Why Live Action FMVs Should Make a Comeback

So I'm sitting in my room trying to figure out what game I should play next (which is a tough decision when you have a wide range of consoles spanning multiple generations).

I decided to give my PS2 a rest and backtrack to my SegaCD collection. I was pleasantly surprised how well the games played after all these years. But what also surprised me was how 'different' the games were and the amazing variety of the styles of gameplay. A lot of them you don't see anymore, especially Live Action FMVs.

I'm not talking about "movie franchise games", where they cut up random segments of a movie and squeeze in some gameplay here and there. I mean games that had live-action videos made specifically for the game. Some great examples are: Dracula Unleashed, NightTrap, and Corpse Killer. SegaCD and other systems like it were defiantly ahead of their time. Unfortunately, there were two major setbacks that killed this style.

The first issue was bad audio and video quality. They put analog footage on a digital medium, combined with the hardware limitations of the consoles themselves, often resulted in muddled, pixelly videos. Also the fact that the SegaCD had mono audio didn't help the sound, making a lot of voice-acting hard to hear properly without raising the volume up to maximum levels.

The second problem, bad acting. Unfortunately, the people who stared in video game movies weren't exactly Hollywood level thespians. They weren't even Independent film level. Its one thing to have bad voice acting, its almost forgivable. But actually seeing the person kind of kills the gaming experience.

But we've come a long way since the 90s. Videos (both digital and analog) can be shown on DVD and Blu-ray without the fog of pixels. Even TV shows are almost cinema quality now. And it seems even bad acting is forgivable now (i.e. Twilight).

This is why I think they should give Live Action FMVs another chance. If this sort of technology was available in the 90s, just imagine the games they would have conjured. Games like Grand Theft Auto and Tomb Raider and could benefit from this type of game style.


Do you think Live Action FMVs should make a comeback? Leave a comment.