Whatever happened to live-action FMVs in games?

[az_bont]

Remember when FMVs first became popular, around the time of the Mega CD? Nearly every FMV I can remember used real actors, no doubt because CGI effects were far too expensive to be included in most games at the time.

When the Playstation was first released, this trend seemed to die out rather quickly. Resident Evil had them, and if it were not for the poor voice acting they would have been better than the REmake on the Gamecube. Road Rash 32-bit used them, and they were pretty funny, and really felt like they weren't out of place. More recently, Headhunter used them (in parts), and I genuinly feel it made the game a lot more enjoyable.

I've always preferred live-action cut-scenes. Whilst games like Final Fantasy VII need to have animated cutscenes to keep with the feel of things, I don't see why games like Resident Evil need to cross over to something a lot less convinving.

Am I alone here, or do others agree?

[mikelomax]

i think the main reason is that you have to pay actors to do the acting for the live action FMV. it's more cost effective to do it in the engine, then all you gotta do is pay the voice actors and you can play around with the scene, editing the dialogue where necessary.

[Veggita2099]

Yea it was very expensive to my understanding to pay actors, then try to fit them into the levels and scenes.

[Nyarlathotep]

Resident Evil had them, and if it were not for the poor voice acting they would have been better than the REmake on the Gamecube.

You must have played a different game than the one I did, because the one I played had a laughably crappy FMV of some knobs dressed as soldiers running around a field going 'YARGH!' with some fast cuts of dogs barking at them

[AmadeusZull]

well its a lot easier for developers to inoke a character's expression. i think that was the main reason.

[DC's Champion]

Actors don't fit in the video game world.
Live FMV's are horrible and very funny when I look back on it now. If you don't agree, buy 80 percent of Sega CD games or 3DO games.
I remember playing a game called Shockwave: Assault. It had cursing and live video from actors...one funny a$$ed game!

[Lartrak]

Graphics have improved enourmously for both pre-rendered cinema and in-game cinema. I guess that is obvious. While live action used to have the advantage of being a good way of showing storyline without having to resort to the horrible graphics of first gen 3D, when the technology advanced they decided it wasn't really needed anymore.

There's also that some people feel it is jarring, since it is so obvious. And that to do it well will often cost more. And that they can't do as much of it as in-game cinemas.

That said, I liked live action cinema when it was done well. I think some games would benefit from it. But I think many others would be better off without it.

[|darc|]

As soon as I saw the name of this thread, I got flashbacks of my nightmares from seeing the Resident Evil FMV.

[Veggita2099]

Actors don't fit in the video game world.
Live FMV's are horrible and very funny when I look back on it now. If you don't agree, buy 80 percent of Sega CD games or 3DO games.
I remember playing a game called Shockwave: Assault. It had cursing and live video from actors...one funny a$$ed game!

Yea I remember the horrible games they made that basically all you did was push a button when it told you to. They was really touchy, and you really couldn't tell which way to go by just watching the movie. There was a few decent games made with actors though. I personally thought Wing Commander 3 was a fairly decent game (although not as good as the previous 2). That Sierra game Phantasmorgella, or something of that nature, was a fun adv game. For its time Mad Dog was kinda fun, at least in the arcades. Playing Mad Dog on PC kinda defeated the purpose of the game.

But all those FMV games on Sega CD pretty much sucked horribly and had no gameplay value whatsoever. In fact you couldn't really watch the fmv cause you was too busy having to look for the message telling you to push certain buttons.

[Specially Cork]

The command & conquer games did an OK job, but as you werent actually a character, and never saw yourself, it kinda managed to fit in.

[melancholy]

Resident Evil had them, and if it were not for the poor voice acting they would have been better than the REmake on the Gamecube.

You must have played a different game than the one I did, because the one I played had a laughably crappy FMV of some knobs dressed as soldiers running around a field going 'YARGH!' with some fast cuts of dogs barking at them

Anyway, I'm sure the reason they don't do live-action FMV's is because it wouldn't fit in most games. The in-game characters wouldn't match up with the actors well. Besides, it's probably cheaper for them just to punch out a good CGI then pay for props, actors, sets, and whatever else expense there is.

[Lunchbox]

Resident Evil had them, and if it were not for the poor voice acting they would have been better than the REmake on the Gamecube.

You must have played a different game than the one I did, because the one I played had a laughably crappy FMV of some knobs dressed as soldiers running around a field going 'YARGH!' with some fast cuts of dogs barking at them

Thats what made it so great though! The cheesy acting was hilarious, I still pop in my RE disc from time to time to watch it