I agree completely. But not just for McDowell, but also for Mark Hamill. :D

Toonstruck, if that counts.

I played Psychic Detective on the 3DO long ago and it wasn't too bad - pretty cool in some ways. Never finished it, though. Played Plumber as well, but did not get far, kind of cheesy to say the least, but that was the point, I guess. Night Trap was on 3DO as well. But no one reallt knew what they were doing with these games. The tech wasn't quite there yet. Nor the creative understanidng and skills.

Ah the 3DO and Jaguar. Overpriced and with some shockingly bad games that people didn't realize were bad because they didn't know any better.
Oh there were some great games too like Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo X, Road Rash and Need for Speed on the 3DO. Tempest 2000, Cannon Fodder and Syndicate on the Jaguar but my god did you have to wallow through great piles of shit to find them.
Most of the FMV games of the time were poor quality because developers were simply given CD's and instructions to fill them.

For games with FMV, its got to be C&C. Great game with fun & cheesy FMV that was MEANT to be fun & cheesy
Kinda like PC gaming.

I still have my 3DO. In fact, I have several. I loved it. Yes, there were lots of crummy games, but there were some real gems as well. One must remember that it was all new. The 3DO was a very ambitious platform, but hard to develop for. And game development was still in its infancy. There were more good games on the 3DO than people think, though many were flawed in some ways. But, that is still true.
Immercinary is one I remember that used FMV pretty well, had some flaws, but was very original and had some incredible visuals and sound effects. This game had 3-D sound down pat. This was before most people even knew what 3-D surround sound was, remember. It also had some fairly interesting AI opponents/NPC's and lots of creativity.
Road Rash was awesome. I still play it. The 3DO version was outstanding. It also made excellent use of FMV. For its time, it was a stellar game. Tons of fun. And maybe the best incorporation of music videos in a game ever.
Bladeforce was also a really cool game. It had excellent 3-D visuals (3D was still new remember) and an excellent flying "feel" and was a lot of fun to play. Shockwave made good use of fmv, and did some cool things, but was maybe the hardest game ever made on any platform. Cool, though and fun.
The best implementation of Panzer General I ever played was on the 3DO. A superb game.
The best version (in my opinion) of Star Control 2 was on the 3DO and was a classic.
Battlesport was a pretty cool game and well done. Alone in the Dark was done well on the 3DO. Cannon Fodder was on the 3DO. And many more. You can trace the first appearance of many game techniques and styles to the 3DO, even if their implementations were sometimes flawed.
It was an exciting time to be a gamer back then. What really hurt the 3DO was the high cost, as you point out, and the fact that it got a rep for bad games early on before some of the better game showed up. And that 3DO failed to deliver on some of its promises. But their hardware partner had something to do with that.
Anyway, it was a very exciting machine if you were into the tech. Even if you did have to wade through a lot of shitty games. ;)

Naturally, the list I posted isn't meant to be examples of stellar gaming. As I said, I like (mostly 90s era) FMV games because they are bad, so atrociously bad that they become funny. It's like watching blacksploitation movies, old kung fu movies, or anything that looks like Ed Wood could have created it.

Spycraft, The Great Game.
Mobygames link
And its by Activision! :D

And don't forget to give The 7th Guest a try, obviously....

Yeah mate, i get that. I guess we all do it to an extent with some movies and songs and well, games.
The thing is, whenever the FMV topic pops up it seems that the 'it's so bad and cheesy that it's good' aspect you mentioned is the only thing many people seem to think FMV's have going for them, and well, it's not.
It annoys me a bit that people only seem to focus on the worst the niche has to offer and more often than not completely neglect to mention the good, which only serves to perpetuate the 'joke' stigma in a very unfair way when it comes to some FMV games. It's like using F3 or Oblivion as poster games for RPG's and forget about all the great RPG's out there that aren't crap or a joke. (Oh, my God, what's going on here ? I didn't wrote that. Sorry everybody, my keyboard must be possessed or something) ;)
Anyway, reading back my other post my wording seems to have came out a bit clumsy and perhaps a bit harsh. I didn't mean anything by it mate, honestly.
By all means enjoy the 'bad' FMV's, just don't forget to give the good ones a go too ;)

I still have rather fond memories of Road Avenger.

I'm still surprised no one mentioned Realms of the Haunting. Not only the acting was very good, but the cutscenes were well integrated in the gameplay.
I unfortunately haven't played a lot of FMV games. The only two I remember playing was a rail shooter named Novastorm (excellent game, but so-so acting although there wasn't much) and a point-and-click adventure game named Fort Boyard: La Légende (the acting was OK, the game was good, although being 9 didn't really helped me at the time). I'm not sure it was translated in other languages though.
But my favorite implementation is Myst IV: Revelations. It's like, you don't even notice there's a green screen at all. Even today, I still find it impressing.

I liked Phantasmagoria 2
yeah
i said it.

It's certainly entertaining to watch.