screen and all, and were mesmerized. Great memories.
I've just recently been able to play the Sega CD FMV games for the first time, and Revenge of the Ninja is the most addicting for me. It jumps right in, there's no huge plot-heavy intro or any of that.
i absolutely loved road avenger ( i've always wanted a clear copy of that intro song- sadly its apparently lost media D:)
and played a ton of mansion of hidden souls- though over here we got it as 'Yumemi mystery mansion' - its hallway always reminds me of resident evil 1's mansison!
Totally agree with Road Avenger as number 1, the intro got me into the band Jaywalk (the Japanese version of the intro also sung by them is also great), Tomcat Alley took so many post school evenings away from me, would finish it and replay it. Another good FMV title was Time Gal, though the levels were short at around 20 seconds in some cases.
I have 7 of these. I for into Sega CD kind of late, only a year or 2 before saturn came out, but I really had fun checking their games out
Yes Mansion of Hidden Souls is great for what it does and how it presents it. When the Saturn port came around I was pleasantly surprised that it /wasn't/ a bad rehash of a good game.
18:00 is it much different than today's QuickTime events?
These games aren't really my type but I did enjoy this video! Thank you for allowing me to see a different genre of games!
I love so much Sewer Shark that I have it for Sega CD and 3DO. 😆
The actor who played Ghost nailed it.
Years ago, I was trying to spread the idea to Sony to do a full VR remake of Sewer Shark for a pack-in on the PSVR2...and get Michael Ironside to play Ghost.
A full VR game in actual video with Ironside yelling at you the whole time. Sign me up.
A Sega Lord X video! Christmas has come early, boys!
Hope you enjoyed it!
Sewer Shark came with the sega cd box here in brazil, i played it so much! and played a lot of road avenger also, so many good memories!
Road avenger was always my fav.
as gimmicky as FMV is, there is quite a bit of fun to be had with these kinds of games.
I remember playing the lethal enforcers games and some other western style light gun a lot on my sega cd. Supreme Warrior was fun for me too because I love old school kung fu movies and Dracula Unleashed was fun for the time. I don't think I could go back and enjoy many of these games now but back then they definitely were different than your other home console games at the time.
Back in 92 we knew nothing about the mechanics behind the gameplay of these games. We saw the beautiful images on the magazines and thought that we could control every movement of those characters in real time....
Well, the truth couldn't be more shockingly desappointing. 😢
Night Trap - When I first played this, I thought it was a pretty original and well done use of FMV. The way everything happens in real time really gives the illusion that you're watching actual security camera. Unfortunately, while the biggest draw of the game is watching the goings on in the house, you don't get to enjoy any of it because you have to devote 100% of your time to catching the Augers and watching for the code changes. In the later portion of the game, you have to frantically switch cameras and even then sometimes the timing is so tight that you start missing your chance to trap Augers and then it's game over. I once tried using a walkthrough that told you which camera to switch to and when, and I still wasn't able to beat it.
I think the absolute best use of FMV I've seen in a game was in one of Densha De Go games, although I forget which platform it was for. Since you're controlling a train, which is literally on rails, real video can be used to depict the route, simply being sped up or slowed down to match your train's speed. The only thing to break the illusion are things like cars or people. but I don't recall seeing too many in the video that I watched.
When you mentioned Sewer Shark in your Mini Genesis 2 video, you said it was a turd and not worth anyone's time. I responded that it was a victim of people not reading the instruction manual and that it was pretty fun if you took the time to understand how to play it.
You then responded that I was wrong and that it was total shit.
Thank you for whatever chance you gave it to have your opinion shift, since then.
Different frame of reference, man. As I made the point in the video, I do not hold any love for these games today. Most would be on a worst of list against traditional gaming on the Sega CD. FMV is definitely a love/hate thing even if you have some fond memories of this stuff.
I remember when the Sega cd was released I wasn’t interested after reading the colour palette is still the same.😂..some good games on there though
Never having played an FMV game, i must withhold judgement. But i always drooled over Dragon's Lair in the arcade. I just didn't wanna fork put the $1 for one life.
One of the most iconic video gaming influencer has passed away (3/27/2024), RIP Senator Joe Liberman.
Wirehead is another FMV Sega CD game that I really enjoyed a lot. The cheesy campy acting was so much fun.
The GOAT of sega content.
After the fall of TellTale games I wonder if FMV story driven games are simply a cyclical fascination that will rise and fall every few years. I'm still such a sucker for them that I'm just glad they happened in the first place.
Also Sewer Shark was amazing just for the way it lampooned 90s EXTREME pop culture as it was already happening. What a time to be alive.