Posted June 16, 2009
One time, during the 90s, full-motion-video (FMV) adventures had a chance. Thanks to CD-ROM improved storage capacity, everybody and their uncle tried to imitate The 7th Guest and Myst, and jump on the FMV craze. Many of them thought filming amateur actors in front of a green screen was enough, and many less-than-compelling games were released.
But somewhere in Salt Lake City, this was the perfect opportunity for a group of designers that had been creating adventure games with digitized graphics for a long time. Somehow, they had managed to cram digitized speech and graphics in floppy-disk games! Free from space constraints, they could now focus on great design. And they certainly did!
The main diference with other FMV games, apart from the great design, is in the full-3D environments. While other titles allowed you to just move through pre-rendered animations, in UAKM you could literally move anywhere, like in a regular FPS (no shooting here, though). There's nothing like the feeling of discovery you get when you interact with the environment in unexpected ways! Imagine ducking next to a table and finding a note taped under the drawer and you'll see what I mean.
This game also foreshadows the puzzle extravaganza at the heart of the next title, The Pandora Directive. Also, there's a cast of well-known B actors (James Earl Jones provides the narration!) and Access Software employees (with the surprisingly good Chris Jones as Tex Murphy) doing a decent job. There's also a handy built-in hint system which is really helpful to avoid those "I don't know what to do now!" moments.
This is one of the best games of the 90s. If more games like this had been made, FMV wouldn't be reviled now. Maybe even the adventure game as a genre would still be here today.
But somewhere in Salt Lake City, this was the perfect opportunity for a group of designers that had been creating adventure games with digitized graphics for a long time. Somehow, they had managed to cram digitized speech and graphics in floppy-disk games! Free from space constraints, they could now focus on great design. And they certainly did!
The main diference with other FMV games, apart from the great design, is in the full-3D environments. While other titles allowed you to just move through pre-rendered animations, in UAKM you could literally move anywhere, like in a regular FPS (no shooting here, though). There's nothing like the feeling of discovery you get when you interact with the environment in unexpected ways! Imagine ducking next to a table and finding a note taped under the drawer and you'll see what I mean.
This game also foreshadows the puzzle extravaganza at the heart of the next title, The Pandora Directive. Also, there's a cast of well-known B actors (James Earl Jones provides the narration!) and Access Software employees (with the surprisingly good Chris Jones as Tex Murphy) doing a decent job. There's also a handy built-in hint system which is really helpful to avoid those "I don't know what to do now!" moments.
This is one of the best games of the 90s. If more games like this had been made, FMV wouldn't be reviled now. Maybe even the adventure game as a genre would still be here today.