Another Internet Cynical Essay About FMV Games

It was called "Incoming" because that was the word you'd hear the most ;)


Actually I like that game somehow, although it wasn't really "good". But it was what I'd call "kuzweilig" in German, which roughly translates to "entertaining" and also is a polar opposite to "boring" ("langweilig")... I hope you get the idea.
 
Speaking of Chris Crawford, this video (in multiple parts on YouTube) gives a good insight into his ideas and beliefs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N53BH4HTns

He seems to feel that games are too much about navigating a (simulated) space. His Storytron project is an attempt to make the kind of games he believes should be made. I've tried the example one on his site (www.storytron.com). It's utterly boring and would probably have been only mildly impressive 20 years ago. Time has truly left this man behind. It's a bit sad, really. He seems to have a lot invested (both personally and economically) in his Storytron project, but there's no chance in hell it'll ever be a success.
 
As far as I understand it, this storytron-thing is like very early Alpha state...

However, unfortunately we don't see much progress there. But part of it propably has to do with some technical/mathematical limitations that are severly constraining what can be done on that area (like NP-completeness, or the general pathetic state of "true AI" - which is in my opinion related to the problem of NP-completeness as well). Also, of course, the lack of manpower needed to get the project forward.

About being successful, he has pretty much given up being commercially successful, that's what I meant when I said with "he quit the industry"... Sure, you can say "the industry quit him" before that happened, but I was talking about his "dragon speech" in 1992, where he "formally quit" the industry.
 
That is so awesome! The game perfectly replicates interacting with a grammar book. Or wait... maybe it is a grammar book.
 
At least he praised Wing Commander rather than slagging it off (except for the movie but who can blame him?)

I kind of agree a little bit with what he says about WC4, the FMV climax is more entertaining than the last mission, although the Vesuvius missions are probably the real climax of the actual game, the Seether confrontation mission is like an epilogue. I always found Seether too easy to defeat, although I only used to play it on the default difficulty setting.

About WC4 and its giant $12 million budget, was it very profitable? I have no idea how much money games make compared to films (they probably make a lot more money nowadays)
 
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