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Full Motion Video

Entry updated 2 April 2015. Tagged: Game, Theme.

Term used to refer to pre-recorded film footage used in a Videogame, as opposed to two or three-dimensional graphics generated by the game as it is being played. Such footage can be produced by computer animation or by filming live actors on physical sets. It is typically used for "cut scenes", short video segments which establish a frame narrative (see Interactive Narrative) for the game or advance a linear narrative over which the player has little control. Some attempts have been made to use Full Motion Video to display entire games, as in The Journeyman Project (1993). Such works are often called "interactive movies"; they are arguably descended from the laserdisc-based arcade games Dragon's Lair (1983 Advanced Microcomputer Systems [AMS], Arcade, Others) and its science-fictional cousin, Space Ace (1984 AMS, Arcade, Others), both of which made use of animation by the ex-Disney film director Donald Bluth. Seminal works of this kind include the B-movie horror game The 7th Guest (1993 Trilobyte, CDi, DOS; 1994 Mac; 1997 Win; 2010 iOS) designed by Graeme Devine, Rob Landeros and the otherwise undistinguished French Time Travel mystery Lost In Time (1993 Coktel Vision, DOS; 1996 Win) designed by Muriel Tramis. This approach resulted in significantly more appealing visuals than those seen in other contemporary Videogames, at the expense of a marked reduction in the player's ability to interact with the game. Few such games proved popular – though the fantasy mystery story Myst (1993) (see Adventures) was a notable commercial success – and the concept is now regarded as a failure. [NT]

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