FMV-based games were popular during the early 1990s as CD-ROMs and Laserdiscs made their way into the living rooms, providing an alternative to the low-capacity cartridges of most consoles. Although most games did manage to look better than most sprite-based games, they were a niche market—a vast majority of FMV games were panned at the time of their release, and most gamers dislike the lack of interaction inherent of these games. This format became a well-known failure in video gaming. The popularity of FMV games declined after around 1995, as more advanced consoles were released.
As the first CD-based consoles capable of displaying smooth and textured 3D graphics appeared, the full-FMV game fad vanished from the mainstream circles around 1995, although it remained an option for PC adventure games for a couple more years. One of the last titles released was the 1998 PC and PlayStation adventure The X-Files: The Game, packed in 7 CDs.
Philosophy
This genre came about with the invention of laserdiscs and laserdisc players, the first nonlinear or random access video play devices. The fact that a laserdisc player could jump to and play any chapter instantaneously (rather than proceed in a linear path from start to finish like videotape) meant that games with branching plotlines could be constructed from out of order video chapters in much the same way as Choose Your Own Adventure books could be constructed from out of order pages, or the way an interactive film is constructed by choosing from a web of linked narratives.
Thus, interactive movies were animated or filmed with real actors like movies (or in some later cases, rendered with 3D models), and followed a main storyline. Alternative scenes were filmed to be triggered after wrong (or alternate allowable) actions of the player (such as 'Game Over' scenes).
The X-Files Game
Game play
The game uses a point-and-click interface, uses full motion video technology called Virtual Cinema, and includes a large number of cut scenes. Included in the gameplay are numerous occasions in which the player can alter other character's attitudes and reactions depending upon responses and actions (or inactions). Dubbed "UberVariables", certain decisions made by the player can set them along one of three tracks: Paranoia (Willmore will start seeing things like twitching corpses and shadowy figures), Loss (messages from his ex-wife are kinder), and "The X-Track" (more details are revealed about mytharc-related conspiracies). The player can also affect Willmore's relationship with Astadourian positively and negatively based upon how he responds to her suggestions and ideas.
X-Flies Game Interaction Includes:
-Slight direction of movement through environment (Hand Cursor)
-Items can be picked up and used (Hand Cursor). Some items include a cell phone (numbers can be found and called), a lock picking device and a GPS (This is used to transport you to other locations).
-Communication to characters ( A list of options are provided as well as the mood of your response)
-Viewing specific items within your environment (Zoom-in icon)
Casebook episode 1 - Kidnapped
The scroll able video was quite effective, a comment left on youtube suggested that the designers useed a single wide angle camera to film everything, and then narrowed the field of view to display on your monitor only maybe 40% of the original screen, then allow the player to adjust that smaller window around within the original 100% sized window. But in fact Casebooks environment is produced using Areograph, which creates 3D digital spaces entirely out of photographs.
FMV on DVDs and Video Games
From the time of its original introduction, the DVD format specification has included the ability to use an ordinary DVD player to play interactive games, such as Dragon's Lair (which was reissued on DVD), the Scene It? and other series of DVD TV games, or games that are included as bonus material on movie DVDs.
There have been some recent video games that have used this approach using fully-animated computer generated scenes, including Fahrenheit and Heavy Rain (both created by Quantic Dream). Heavy Rain is dramatic thriller that uses minimal player input. During many scenes, the player has limited control of the character and chooses certain actions to progress the story. Other scenes are action sequences, requiring the player to hit appropriate buttons at the right time to succeed. Heavy Rain has numerous branching storylines that result from what actions the player takes or fails to complete properly, which can include the death of major characters or failure to solve the mystery.
Heavy Rain
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