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Fear leads to Anger. Anger leads to...mystery.

The Dame Was Loaded is now available, DRM-free on GOG.com.
Scott Anger, P.I. needed a case. Sure enough, a dame fine as wine walks into his office and asks him to please find her missing brother. But missing persons cases are like women: never as easy to figure out as they promise to be. Anger is now in for a wild ride, as behind every corner and FMV sequence await puzzles, lies, and murder most foul.
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ReynardFox: seminal games like Dragon's Lair and Space Ace aren't?
Dragon's Lair and Space Ace are not seminal, and nor are they games. They are literally animated movies and nothing more. Selling them as games would be false advertising. And a lot of customers would rightly feel ripped off for being misled into buying a movie under the false pretense that it was a game.

Keeping those non-game films off of GOG is probably the only good thing that GOG curation has ever accomplished.
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BloodMist: Holy crap, I completely forgot about this game, I played a demo for it waaaay back when but I could never find a copy of the actual game to buy.

Yeah ya know somethin, THIS is the kind of game I wish GoG released more often. GoG has very little making it stand out as a service, and it's these games, these unsung, underrated classics, that are what GoG really has going for it. Anyone who doesn't like it can go suck a lemon

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Banjo_oz: A rare insta-buy for me, even though I still own the original CDs.

I love FMV games but this one is a real nostalgia kick for me: Beam Software's "big adventure game" effort and "Australia's largest multimedia project" (at the time).

Sure, it's a very cheesy noir pastiche, but that's part of the fun, IMO. Certainly not an amazing game, but decent for an FMV title - it's a "proper" first-person adventure game at least and not just an "interactive movie" - and holds a lot of nostalgia for me personally.

I still remember seeing a news item on this game on local Australian TV back when it was released; this game was made and shot locally in Australia (by Beam Software), and got a bit of "current affairs show" media coverage for some reason. Everyone, journos and game-makers alike, were fascinated by the idea of shooting multiple versions of scenes depending on player choices! This may also explain some of the accents, however. ;) Wish I could find that "making of" segment online, as I doubt my VHS recording survives today even if I could find it.

Back then, games like this, Under a Killing Moon, Wing Commander 3, etc. were pretty revolutionary in terms of movie-like storytelling within video games, even if few FMV games ever really got the balance of gameplay+video right (WC3 & 4 being examples of ones that did, IMO).

EDIT: I find it funny to see people claim FMV games are "those too lazy to make graphics" yet even terrible FMV games stand up better visually than early 3D games with hideous huge polygons. I love sprite art, but there's more to gaming than 2D pixels.

EDIT #2: Such a shame 'Night Trap 25th Anniversary' isn't on GOG where it really belongs. Bring on more FMV games, GOG! How about 'Quantum Gate' (short, but one of my fave game endings) or its sequel 'The Vortex'? Maybe 'Voyeur', since we got (to my surprise) 'Tender Loving Care' recently? 'Burn: Cycle' or 'Psychic Detective' are pretty well regarded adventures, no? 'Angel Devoid', a real pain to get running on modern PCs? Even 'Critical Path' or 'Creature Shock' would be nice?
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BloodMist: You know exactly what's up man, you rock.
Indeed I do. :) It's Johnny who rocks. Johnny Rock. (sorry, TDWL always reminds me of that game too).

I wish we had American Lasergames (like 'Who Shot Johnny Rock?', sitting on my shelf right now in front of me, that femme fatale tease!) on GOG too, but most of the PC ports were admittedly rubbish-looking. Those games are so much better emulated via Daphne! IMO, it's sad that ALG titles and the Dragon's Lair/Space Ace games get freaking *DVD* (as in DVD players!) releases with but not modern (remastered video) PC re-releases.

I definitely agree though that this is the sort of game that makes GOG... well, GOG and not a pale Steam imitation. I like a good indie game or AAA title as much as the next gamer, but seeing all that stuff (and "remasters") at $40 a pop on the front pages these days makes me long for more classics or rarities. I'd kill for a release of something like 'Alien Virus' or 'Noir' here.

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zakmckracken: Thank you, GOG!! FMV games (even the bad ones) are instant purchases for me. :)

Any of the titles that Banjo_oz mentioned would be excellent additions to the GOG catalog, along with other classics like Dark Side of the Moon, Temujin, Black Dahlia, and Ripper. Even more obscure FMV experiments like Mode, Midnight Stranger, Point of View, or the Santa Fe Mysteries games would be fun also.
Ripper and Black Dahlia not being here is just wrong, IMO. Absolute classics and pretty landmark games... even though both games contain some of the worst "puzzles" I can remember in gaming. That one in Ripper that just throws an in-game calculator at you to figure is still an in-joke in my family.

Always wanted to play Point of View!

Others I'd like to see here: 'Gothos', 'Foxhunt', 'Urban Runner', 'Johnny Mnemonic' (IMO better than the movie) and... what the heck was the name of that submarine FMV game with Michael Biehn?!

One I didn't know existed until recently: A Fork in the Tale. Wonderfully dreadful, rather than just wonderful, though. :)
Post edited April 24, 2018 by Banjo_oz
"Ripper" has licenced music (integral for the game ending), "Johnny Mnemonic" is a movie licence, I doubt we will seem them again at any time in the future.
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Anime-BlackWolf: "Ripper" has licenced music (integral for the game ending), "Johnny Mnemonic" is a movie licence, I doubt we will seem them again at any time in the future.
I know license nonsense stops some game (or cripples them to the point of not being worth the release, like Mafia!), but I wouldn't think those two are that hard to resolve in that respect.

'Ripper' has one Blue Oyster Cult song that is also frequently used in pop culture (movies, tv shows, etc) so I can't see the rights holders having an issue with a deal if a new one need be made. Not saying there might not be legit rights issues, but we've got games on GOG that I would have thought would be much trickier.

'Johnny Mnemonic' the movie was a huge failure, so I'd hope the rights holders would like the idea of any more money coming in from that project in any form. :) That said, I actually think the issue for that particular game is one that hampers a lot of FMV games from the same era, sadly, and that is that there's no DOS version, only Windows 3.11 or Windoes 95/98. AFAIK, there's no real way to make it run on a modern machine apart from virtual machine or via Windows installed in DOSBox (how I currently run Johnny M, for example, with a super minimal Win3.11 that boots straight to the game), both of which still need that old version of a commercial OS, which GOG will surely never be allowed to bundle.
Post edited April 25, 2018 by Banjo_oz
Oh yes, Ripper and Black Dahlia, I'm still waiting for those two. Cristopher Walken, Dennis Hopper, that's what I'm talkin about. Now I think, I don't totally know for sure but I think Take 2 Interactive owns the rights to those games, and of course Take 2 also owns Rockstar, so if anything is getting in the way of having those games on GoG it would have to be Take 2 being too busy counting all their GTA Online money to care about getting those games released, so GoG would have to beg them and nag them constantly until they caved in and just let them release the friggin games already. I would bet money on it.
For anyone interested, I just posted a quick rundown of TDWL's controls in this game's forum. There's also info there about how to run the game windowed, if someone wants to do that.

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BloodMist: Oh yes, Ripper and Black Dahlia, I'm still waiting for those two. Cristopher Walken, Dennis Hopper, that's what I'm talkin about. Now I think, I don't totally know for sure but I think Take 2 Interactive owns the rights to those games, and of course Take 2 also owns Rockstar, so if anything is getting in the way of having those games on GoG it would have to be Take 2 being too busy counting all their GTA Online money to care about getting those games released, so GoG would have to beg them and nag them constantly until they caved in and just let them release the friggin games already. I would bet money on it.
Ripper is a huge piece of nostalgia for me. I still remember being awed by the coverdisk demo trailer for it and counting the days until it was released!

I may be wrong, but I seem to remember that there was a little bad feeling on T2's part after Black Dahlia; when lots of gaming press ripped on that game for being obtuse and Take 2 huffily stated "fine, we won't make any more games like that, then!" I have no idea why I remember that, or if it is true, though! Might be a totally false memory!

Sadly true about Rockstar and GTA Online. I find it tragic when a company does a great job on something, gets critically commended, then doubles down on the one "bad" part of that (Naughty Dog and their microtransaction-fest of TLOU multiplayer is the big one I always think of, too). Just IMO, mind you.
Post edited April 25, 2018 by Banjo_oz