WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: The Full Motion Video Era - The Arcade 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:14.960 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:17.560 Jonathan strick Lind. I'm an executive producer with I Heart 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:19.960 Radio and I love all things tech. It is time 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:23.600 for a classic episode. This episode originally published on July 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:27.960 two thousand fourteen. It is titled The Full Motion Video 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:31.760 Era The Arcade. So this is part one of a 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:34.400 two part series. The first part I talked about full 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:39.720 motion video games as games that have actual live action 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:43.360 video content incorporated into them, and this is obviously the 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:46.680 arcade version of that. And this is one of those 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:48.400 topics where I really feel like I need to bring 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:51.960 a guest on for an update. I would love to 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:55.040 get Justin McElroy of the McIlroy Brothers on because he 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:59.240 is a full motion video fan through and through, and 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:02.640 I think his ex pertise would be invaluable. But let's 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:05.920 listen in to this classic episode. So if you ever 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:09.759 played the old Asteroids arcade game, everything with these these 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:14.000 very simple shapes, Yeah you're talking about dots are lines? Yeah, exactly, 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:17.080 That's that's what vector graphics are. They're based on geometry. 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:20.720 You define end points and then you have little lines 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:23.480 drawn between those end points, so it's kind of like 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:26.360 think of it like, uh uh, you know, connect the dots. 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:28.880 That's essentially what you're talking about, but in a in 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:31.760 a graphics format, so it's pixels instead of you know, 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:35.800 a solid black line from a pencil or something. Sure, 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:39.480 and all of that being less graphically impressive perhaps than 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:42.080 things like in the case of Zork. You know, your 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:46.959 rich imagination opening entire star fields for you, right, you 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:49.680 could have any sort of description in a text based one, 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:53.840 and technically the graphics are only limited by your imagination, 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:58.320 I guess. But vector graphics, you know, they have their 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:03.080 their charms. The old old Star Wars arcade game where 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:05.320 you had little vector graphics tie fighters coming at you 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:08.079 still one of my favorite arcade games of all time. 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:10.160 And it also had the benefit of not taking up 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:13.440 too much processing power. It didn't require, you know, a 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:16.280 chunky graphics card in order for it to produce these 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:18.840 pretty simple graphics. Well, that's the whole thing with graphics 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:22.040 is that they take so much disk space and processing power, 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:24.640 and that is a problem that some of these FMV 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:27.639 games that we are going to start talking about ran 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:31.360 into really hard, yeah, really really hard so so next 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:36.160 we have sprites. So sprites, of course not a type 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:39.760 of soft drink in this case. No, also not a 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:43.840 whimsical mythological creature. No, though a sprite could be a 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:47.119 whimsical mythological creature within the context of a video game. 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:49.880 But you could have a sprite of a sprite. Yes, exactly, 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:51.680 you could have a sprite of a sprite. So it's 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:55.079 a two dimensional animation that's integrated into a larger scene 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:58.960 that can move around that larger scene completely independently, and 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:03.240 it doesn't require you to re render that background. So 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:06.880 I think of this kind of like a like a 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:10.840 play because I'm a theater geek. But if you think 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:12.360 of a play, you know, like you have a play 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:14.760 with a set, and the actors can move all around 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:17.239 that set because that doesn't move the set, doesn't move 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:19.840 the setually unless something kind of terrible it's gone on 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:24.360 in that case that's an exception, But in an ideal 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:26.680 situation when it's not supposed to move, it stays. But 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:28.480 you can also think of it as maybe like a 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:32.160 magnet on a fridge or or a color form. Yeah, exactly, 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:35.240 you can move this this one independent piece around without 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:39.200 affecting everything else, and that meant that you only had 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:41.720 to render the background the one time and then a 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:44.640 little two D animated character that's the only thing you're 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:48.360 really concentrating on. So it didn't require too much processing 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:51.160 power to develop once we started getting into that, although 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:53.760 the early ones were limited as to the number of 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:56.680 sprites that could be processed on screen at the same time, 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:02.400 you haven't here. The Atari hundred only had five, yeah, 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:05.600 five moving graphical objects on screen at a time. So 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:09.040 if you're thinking of like I don't know, Donkey Kong Jr. 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:11.400 And you're playing as the main character, you know, in 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:14.600 the Arcade version, you had all these little bitty uh 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:16.720 platforms that could go up and down and things like that, 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:20.520 or monsters that could grab you. And there really wasn't 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:23.320 too much of a limit because the hardware there was 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:25.640 just huge, Yeah, and it was just meant to play 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:29.520 that game right. On the Atari twenty six hundred, which 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:33.320 had much more strict limitations on what the processor could do, 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:36.839 you had at most five moving graphical objects on screen 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:40.400 at any given time. One of the examples we could 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:42.159 give of that, besides the one I just mentioned as 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:45.280 Super Mario Brothers and Nintendo game. Now that that one 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:49.600 had obviously a greater capacity for moving objects. It wasn't 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:53.000 limited to the Attar twenty model. But that is another 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:56.200 example of a video game you sprites. Now, there is 0:04:56.240 --> 0:04:59.200 one other type that I can mentioned really quickly, which 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:02.039 are video games that us three dimensional models. But that 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:06.920 goes that's that's after full motion video. So three dimensional 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:10.279 models very common today, but we're not going to talk 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:13.840 about that because we're really focusing on fm vs. So 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:17.800 what is it. It's when you have recorded up some 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:21.360 sort of video. Whether it is live action, it can 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:25.800 be animated, doesn't matter, um, but it is recorded and 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:29.400 plays back as part of the video game experience. Some 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:32.919 people refer to games that were really really super heavy 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:37.760 on fm V as interactive movies. Because here's the thing. 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:40.000 If I record something ahead of time and then I 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:42.880 present it to somebody, that person is not going to 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:45.080 have a whole lot of say in what happens. Yeah, 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:47.680 you've got a limited amount of interactivity that can happen 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:51.440 when right, it's already it's already gone. Yeah, exactly. So 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:54.679 if I were to have a kind of a choose 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:56.760 your own adventure game, let's say it that way, because 0:05:56.760 --> 0:05:58.599 that's a that's a perfect example of something I would 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:01.080 work with this. But choose your own adventure books, same 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:03.320 sort of thing. Right, You're limited to the choices that 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:05.560 the book lays out, and you're limited to the to 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:10.880 the consequences, which for me invariably involved dying. I had 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:13.520 to hold my finger back on a previous page and say, 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:15.159 all right, I want to try a different way. Now. 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:17.200 I have a whole series of bookmarks whenever I have 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:20.360 a choose you an adventure. But I always resent resented 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:22.200 the ones where you would get to the point where 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:25.440 you either choice that you had presented to you would 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:27.560 result in your death and you think, no, now I 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:30.440 have to go back to spots. Oh no, that's my favorite. 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:33.839 It's it's the branching thing. But that's what a full 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:37.080 motion video game, I mean, like a serious FMV video 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:38.760 game was like all right, And I think that when 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:41.040 most people think of full motion video games, they are 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:45.240 thinking of live action video Yeah. But but some of them, 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:47.880 as we will discuss, yeah, are actually in fact the 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:50.719 earliest ones, well not the earliest, but some of the 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:53.640 earliest ones really had a lot of animation involved. Yeah, 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:57.360 and most of these games use optical disc technology, either 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:01.279 CDs or laser discs. And although I think that the 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:04.920 production on laser discs, the research for today right went 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:07.960 back to the nineteen fifties, they weren't really a commercial 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:11.440 format until the nineteen seventies. Uh, and even then they 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:13.720 weren't really very much of a commercial format. I mean, 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:16.080 even even in the nineteen eighties when you started to 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:19.080 really get into the home theater world, laser disc was 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:21.640 one of those things that that cool person with way 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:24.080 more money than you had, uh, they owned one, but 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:26.880 you did not. Um. I mean I remember going to 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:31.160 parties with with my family. My parents would take me 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:34.480 to some party with some other science fiction or fantasy authors, 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:36.760 throwing a weird bash, and they happen to have a 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:39.680 laser disc, and they would put on a laser disc 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:42.080 of one of these full motion video games where it 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:45.160 would just play out the game as if you were 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:48.320 making all the right choices, so that you could actually 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:50.120 see it from start to finish, and you really did 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:52.120 watch it like a movie. It wasn't even interactive at 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:54.280 that point. It was just a movie. And then at 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:56.480 the end it would show you all the wrong choices 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:00.960 and all the consequences thereof. But anyway, the the effect 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:03.680 of fm V was really impressive because it allowed for 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:09.240 much much more intense, realistic graphics, sometimes, like we said, 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:13.600 live action video, which was a huge difference from the 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:16.960 state of the art in vector and sprite graphics. So 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:19.360 you know, if you were to go into a video 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:23.080 game arcade, we used to have those back in the day. Kids, 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:26.040 If you were to go into an arcade and you 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:29.920 saw something like pac Man, which would look impressive next 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:33.480 to something like Asteroids, but then you saw Dragon's Layer, 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:37.640 you think this game must come from the future because 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:39.920 look at it compared to these other games. I need 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:42.120 to put my quarters in that thing, even though it's 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:44.640 twice as many quarters as any of the other machines 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:48.000 in this room. So yeah, the but the idea here 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:50.760 is that that not only did we have this incredible 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:56.120 graphical interface, this this this gorgeous display of whether it 0:08:56.200 --> 0:08:59.880 was video or you know, live video or animation, it 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:03.240 also meant that, like we said, you had that you 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:06.040 had to give up some interactivity. And so there was 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:09.520 this constant battle between what is what's the right balance 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:13.439 where should we have an interactive element versus a you know, 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:15.880 a really dramatic element. We'll be talking about that throughout 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:18.720 the rest of this show. Sure, And and creating game 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:21.560 design around that sort of problem is probably tricky for 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:24.240 the for the best of game designers. And I'm not 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:26.720 going to say for the record that all of the 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:30.520 best game designers were always working on these problems. It's 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:33.240 a hard thing. And also game designers perhaps are not 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:37.320 known for their video production quality. Yes, it's also an 0:09:37.360 --> 0:09:39.400 important thing to remember that, you know, someone who can 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:42.680 make a good game may not be someone who can 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:47.920 direct a compelling sequence, right, So that's hard, y'all, Yeah, 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:51.079 especially if you're talking about using live actors who you know, 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:54.000 the nice thing about animated characters, if you don't like 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:57.080 their performance, you can throw them away. That's what that's. 0:09:57.120 --> 0:10:00.640 That's paraphrasing what Hitchcock said about Disney. The Disney was 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:02.800 fortunate that if he was displeased with the performance, he 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:04.800 could just crumple it up and throw it away, whereas 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:08.480 Hitchcock was somewhat limited by the law on what he 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:11.000 could do. It's I think he did a little bit 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:13.520 of that here and there anyway, but certainly psychologically that's 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:16.880 a totally different episode. We'll be back with more about 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:19.560 full motion video in just a moment, but first let's 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:29.839 take a quick break. So we're going to talk Now 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:33.319 that's a text stuff episode and probably not. We can 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:37.880 talk about some actual examples, including the earliest one I 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:40.160 could find. Now I'm not saying this is the first 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:44.600 f m V. Let's call it video amusement, because that's 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:46.360 what they refer to it as, or at least one 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.240 of the historical sites I visited refers to it as 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:52.439 a video amusement. You wouldn't really call it a game necessarily, 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:55.800 but it was came out towards the end of one 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:57.640 or the beginning of nineteen eight two, and it's called 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:02.080 quarter horse, quarter horror, quarter horse because you'd give it quarters, 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:04.120 that'd be part of it, but it's also because it 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:07.400 would be a quarter horse race, So it was a 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:10.440 horse race game. So imagine that you walk up to 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:13.840 an arcade. It's got two screens on it. One screen 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:16.679 has like the video betting stuff on it, and it 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:19.120 gives you like the odds of all the different horses 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:22.040 that are going to run next race, and so you 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:24.120 can choose which horse you want to bet on. You 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:26.959 can put how many credits you bet on that particular horse, 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:29.920 and then once you're ready to go, you place the bet, 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:34.000 and then you hear that that all that that, and 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:36.400 they show the video of an actual horse race that 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:39.640 happened in the past, and then one of the horses wins, 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:41.200 and you find out whether or not one of the 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:44.200 horses you you bet on one, and if you did win, 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:47.240 you get more credits. I don't know that it actually 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:49.800 paid out, so I don't know if you ever could 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:52.160 really like win money off this thing, or if it 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:55.800 was simply credits that you can play with. So in 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:57.880 other words, you just keep playing the game until you're 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:00.360 out of credits. I'm not sure if I amused is 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:04.240 the correct word to attach to video in this case, 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:07.959 it's a video something yeah something, I mean, maybe I'm 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:12.320 not maybe I share yeah exactly. So you might first say, well, 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:14.839 wait a minute, if it's if it's video of an 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:19.120 actual horse race, how do you not know which horse wins? 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:21.439 And the way that works out is that they would 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:25.280 assign different names to the horses that were in the race, 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:28.280 so and it would change each time, so so you 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:31.240 wouldn't know that, you know, the horse with the jockey 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:34.440 on it that's you know, wearing the little red outfit. 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:36.760 You wouldn't know what his name was. So unless you're 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:41.000 a very serious horse race afficionado, it wouldn't even matter. 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:42.600 I mean, it would all be based on the odds, 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:44.439 because what the way the scheme was supposed to work 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:46.760 was it would actually look at the odds for any 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:51.080 given horse, simulate a race, and then say, all right, 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:54.760 here's who won. And sometimes the long shot wins. You know, 0:12:54.880 --> 0:12:57.680 that's the funny thing about statistics. Okay, alright, so so 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:00.600 it's not it's not whoever won literally in the video. 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:04.720 It's okay, it's an algorithm in the yeah, exactly exactly, 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:08.120 so that you know the horse's identities, where in fact 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:11.440 the video was superfluous. The video doesn't matter. Really. What 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:14.240 you're doing is you're betting on statistics. So you're sitting 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:16.520 you're kind of betting on a on a random roll 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:19.080 of the dice in a in a sense, and you say, 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:20.679 I bet that the dice are going to come up 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:23.360 like this, which you know sounds kind of crazy when 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:25.840 you first described like that, except you realize that the 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:30.800 game craps is all about that concept. So at any rate, 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:33.240 this was the first example I could find of a 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:37.160 video amusement you seeing fm V. The next one is 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:40.160 probably the most famous f m V. I've already referred 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:42.439 to it once in this podcast. Yeah, it came out 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:47.560 and it is Dragon's Layer. Yeah, Dragon's Layer from Cinematronics. Uh. Now, 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:51.040 this was created with animation from Don Bluth, who was 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:54.240 a former Disney animator. I want to say Oliver and 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:56.680 Company was one of his, but he also did the 0:13:56.679 --> 0:13:59.679 five Old movies, the five of those west Um and 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:03.320 Secrets and them I think as well, So he he 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:05.680 was the guy who did all the animation for this. 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:10.640 You play as Dark the Daring a night in shining armor, 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:15.640 and you're rescuing the Princess Daphne, who is in a 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:19.640 teeny tiny little outfit. This, this game probably didn't do 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:24.080 a whole lot for you know, the portrayals, portrayal of 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:26.760 women in video games. Yeah, I think several of the 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:30.080 things on our list didn't do a whole lot. Yeah, 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:34.120 we're gonna cover some more that are a little to 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:41.160 varying degrees of being upsetting and nineties yeah and today. 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:45.600 So anyway, Yeah, this this gameplay was limited to a 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:48.920 joystick and button where you would have prompts on the 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:51.480 screen and you would have to hit the joystick in 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:53.200 the right direction or press the button at the right 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:56.520 time in order for you to progress in the story. 0:14:56.800 --> 0:14:58.640 So you can think of it in a sense as 0:14:58.760 --> 0:15:01.720 every little segment is a chapter break on like you 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:04.320 know a DVD, and this is a laser disc game. 0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:07.160 It was on laser disc. And if you hit the 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:09.720 right button on your on your remote control on your 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:11.840 DVD player, you get to watch the next part of 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:14.120 the movie. And if you hit the wrong button, it stops. 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:17.000 That's essentially what this was, except that the you know, 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:19.160 you had four buttons as in the four directions of 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:22.440 your joystick and then the actual button buttons. So five buttons. 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:27.200 Total exciting stuff, right, And um, I've actually seen some 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:29.840 versions of this where they had the prompts turned off, 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:34.040 so you had to have memorized it. Yeah, totally not fair. 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:36.600 I don't know how you can just watch something with 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:38.560 no prompts and say, oh, I bet I'm supposed to 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:41.800 hit left right now. Um. But anyway, that was the 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:46.240 basics for dragons Layer. Uh. And again you could only 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:50.200 do the actions when the prompts came up. You couldn't 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:53.400 swing your sword at any given time. You couldn't make 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:55.280 Dirk run to the left or run to the right, 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:58.680 because all of that had already been animated, So you 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:02.440 can't you can't control something that's already been set down. However, 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:04.680 it did allow those graphics, as you said before, to 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:07.360 be very impressive for the time. Yeah, and the story 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:11.120 itself was, you know, this kind of cute ce fantasy story. 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:13.800 So it had a lot of appeal. And it certainly 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:15.320 was one of those things that if you saw someone 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:17.760 who was really good at this, like they had memorized 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:19.880 the sequence and they were they were able to get 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:23.680 really far. It wasn't entertaining to watch. I. You know, 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:25.960 I could never get past a single screen in this game, 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:28.320 so I never really got into it. But then I 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:31.040 was also fairly young back in nine three. It did 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:34.760 happen once upon time, folks, now you being young. Yes, 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:39.560 Also in three Ballely, NFL football came out. Yep, same 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:43.520 thing as uh in a sense as the horse racing game, 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:46.840 and that they took footage from an actual football game, 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:51.120 Raiders versus Chargers, And that was what you got to 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:55.160 watch as plays were carried out and you played the 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:57.480 part of a coach, So in other words, you're not 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:01.840 controlling any football players, but based upon where your team is, 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:04.400 like whether they're on offense or defense, you would pick 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:07.080 the plays that they would do next exactly. So you 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:09.560 would say, all right, well, based upon this position and 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:12.080 based upon the players I have, I want this play 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:14.879 to come next, and then you choose the play, and 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:16.920 then you'd get a little video of one of the 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:20.200 plays being carried out, and then you have another choice 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:23.879 to make afterwards, either either you continue or you know, 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:27.119 there might be a turnover whatever. But there was something 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:30.240 like eight hundred different video combinations for the whole game, 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:33.640 because they used all these different film segments that could 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:37.840 be interchanged based upon whichever play you had selected, and 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:41.200 then it would show you the right uh, the right 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:45.200 video play. And it was also supposed to really take 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:48.560 into account statistics as well, so in other words, you 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:53.000 couldn't just memorize a working strategy and play it and 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:55.400 and impress all your friends, say watch this, and then 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:57.040 you just do the exact because if you did the 0:17:57.040 --> 0:18:02.480 exact same pathway, you might have some time different. Yeah. Um. Also, 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:06.480 these early ones were not on optical disc technology, were they. 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:09.760 This one in particular, was not The Dragonslayer was on 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:13.000 a laser disc, but but bally nfl is on a 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:18.320 video disc, also known as a capacitance electronic disc or CEED. 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:22.280 Now these used a needle to read that they actually 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:26.080 were grooved like a record, the vinyl record. Ask your parents, 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:28.680 actually those are back, now, are they are? They are 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:31.800 all the hipster kids like them? Yeah, all right, that's fair. 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:35.480 I never stopped liking them. That makes me even more hipster. 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:40.240 Or them before they were cool. Yeah, but I like 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:42.160 them when they were cool, and then when they weren't cool, 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:45.359 and when they were cool again. But a capacitance electronic disc. 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:47.400 I also had one of those, or my family did 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:49.280 when I was a kid. Uh. We had one that 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:52.159 was a video player. Wasn't a video game, just a 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:54.520 video player. And I remember we had Singing in the 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:57.000 Rain and Raiders Raiders of the Lost Arc as two 0:18:57.000 --> 0:19:00.760 of the movies that would play on this thing. Um. Again, 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:03.480 very similar to laser disc in the sense that whatever's 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:07.480 on the disc obviously can't change it's read only, so 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:11.439 it was it was a different way of achieving the 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:17.520 same goal. Then we get Space Ace. That was another 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:20.600 Don Bluth game, another cinematronic Don Bluth game. You played 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:23.159 as Ace, who, at the beginning of the game, before 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:26.040 anything bad happens, is a big, old, brawny you know, 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:31.400 Flash Gordon style space faring adventurer type uh. And then 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:36.359 there's a bad guy named Commander Bof Bof who shoots 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:40.240 him with a an infanto ray and turns him into 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:45.400 a a adolescent as squeaky voiced, scrawny adolescent, and then 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:48.280 he has to rescue his girlfriend. Yes, and occasionally he 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:51.800 could transform back, at least briefly, into Ace. This one 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:56.480 actually had some interesting inner activity in the sense that 0:19:56.560 --> 0:20:00.000 you could choose to become Ace and then move through 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:02.760 a level, or you could choose to remain the scrawny 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:05.880 guy and move through a level. But depending upon whether 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:07.840 you were a sort of the scrawny guy, you had 0:20:08.040 --> 0:20:11.199 very different strategies. Uh, strategies in the sense of you 0:20:11.200 --> 0:20:14.040 know what prompts you hit when. But Ace obviously would 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:17.600 charge headlong into danger, whereas the scrawny version of him 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:20.879 going to figure out ways around. Yeah, exactly, But again 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:24.000 you were limited to whatever had been pre recorded. Just 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:26.960 like the other versions. It was faster paced than Dragon's Lair, 0:20:27.040 --> 0:20:29.480 so a lot of people said it was even more 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:32.359 challenging since I never got anywhere with Dragon's Lair. I 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:35.639 didn't even bother with spaces, but I I admired the animation. 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:39.520 And then, Uh, the next one I have is one 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:41.920 I never saw. I didn't even know it existed until 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:45.800 I looked into it on online and I tried watching 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:48.639 a video of it, and it was baffling. It's called 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:52.680 bad Lands. This one was from Konami yep, and it's 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:55.600 Western themed, as you would imagine with that title. You 0:20:55.600 --> 0:20:58.800 played as Buck, who was a cowboy whose family had 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:02.679 been murdered by bad guy, so you're on a revenge mission. 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:05.880 And it was done in a style that looked very 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:09.960 much like um uh enemey you know. Uh. Back when 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:12.960 I was when I would have played this, uh, it 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:16.000 would have been an interesting experience at a science fiction 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:18.080 convention because I could see this fitting right next to 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:23.520 the anime room. It's so evocative of that style. But 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:27.159 it had a single control, which was a giant button, 0:21:28.160 --> 0:21:31.080 just just one button, and you had to hit that 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:33.520 button exactly when you needed to. And this one didn't 0:21:33.560 --> 0:21:36.320