Tag Archives: Full Motion Video

PC Games

The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story

Leave a comment

Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: h.a.n.d.
Year: 2022
Platform: Windows, iOS, Android, PS4, PS5, Switch

Rating: 4

You are reading this because of my father.

When I was six or seven, he brought home a couple of games for our IBM. One had us standing in an open field west of a white house, and one had us standing in an open field east of a gray castle (with hungry moat alligators). I was hooked immediately, and solving adventure games with my dad became one of our favorite bonding experiences. We both love a good mystery.

The latest mystery I solved was The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story, the first adventure game by long-time Japanese developer h.a.n.d. (with Square Enix publishing). An FMV mystery, the game finds players investigating a string of murders that have plagued the Shijima family for the past hundred years. Sadly, the otherwise compelling story stalls due to excessive hand-holding, middling performances, and long stretches of tedium.

Continue reading The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story →
PC Games

The Complex

Leave a comment

Publisher: Wales Interactive
Developer: Little Jade; Good Gate; Wales Interactive
Year: 2020
Platform: Windows, Mac, PS4, XBox One, Switch, iOS, Android

Rating: 4

I’m not entirely sure what it would take to make an interactive movie truly great. Pure camp could work, and Black Mirror’s Bandersnatch has its moments. But a dramatic piece can easily suffer from discontinuity or the randomness of a choose your own adventure. The Complex is no different.

Continue reading The Complex →
PC Games

The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker

Leave a comment

Publisher: D’Avekki Studios
Developer: D’Avekki Studios
Year: 2017
Platform: Windows, Mac, PS4, Xbox One, Switch

Rating: 5

Just a couple of years after Her Story, another full-motion video murder mystery with a typing interface was released. The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker, the first game from D’Avekki Studios, is a murder investigation under the guide of providing psychotherapy. While I wasn’t overly satisfied with the structure of the mystery, I still found it to be engrossing and a worthy play for fans of the genre.

Continue reading The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker →
PC Games

Immortality

Leave a comment

Developer: Half Mermaid
Publisher: Half Mermaid
Year: 2022
Platform: Windows, Xbox, iOS, Android, Mac

Rating: 6

One daunting goal for any game designer is ensuring the player experiences the story as intended while affording them enough agency to experience it at their own pace. Immortality is the third interactive film by Sam Barlow, following Her Story and Telling Lies, the common thread between them being that their narratives are pieced together nonchronologically at the behest of the player. Much like shuffling a deck of cards, no two players will experience these games in the same order, with just a few major reveals held back until a majority of their respective tales have been told. More ambitiously than its predecessors, Immortality successfully manages to tell several stories all at once. While the audience for the stories themselves may be somewhat limited due to the nature of the material, the game as a whole is another impressive achievement of game design in filmmaking.

Continue reading Immortality →
PC Games

She Sees Red

Leave a comment

Publisher: RhinoTales
Developer: RhinoTales
Year: 2019
Platform: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Switch, Xbox One,

Rating: 5

After the opening title card in Rhinotales’ FMV thriller She Sees Red, you are boldly told that EVERY CHOICE MATTERS.  I could have done without the fourth-wall breaking advice, especially since this declaration turns out not to be true. A pure example of an interactive movie, the game offers no puzzles or even any real player agency; nevertheless, it’s slickly filmed and a fun if sometimes confusing ride.

Continue reading She Sees Red →
PC Games

Telling L!es

Leave a comment

Publisher: Annapurna
Developer: Downing a Mermaid Productions & Furious Bee Ltd.
Year: 2019
Platform: Windows, PS4, Switch, Xbox One, Mac, iPad, iPhone

Rating: 8

Has it really been almost five years since I reviewed Her Story? Sheesh, I’m getting old. Back then I said I was looking forward to Sam Barlow’s next project. I think I forgot about that as I didn’t discover Telling Lies until about 18 months after its release. Still, it was very much worth the wait.

Mild spoilers under the break. You might enjoy the game more knowing nothing about it.

Continue reading Telling L!es →
Casual Games

Jeopardy! (Hasbro Editions)

1 Comment

Developer: Hasbro
Year: 1998, 2000, 2003
Genre: Game Show
Platform: Windows, Mac, Playstation

My Rating: 9

I’ve played almost every version of Jeopardy! over the years on every system, and the three released by Hasbro at the turn of the century are still my favorite. They’re clean, crisp, and feature Johnny Gilbert reading the questions with FMV sequences featuring Alex Trebek. It’s about as close to the real show as you’re going to get.

Continue reading Jeopardy! (Hasbro Editions) →
PC Games

CDX

Leave a comment

Developer: Preloaded
Publisher: BBC
Year: 2006
Platform: Windows; Mac

Rating: 6/10

Click Here To Play

A full-motion video flash game released as a companion to the BBC show “Rome,” CDX is an episodic thriller that follows a prop man working on the show getting embroiled in a dangerous conspiracy. There are multiple paths and hundreds of videos, not to mention an historical education waiting the player.

Continue reading CDX →

PC Games

Her Story

Leave a comment

Publisher: Self-published
Developer: Sam Barlow
Year: 2015
Platform: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android

Regrettably as the older I’ve become, the less effort I’ve found myself willing to put into playing computer games. I prefer to blame the time constrictions of maturation: fatherhood, home ownership, Netflixing with my better half. Ultimately, however, the greatest factor is my waning patience with gratification. This extends to all forms of media; if I have to wait longer than five minutes for stimulation, my interest wanders. Thus, the piled up bin of pilot episodes (sorry Nurse Jackie), second chapters (you too The Girl Who Played with Fire), and barely played computer games (maybe later Quest for Glory 2) awaiting continuation but more likely relegated to eternally gathering dust. Despite this I’m also not looking for cheap and unsatisfying thrills (I’m looking at you Angry Birds). Her Story may be my panacea, motivating me not only to play through its story, but also to forge on and try other games that have been sitting on my virtual shelf for far too long.

Continue reading Her Story →