Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text stuff from stuff
Speaker 1: dot com either and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm Jonathan
Speaker 1: Strickland and I'm Lauren folc Obama. And now we're going
Speaker 1: to present to you something that we've already talked about. FMV.
Speaker 1: Are fm V that's full motion video video games, yep,
Speaker 1: and you may if you've listened to our last episode,
Speaker 1: you heard us talk about how it turned out to
Speaker 1: be a lot longer than we had anticipated. So, as
Speaker 1: it turns out, we enjoy shotten Fred here on the show,
Speaker 1: we sure do. So we had a lot to say
Speaker 1: about the various games we're going to concentrate in this episode,
Speaker 1: about the home video game market and how fm V
Speaker 1: played a role in that. So we now return you
Speaker 1: to our podcast already in progress. Was also the year
Speaker 1: when we see, at least from what I could tell,
Speaker 1: the first home video game to feature full motion video
Speaker 1: Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, and it had live action video
Speaker 1: segments where you would play as a detective you're trying
Speaker 1: to solve a specific mystery, and most of the gameplay
Speaker 1: was done on kind of a cartoonish h view. You
Speaker 1: just had the screen of like a map and you
Speaker 1: could do things like investigate clues. You could get the
Speaker 1: the irregulars, you know, Sherlock Holmes's network of pickpockets to
Speaker 1: all go out and look for clues. You could interview
Speaker 1: suspects that kind of stuff. But all of that was
Speaker 1: just done in text and cartoons, and it was only
Speaker 1: in sort of cut scenes that you really got the
Speaker 1: full FMV live action stuff. Um, it was actually the
Speaker 1: performances were actually pretty good. I was watching some of
Speaker 1: the video and they they were you know, kind of
Speaker 1: the stuff you would expect to see in a Sherlock
Speaker 1: Holmes uh television movie or something. So you know, one
Speaker 1: of the one set during actual Victorian era, not the
Speaker 1: modern not not not not balderdash Cumberbuns version. Um. I
Speaker 1: love Sherlock and I love Ben Thedict cumber Batch. I
Speaker 1: just love, also love how British his name is. It's
Speaker 1: pretty ludicrous, it is. So anyway, this was actually pretty
Speaker 1: good one. I mean again, you had I think you
Speaker 1: had like three different mysteries you could play on that
Speaker 1: first game. Um, and you would get points, which was bad.
Speaker 1: You didn't want to get points. You wanted to be
Speaker 1: able to solve the mystery with as few points as possible,
Speaker 1: and you would actually be compared against Sherlock Holmes at
Speaker 1: the end of the mystery and see how well you did.
Speaker 1: And the example, I saw the end score with something
Speaker 1: like two fifty points and Sherlock Holmes's score was twenty six.
Speaker 1: So it was one of those are like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: guess uh, I guess we we pew, poor puny mortals
Speaker 1: have no chance against the supreme intelligence of Sherlock Holmes,
Speaker 1: which I guess is the point that is, Yeah, then
Speaker 1: we get one of the more infamous FMVs. We're not
Speaker 1: covering every single FMV title because oh no, certainly not.
Speaker 1: There were. There were definitely a lot of them, and
Speaker 1: many of them honestly not worth our time. And some
Speaker 1: of them were you know, kind of never really heard
Speaker 1: or seen from again, like stuff that either got released
Speaker 1: but barely was was adopted at all. So we're just
Speaker 1: really concentrating on the really famous ones, particularly some that
Speaker 1: some of our listeners have asked about, including this one
Speaker 1: from Sewer Shark. Sewer Shark, Yes, uh, this this was
Speaker 1: for the three d O eventually like a CD which
Speaker 1: had come out, I believe in that was what we
Speaker 1: decided and uh, yeah, one of the earliest console games
Speaker 1: to use fm V, maybe the first one. Uh. And
Speaker 1: you're you're flying as a You're playing as a pilot
Speaker 1: who flies a ship that flies through sewers. Uh. It's
Speaker 1: set in a post apocalyptic future where everybody's moved underground,
Speaker 1: but there are rumors that there are some places above
Speaker 1: ground that could still be habitable, but the government is
Speaker 1: very much about, you know, keeping those rumors under under check.
Speaker 1: And you play a pilot who's trying to find um,
Speaker 1: well one, trying to fight this kind of totalitarian government
Speaker 1: and to trying to get to the surface. And so
Speaker 1: that you had all these sequences where you were flying
Speaker 1: through pipes and that was all full motion video stuff,
Speaker 1: and you really uh kind of had sprites on top
Speaker 1: of the video that represented monsters that you had to shoot.
Speaker 1: So and so in a way, it was kind of
Speaker 1: similar to that previous game where you had the vector
Speaker 1: graphics crosshairs on top of the yeah, Cobra command. So
Speaker 1: it's similar to that in that sense, except this time
Speaker 1: they were sprites, not vector graphics and yep. And you
Speaker 1: also had lots of full motion video with your your
Speaker 1: your compatriots as well. As the villain, and they were
Speaker 1: all ridiculous, over the top hammy actors kind of kind
Speaker 1: of awesome. Yeah, we're both actually big fans at that
Speaker 1: school of acting, I think. Yeah, I mean, if it's
Speaker 1: if it's done knowingly, it can be it can be
Speaker 1: a real blast, but even unknowingly it can be kind
Speaker 1: of a sort of a charming train wreck. Yes, yes, oh,
Speaker 1: I mean, and so much so that Sega decided to
Speaker 1: ship it along with their Sega CD system. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: this was one of those games that actually was pretty popular,
Speaker 1: only in the sense that people who bought the Sega
Speaker 1: c D system also got a copy of Sewer Shark.
Speaker 1: A listeners DJ and Daniel, both on Facebook asked us
Speaker 1: to mention this one. Yeah, so thanks very thanks for
Speaker 1: writing in guys. Now here's another game that I played
Speaker 1: a little bit, The Seventh Guest, which was a kind
Speaker 1: of a mystery game. It had a lot of puzzles
Speaker 1: that were sort of missed like in nature. Like, uh,
Speaker 1: I remember one specific puzzle. You're you are presented with
Speaker 1: a cake and the cake has tombstones and skulls on it,
Speaker 1: and some piece is that the cake don't have either
Speaker 1: tombstones or skulls, and you have to remove five pieces
Speaker 1: of cake at a time. They have to be consecutive.
Speaker 1: They had to touch each other, and each time you
Speaker 1: remove them. They have to have two tombstones, two skulls,
Speaker 1: and one piece of plain cake. So you had to
Speaker 1: figure out exactly how did you remove those so that
Speaker 1: you would get all the cake removed, you wouldn't be stuck.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like those puzzles you would see where
Speaker 1: you'd have you know, uh, like in a do you
Speaker 1: know what you're just shaking your head over now, I'm
Speaker 1: just I'm just that sounds like the worst puzzle ever.
Speaker 1: I that that sounds like the kind of puzzle that
Speaker 1: I happened upon sometimes in video games and just go
Speaker 1: maybe I would like to go read a book. I
Speaker 1: I think of the puzzles that you would find in Uh,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a regional reference for some of
Speaker 1: you guys out there. A cracker barrel, Yeah, that's sort
Speaker 1: of thing. Yeah, the little wooden triangle where you have
Speaker 1: the pegs and you have to try and make the
Speaker 1: pegs jump each other until you're only left with one peg. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like that. They had other puzzles to
Speaker 1: not just that one, but they also had all these
Speaker 1: live video segments where they were other it was supposed
Speaker 1: to be people who had attended a party at this
Speaker 1: house years ago, and you are encountering the remnants. They're
Speaker 1: they're kind of psychological imprints. Okay, Yeah, so sort of
Speaker 1: like a murder mystery dinner party, except everyone is already dead. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you're you're the one solving the mystery. Um and
Speaker 1: and the acting was pretty pretty spectacularly awful. If you
Speaker 1: have ever attended a like cringe worthy murder mystery dinner
Speaker 1: theater type thing, that's what this was in video game form. Uh.
Speaker 1: Still kind of charming, but definitely I'll show you some
Speaker 1: video after this podcast is over so you can appreciate it.
Speaker 1: But we'll try to. We'll try, by the way, to
Speaker 1: put video of as many of these as we can
Speaker 1: up on social media. The ones that are the ones
Speaker 1: that are socially acceptable. They found they sound very charming. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this this next one not so much night trash. Uh
Speaker 1: that This one was also mentioned by a couple of
Speaker 1: our listeners on Facebook. Paul and Daniel, thank you guys
Speaker 1: for writing in about this one. Uh, it was it
Speaker 1: was a multi platform game. It was big enough that
Speaker 1: it was all over the places on Sega, C, D,
Speaker 1: three D, O, MAC and PC. And it was a
Speaker 1: survival horror title, right yep. And it got got some
Speaker 1: attention from a little group called the United States Government.
Speaker 1: So this is right around the time when the US
Speaker 1: government was starting to get concerned about video games and
Speaker 1: the content inside them. Yeah, and what they were doing
Speaker 1: to our children. Um, which I I just dramatically overstated,
Speaker 1: because I think that it's a very dramatic overstatement that yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I do believe in the rating system. And this is
Speaker 1: actually one of the games that helped create the ratings
Speaker 1: in a roundabout way, because people started saying, hey, uh,
Speaker 1: there's some slightly scandalous content on this. You're just selling
Speaker 1: it to any kid who walks in. That's kind of
Speaker 1: weird us. You know, Mortal Kombat and Doom and stuff
Speaker 1: that we're along those to Doom, Mortal Kombat and Night Trap,
Speaker 1: we're held up as examples of won't someone please think
Speaker 1: of the children? So here's the thing, Uh, they the
Speaker 1: video game industry elected to create the s r B
Speaker 1: rating system because it meant that it kept the government
Speaker 1: out of doing it for them because that was essentially
Speaker 1: what the government said was you need to create a
Speaker 1: waiting or we will and they're like, well, whoa, we
Speaker 1: will totally do that because we don't want to have
Speaker 1: too much regulation in our industry because that hurts innovation,
Speaker 1: it hurts the developers. So here's the question, what exactly
Speaker 1: was going on with this game to make it so scandalous. Well,
Speaker 1: it was kind of creepy, you uh. The basis of
Speaker 1: the game was that there were these monsters called Augers
Speaker 1: that are kind of like vampires, right, and you are
Speaker 1: trying to capture them, and you're you're trying to view
Speaker 1: them remotely and secretly by using hidden cameras that are
Speaker 1: placed throughout a house. Coincidentally, that house is also playing
Speaker 1: host to a slumber party of young ladies, so a
Speaker 1: lot of the video involves you looking in on rooms
Speaker 1: that young ladies are in. There was no nudity in
Speaker 1: this game, by the way, the way it sounds like
Speaker 1: it sounds like it it got really pretty like Porky's
Speaker 1: esque really quickly. It wasn't. It wasn't that. It didn't
Speaker 1: go that far. So there's no nudity in the game,
Speaker 1: but there were moments where you know, clearly it was
Speaker 1: trying to appeal to a more base level in people's nature.
Speaker 1: It was it was sexualized, and some parents realized that
Speaker 1: their kids had it, and then they had not really
Speaker 1: signed off on it. Yeah. I heard one of the
Speaker 1: game developers, UH defend this game by saying, look, you
Speaker 1: you're trying to save people here, that it's the option
Speaker 1: of the game is to capture the bad guys, not
Speaker 1: to peep on people, and that you think, yeah, but
Speaker 1: the game mechanic is pretty much peeing on people. So
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know how much you can defend it.
Speaker 1: But again, it wasn't like the most It seems tame
Speaker 1: in comparison now, especially when you look at the content
Speaker 1: that's in some games. You also have to keep in
Speaker 1: mind that by we're talking about folks who had been
Speaker 1: growing up with video games since the late seventies early eighties,
Speaker 1: and this is something we've seen in the industry overall.
Speaker 1: As gamers have aged, the content inside games has become
Speaker 1: more and more quote unquote mature. So yeah, and it
Speaker 1: makes sense because these are the people who are remaining
Speaker 1: customers of video games even as they get older. So
Speaker 1: I think that was also what we were seeing by
Speaker 1: by ninety three, we're talking about a lot of people
Speaker 1: who were in their teenage years who had grown up
Speaker 1: playing video games like you know me, although at this
Speaker 1: point I was only going to be a teenager for
Speaker 1: a very short time. But there were some decidedly squeaky
Speaker 1: clean video games that included f m V out around
Speaker 1: that time. Let Us not forget about missed a very
Speaker 1: popular games, incredibly popular game. It was the best selling
Speaker 1: PC game for nine years running. Um. It also came
Speaker 1: out and it wasn't a a heavily FMV based video game,
Speaker 1: but it did have that FMV element. It had some
Speaker 1: live action video that characters would interact with you through
Speaker 1: these these books that you would open and and you know,
Speaker 1: it was like talking through a portal, but the portal
Speaker 1: was a person video. Yeah, um, and yeah it was.
Speaker 1: It was a darling in the market. It was a
Speaker 1: darling of reviewers. It is kind of credited with driving
Speaker 1: personal CD ROM sales and had sequels coming out for
Speaker 1: the next ten years plus. Uh. They started in with
Speaker 1: Riven and continued using FMV elements up through the fourth
Speaker 1: game in the series, Revelation, which was released all the
Speaker 1: way out in two thousand four. After two thousand four,
Speaker 1: I think that's when we started seeing graphics engines improving
Speaker 1: to the point where the luster was really taken off
Speaker 1: of f m V. It was a lot cheaper and
Speaker 1: easier and more beautiful to create animation for stuff like this.
Speaker 1: You would go with like a CG type thing that
Speaker 1: was procedurally generated. This, you know, depending upon the game,
Speaker 1: but you know, you could have games where you would
Speaker 1: have a CG scene and your character can move around
Speaker 1: and actually view it from different angles. Cut scenes are
Speaker 1: still largely fm V to some extent. But um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree that by that time we were starting to
Speaker 1: see the sophistication of the game engines themselves take over,
Speaker 1: where some of the less um appealing aspects of FMV
Speaker 1: were no longer a concern because you could you could
Speaker 1: work around it, you could do something else instead. Um
Speaker 1: you Missed was also one of those games that very
Speaker 1: quickly appealed to female gamers. Um. One of the reasons
Speaker 1: why it was so popular and non gamers in general,
Speaker 1: people who wouldn't pick up normal video games because they
Speaker 1: were perhaps too fast paced or too violent or too
Speaker 1: difficult on a learning curve kind of way to get
Speaker 1: you to the controls. Missed was. It was a very
Speaker 1: basically controlled adventure, point and click sort of thing where
Speaker 1: all you had to do was was moved through an
Speaker 1: environment and solve puzzles, and it was a little bit
Speaker 1: less intimidating I think for your average human person. It
Speaker 1: was also really visually appealing and had great sounds, great soundscape.
Speaker 1: So it was one of those games where it appealed
Speaker 1: to people on a level that that basic, you know,
Speaker 1: standard video games didn't like they weren't. It wasn't twitch based,
Speaker 1: you know, it was it could be intimidating if you
Speaker 1: ran into a puzzle and you had literally had no
Speaker 1: idea how to even start. There were there were a
Speaker 1: couple of puzzles and in Missed, I did play and
Speaker 1: I do still love Missed. It's got a very dear
Speaker 1: place in my heart. Well, the next one has a
Speaker 1: dear place in my heart. Frankenstein through the Eyes of
Speaker 1: the Monster, and you play as Frankenstein's monster, who has
Speaker 1: a woman's hand. By the way, that's a big dramatic
Speaker 1: reveal in the very early part of the game. Goodness,
Speaker 1: this hand belongs to a open I'm not okay, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure how gendered hands are precisely, but you can
Speaker 1: tell or because his other hand very different. Uh. So
Speaker 1: you were playing as the monster, so you're seeing everything
Speaker 1: from the monster's perspective, so you only see any part
Speaker 1: of the monster if the monster puts it out in
Speaker 1: front of his face. Um. And you are trying to
Speaker 1: regain your lost memories. You have no memory of what
Speaker 1: you were before the experiment that brings you to life. Uh.
Speaker 1: Dr Frankenstein is played by Dr franken Further himself, Tim Curry.
Speaker 1: He choose scenery so hard in this in this game,
Speaker 1: he's one of my favorite scenery. Yeah, he's he's bonkers.
Speaker 1: Dr Frankenstein is the first time you see him is
Speaker 1: when your your character's eyes open on the on the
Speaker 1: medical table and he's going on and about how he
Speaker 1: created life and then he celebrates by injecting himself in
Speaker 1: the neck with something you assume more but you don't know.
Speaker 1: Um and uh yeah, it's a it's if you do
Speaker 1: anything wrong, or you do enough wrong things, he shows
Speaker 1: up and kills you and then says something you know,
Speaker 1: like you have very snarky and very British, so Tim
Speaker 1: Curry will appear again on this list because Tim Curry
Speaker 1: not a man to turn down a job. As it
Speaker 1: turns out. Um, I would not say that Frankenstein Through
Speaker 1: the Eyes of the Monster is a particularly good game.
Speaker 1: It was another puzzle game, another point and click puzzle game,
Speaker 1: very much like Missed, but with a very different you know,
Speaker 1: theme and tone to it. By point and click, we
Speaker 1: mean that you could just use a mouse to point.
Speaker 1: It's something that you wanted to either move towards or
Speaker 1: interact with, and then just click to do that thing
Speaker 1: right and so you It's one of those games where
Speaker 1: you had to figure out which thing is needed for
Speaker 1: whatever situation you were in. Uh, And depending upon the
Speaker 1: way the game was designed, you would either end up
Speaker 1: with the right result, no result, or with Frankenstein you know,
Speaker 1: Tim Curry would kill you. Um. There was a game
Speaker 1: called Ripper, which I first thought when I started watching
Speaker 1: the video that I owned the game, but then I
Speaker 1: realized I didn't own the game. I owned a CD
Speaker 1: that had Ripper as a preview, and it might have
Speaker 1: even been Frankenstein Through the Eyes of the Monster now
Speaker 1: that I think of it. So this was another point
Speaker 1: and click game set in twenty forty and you are
Speaker 1: trying to solve a series of murders that mirror the
Speaker 1: Jack the Ripper murders Victorian England. But this one had
Speaker 1: some really all star actors in it. And we've We've
Speaker 1: got Christopher Walkin, John Frees, Davies, Karen Allen and just Meredith.
Speaker 1: You're gonna rip Lightning and corrap thunder. Yeah. Uh, you
Speaker 1: guys should be thankful I did Burgess Meredith and not
Speaker 1: Christopher Walkin because my walking impression is the worst thing
Speaker 1: in the world. But uh, and I love doing it.
Speaker 1: But you played, you know, this game, and you had
Speaker 1: to try and solve these murders. The the preview to
Speaker 1: this is phenomenal. You guys. If you learned nothing from
Speaker 1: this podcast other than this, it'll still be worth it.
Speaker 1: Go to YouTube and look for the Ripper video game
Speaker 1: preview because also it features the music of one of
Speaker 1: the best bands in the world, Blue Oyster Cult, and
Speaker 1: uh and their song Don't Fear the Reaper, which I
Speaker 1: also remember from that preview that I got on the
Speaker 1: c D where the Don't Fear the Reaper came on
Speaker 1: and I was immediately impressed. Then we have a game
Speaker 1: that I believe you played, Lauren. Yes, this was the
Speaker 1: X Files game. Yeah, we were mentioned this. I remember you.
Speaker 1: You brought this one up in the Worst video Games
Speaker 1: I think, And yeah, it's pretty high on my list.
Speaker 1: It was another point and click adventure. It came out
Speaker 1: for the PSX, the PlayStation one as some people might
Speaker 1: call it, and also the PC. And you you played
Speaker 1: as this FBI agent character that was invented Holly for
Speaker 1: the game, who had to find Molder and Scully as
Speaker 1: far as I can tell, because it was really expensive
Speaker 1: and time consuming to get David to Covney and Jillian
Speaker 1: ander Sin to actually come shoot um, and a bunch
Speaker 1: of the other characters from the show. Um, Mitch Pledge
Speaker 1: I never learned how to say is excellent as a
Speaker 1: d skinner. William B. Davis, who played the cigarette smoking Man,
Speaker 1: Stephen Williams who was Mr X and the whole smoking
Speaker 1: gun nerd trio for Hickey, Buyers and Langley all had
Speaker 1: small roles in this thing. This tells me where where
Speaker 1: in the X Files Lord happened. Yes, it was actually
Speaker 1: in the Lord. It was set specifically, I believe in
Speaker 1: season three, sometime in nineteen six. Don't make sense for
Speaker 1: Mr X, right, Yes, so it was actually shortly yeah,
Speaker 1: o MG, spoilers um. And that's this is partially because
Speaker 1: the development took four years and six million dollars um.
Speaker 1: It was all prompted by Fox's specific interest in having
Speaker 1: Italie in game for the X Files when they ordered
Speaker 1: it the shows in season two and was really starting
Speaker 1: to roll. Yeah, they were as one of those shows
Speaker 1: that was getting kind of runaway popularity despite Fox's best
Speaker 1: efforts to keep moving it, moving the X Files to
Speaker 1: different time slots. Yeah, and in f m V terms,
Speaker 1: this game was an absolute blockbuster. I mean, it had
Speaker 1: this Hollywood talent involved, and it's sold about a million copies,
Speaker 1: which they at least made their money back. At that time,
Speaker 1: that was a really impressive. You also have to remember
Speaker 1: that the video game industry at that time wasn't the
Speaker 1: giant beheam with that it is today, right. You know. However,
Speaker 1: the reviews and the player responses to it weren't spectacular.
Speaker 1: Not all of them were as negative as I was,
Speaker 1: but but I have very strong feelings about it. It
Speaker 1: took up like seven PC c d s or four
Speaker 1: PlayStation CDs. There's nothing that really keeps you immersed in
Speaker 1: a game, like having to change out one disc for
Speaker 1: another continually. Yeah, I personally, I just like it so
Speaker 1: much because I got stuck in a in an action
Speaker 1: sequence bug that I never could get around, and I
Speaker 1: was like, well, I guess I'm not playing this game anymore.
Speaker 1: And this game is and it's done, and we still
Speaker 1: are seeing lots of FMV used and cut scenes and
Speaker 1: support roles. The Command and Conquered games are really well
Speaker 1: known for that. Tim Curry reappears. He um, he was
Speaker 1: in Rent Alert three as a a Russian type character,
Speaker 1: and uh, if you can just imagine what Tim Curry
Speaker 1: would sound like doing his best horrible, over the top
Speaker 1: Russian accent, then you're you're n the way there. Civilization
Speaker 1: Too had him as your members of your council. I
Speaker 1: love that because, as I recall, the person who was
Speaker 1: in charge of telling you how happy or unhappy your
Speaker 1: people were was essentially an Elvis impersonator. And yeah, and
Speaker 1: you're the way the game worked, you would go through
Speaker 1: different eras, right, You would go through the ancient era,
Speaker 1: so there's Elvis in a toga. You go to a
Speaker 1: medieval era, so there's Elvis in a doublet uh. In
Speaker 1: the Moderneil era, you'd have you know, Elvis, So it
Speaker 1: was it was, it was a blast. And then you
Speaker 1: had other the super dorky science nerd guy, the gung
Speaker 1: ho h military dude. It was those performances I actually
Speaker 1: really really love. I wouldn't say that they were all
Speaker 1: nuanced or anything like that, but they were entertaining. Other
Speaker 1: games that our listeners have suggested that we talk about
Speaker 1: where the Wing Commander series from origin, A lawnmower Man,
Speaker 1: Corpse Killer, Ground Zero Texas. So many of the game
Speaker 1: companies that made fm V based games, especially the ones
Speaker 1: that were solely FMV, no longer exist. They either went
Speaker 1: out of business or they got acquired by another company
Speaker 1: and folded into them. Uh. It's just one of those
Speaker 1: games that, again the pre production was really expensive and
Speaker 1: time consuming, and ultimately we began to learn that players
Speaker 1: seem to prefer gameplay and interaction over the visual qualities
Speaker 1: of the exactly perhaps questionable visual qualities. So again, using
Speaker 1: it as like a cut scene is one thing, but
Speaker 1: to use as the base this for your gameplay really
Speaker 1: limits you. I've got a quote here that I wanted
Speaker 1: to read out from one Jason Vandenberg, who was one
Speaker 1: of the programmers on the X Files game. This was
Speaker 1: a quote from Edge magazine, I believe, back in the
Speaker 1: late nineties when the game came out, and he said
Speaker 1: working on the x Files proved to me that interactivity
Speaker 1: and drama directly oppose each other. Thus interactive cinema is
Speaker 1: limited at best and doomed at worst. That was a
Speaker 1: devastating realization. Drama is all about being a helpless witness
Speaker 1: to events. The moment you give the viewer agency, the
Speaker 1: emotional spectrum shifts from tension to curiosity. We could never
Speaker 1: get past that fundamental thing. Curiosity kills tension, and you
Speaker 1: end up with a puzzle game with a rich, detailed
Speaker 1: background behind it which sounds like missed, which sounds like
Speaker 1: missed what you know? And I and I wanted to
Speaker 1: read it out because I thought it was a really
Speaker 1: interesting and very strong perspective, especially coming from a programmer
Speaker 1: of one of these games. However, I'm not positive. I mean,
Speaker 1: when you really get down to it, all video games
Speaker 1: are interactive to some extent. Yeah, And then, and I
Speaker 1: don't think that curiosity always kills tension. You can have
Speaker 1: very tense, very excellently crafted moments. However, perhaps with video
Speaker 1: it's so pre planned and predetermined that it is starting
Speaker 1: to kill off a little bit of that spontaneity that
Speaker 1: you get. Well, yeah, when you have no control over
Speaker 1: what someone you're watching does, I can see where the
Speaker 1: tension comes in, because you know what you would want
Speaker 1: that person to do in that situation, traumatic irony. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you've got you've got that moment where you're like,
Speaker 1: don't go, don't open the door. You know, but if
Speaker 1: you're and if you're the player and you are playing
Speaker 1: a game, you don't have to open the door. So
Speaker 1: I think that's what he's saying, is that or you're
Speaker 1: just curious to find out what happens if you do
Speaker 1: open the door, And so that's where he's going in
Speaker 1: with that tension thing. Well, I mean, I mean I
Speaker 1: definitely played most through most of again, for example, Silent
Speaker 1: Hill my my favorite thing to reference on this show
Speaker 1: apparently you know, like knowing that I had to open
Speaker 1: the door and just looking at it. Yeah, see, I'm
Speaker 1: with you there. I think that you can totally have
Speaker 1: interactivity and tension if you if you structure the game properly.
Speaker 1: I think you can have both curiosity and drama. I
Speaker 1: think both things can coexist. I think of games like
Speaker 1: The Last of Us, which had amazing moments of drama.
Speaker 1: And you know, I don't I can't speak for everybody,
Speaker 1: but I really cared about these characters and I got
Speaker 1: to control them quite a bit, so it wasn't like
Speaker 1: I was just watching a movie. So I'm not sure
Speaker 1: I entirely I see what he's saying, but I'm not
Speaker 1: sure I entirely agree with it. Well, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think that there's a point in there
Speaker 1: about trying to balance something inherently interactive, like a video game,
Speaker 1: with something inherently uninteractive. Yeah, like a like a film,
Speaker 1: like a regular film or television show, right, because you're
Speaker 1: you're mixing the types of tension that the viewer or
Speaker 1: the player is experiencing, and it gets awkward. Well, and
Speaker 1: you know, when you're making a video or an animated
Speaker 1: film or whatever, you can really craft that to evoke
Speaker 1: a specific emotion and be fairly certain that most of
Speaker 1: your audience is going to feel it if you have
Speaker 1: done your job correctly, right, because you you have forced
Speaker 1: them into that perspective, they can't change. They can't they
Speaker 1: can't make the camera look away, they can't focus on
Speaker 1: something else, you know, without themselves physically doing it within
Speaker 1: the theater. Sure, but when you suddenly take away control
Speaker 1: of someone who is used to having control in the scene,
Speaker 1: I think that's where the frustration of FMV enters. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's certainly an interesting balance here that that
Speaker 1: uh and again we see this played out today in
Speaker 1: video games, where you will see innovative gameplay introduced to
Speaker 1: try and differentiate a game from others, and people react
Speaker 1: in a very dramatic way to that. Either they love
Speaker 1: it or they hate it. But it's it's one of
Speaker 1: those things where I think we see that that interactivity
Speaker 1: is what gamers, and I you know, not all gamers,
Speaker 1: but I think the majority of gamers really are eager for.
Speaker 1: Whereas if they want to watch a really cool movie,
Speaker 1: they'll go watch a really cool movie. So anyway, this
Speaker 1: was fun to talk about their Obviously, like we said,
Speaker 1: tons of other fm V games out there, um ranging
Speaker 1: from the amusing to the terrible to the terribly amusing.
Speaker 1: UM way too. There are some websites that are devoted
Speaker 1: just to categorizing F and V games, although one of
Speaker 1: them did not include Frankenstein and I was deeply disappointed. Um,
Speaker 1: but you should go and check out those as well
Speaker 1: and it Meanwhile, if you have any suggestions for future
Speaker 1: episodes of tech Stuff, maybe there's a topic you've always
Speaker 1: wanted to learn more about and you would like us
Speaker 1: to to take a shot, let us know. Send us
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