Full motion video (FMV) games have been experiencing an unexpected resurgence lately. Whether it’s Her Story, Contradiction or Montreal-based Zandel Media’s Missing: An Interactive Thriller, technology that was popular in the mid 90’s, and then openly mocked a little over the last decade or so, is back and somehow re-legitimized.
Pixelgate.co.uk writes:
''very winter the sales come, each offering new titles. It’s the one time of year where the triple A titles share direct shelf (well, digital shelves) space with indies. Steam becomes awash with games you’ve seen everyone, and games you have never heard off. The savings feel good, but discovering new titles is a much more thrilling.''
Steam sales are good for getting those games you've been waiting to hit an acceptable price. Sure, there are a few games that might be cheap enough for you to take a gamble on, but most people probably don't operate that way when their wishlists are still overpopulated.
Bundles, now there is a great way to discover new games. There are plenty of games I wouldn't have ever bothered to buy on even a steep sale, but have ended up playing them because they've come in a bundle I grabbed on the cheap that had a bunch of interesting games (or includes one I was already keeping my eye on).
There are so many excellent games out there, discovery can certainly be a challenge. And the best way I've found so far for content discovery is definitely bundles.
I buy bundles but it doesn't quite have that same thrill. I think it's mostly down to bundles consisting of a preset selection, rather than me browsing a list of options
I actually think that, for someone like me, that is actually a pro rather than a con. I'm already paralyzed by choice in terms of what to play from a list of things I already own. If I am given an entire store worth of sales, odds are I'm sticking to what I've already looked into and have on my wishlist.
I can certainly appreciate what you're saying though - tough as it may be for someone like me to operate that way lol.
With three hundred games in my library, bundles have lost their luster. A lot of the bundles I encountered have games that I already owned so they lost their value a bit.
The recent Winter Steam Sale has a nice twist with its discovery cue. They incentivized going through the cue with card drops. I participated with that scheme, going through several cues a day and in the process I discovered quite a number of new games that I'm not aware of.
PA:
Live action games are having a moment in 2015.
This relatively obscure genre of games – easily distinguishable from others in that they’re made primarily with film footage and live actors rather than computer generated graphics – has seen some interesting and surprisingly engaging games pop up over the last few months.
Her Story, a gripping game composed entirely of police interviews with a woman whose husband has died, arrived in June. Then July brought us Contradiction: Spot the Liar!, a murder mystery that turns players into human lie detectors.
Ruben Circelli: "Do you remember FMV games? You probably don’t, they were a fad even at the height of their popularity back in the 90s. FMVs or full motion video games are known for gameplay consisting largely of pre-rendered or recorded video. The genre has been dominated by shoddy production and lackluster ports of more successful media. Nonetheless, the idea of interactive film has fascinated developers for decades with, in recent memory, developers like Quantic Dream, Supermassive Games, and Sam Barlow creating unforgettable cinematic experiences with the interactivity and freedom of a game; however, Zandel Media has been met with much less success in their first episode of “interactive thriller” Missing, released first last year on Android and iOS."
It's amazing how this game doesn't actually suck. FMV has become a thing in 2015 and I'm still shocked.