7. Every game to feature full-motion video ever
1989 - ??? | Sega CD, CD-I, PC, 3DO, PSone, Saturn, et al
We're holding up Sony's original, beloved PSone game Warhawk (1995) as a particularly bad example of live-action intros here, but every game ever to utilize full-motion video to tell its story is just as guilty. The costumes are always cheap, the lighting is depressing and the sets are generated either by obsolete computers, or by putting those computers inside a disused warehouse and filming them. But it's the acting that's the stuff of gutter legend, with flat line readings from community-theater dropouts who'd be booed off the set of a porn flick.
Warhawk is no exception. The commander looks more like a drama student than a battle-hardened officer, and she doesn't seem to be paying attention to what it is she's saying - only that she's saying it angrily. The technician she's harping at doesn't even care, because he's only got two lines and nobody's going to watch this anyway. Then pilots Hatch and Walker squeeze in through a tiny door to escape the harsh glare of a floodlight, only to stare blankly into space for a while as they wait for some guy wearing thick gloves to fiddle with equipment he fished out of a RadioShack dumpster in 1987.
We're not sure how "game" came to equal "crappy movie" in the minds of developers and publishers throughout the '90s - we just hope it never happens again.
7. Every game to feature full-motion video ever
1989 - ??? | Sega CD, CD-I, PC, 3DO, PSone, Saturn, et al
We're holding up Sony's original, beloved PSone game Warhawk (1995) as a particularly bad example of live-action intros here, but every game ever to utilize full-motion video to tell its story is just as guilty. The costumes are always cheap, the lighting is depressing and the sets are generated either by obsolete computers, or by putting those computers inside a disused warehouse and filming them. But it's the acting that's the stuff of gutter legend, with flat line readings from community-theater dropouts who'd be booed off the set of a porn flick.
Warhawk is no exception. The commander looks more like a drama student than a battle-hardened officer, and she doesn't seem to be paying attention to what it is she's saying - only that she's saying it angrily. The technician she's harping at doesn't even care, because he's only got two lines and nobody's going to watch this anyway. Then pilots Hatch and Walker squeeze in through a tiny door to escape the harsh glare of a floodlight, only to stare blankly into space for a while as they wait for some guy wearing thick gloves to fiddle with equipment he fished out of a RadioShack dumpster in 1987.
We're not sure how "game" came to equal "crappy movie" in the minds of developers and publishers throughout the '90s - we just hope it never happens again.
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