Yeah, nah,
I admire the idea behind it, and the fact that someone actually went ahead and tried to do something interesting, i.e. to try and turn something linear and static into something dynamic and playable. Unfortunately, how this particular implementation is presented, it's uninteresting, boring and not worth engaging in. While I do appreciate the effort, I do not appreciate the result.
So the concept is this: old classic films that went public domain are gamified by adding choices to them. You watch the movie, at some point the movie halts and asks you what to do, and you get to decide how the movie continues.
This sounds a lot like modern "choice videos" like e.g. the Netflix items Black Mirror: Bandersnatch and Minecraft: Story Mode. Possibly a throwback to the good old days, where a handful of DVDs allowed to do something simliar, e.g. switch camera angles in certain scenes, or just generally jump/pick scenes to create an alternate storyline.
What may sound like a neat idea to some, as myself, turns out to be utterly boring and frustrating, at least in this particular implementation.
First off, there is the immediately evident conceptual problem: the movie itself doesn't change. It's a linear experience, there's no different outcome, there are no alternate stories to be uncovered.
Imagine a movie scene like this:
Moment 1 - A person is in a room, there is a noise outside.
Moment 2 - The person runs to the window to look and see what made the noise.
Moment 3 - The person can't see the source of the noise, so they run outside and look around there.
In this kind of game, you get to watch the movie up to Moment 1, then you get the choices to "look out of the window" or "rush outside".
- If you choose to "look out of the window", you get to watch Moment 2, automatically followed by Moment 3, because that's how the movie goes.
- If you choose to "rush outside", Moment 2 is skipped and the movie continues from Moment 3.
Imagine a dialog between two people:
Moment 1:
- Person A - Hi.
- Person B - Hi.
Moment 2:
- Person A - How are you?
- Person B - I'm fine, but (follows a monologue about how that person is).
Moment 3
- Person A - Well, let's get going.
In this kind of game, after Moment 1 ends and both people have greeted each other, you get the choice to "engage in conversation" or "hurry them along", something along those lines.
- If you pick "engage in conversation", you get to see Moment 2, where Person A asks Person B and Person B gets to tell their story, followed by Moment 3, because that's how the movie goes.
- If you pick to "hurry them along", Moment 2 gets skipped and the movie continues from Moment 3.
Or to summarize, this kind of game is just "selective scene skipping".
This becomes tedious and boring after just a few minutes of gameplay already. (I probably spent more time writing this review than I spent actually "playing" the "game".)
After the conceptual problem, there are also technical issues:
- The movie is available in 720p only. I guess I don't have to explain how annoying it is to play something the size of a stamp on a 4K screen.
- The movie playback is jaggy and stutters. It's like the movie speeds up and slows down again every second or two. This is noticeable when I look directly at it, but also when I look of to the side, it's like someone's flicking through a thumb flicker book.
I have a pretty buffed out computer, it runs complex contemporary games like Red Dead Redemption 2 in 4K resolution at full details without even breaking a sweat. The simple playing back of a black-and-white 720p video will definitely not be enough to bring it down, so the jaggy playback must be due to poor encoding of the source video.
- There is no way to "save" the "game" or to skip ahead at least to the next choice. Imagine you're halfway through a 2 hour movie game, suddenly the dog needs to go for a walk, you need to hit the toilet yourself, and finally it's time to meet someone in real life.
The game, and of course the computer and Steam, would have to stay on and running all the time, until you return to finish the remainder of the game. If you close the game and just start it again later, you'd have to "play" the entire first half of the 2 hour movie game again, you can't just continue where you left off.
You also can't just pick random choices (remember: irrelevant, as they don't change the outcome of the movie) and skip through the first half of the movie, because there's no way to skip ahead.
So this kind of game implementation is not only conceptually tedious and boring, but also practically in the "game" flow.
The frustrating thing is - I love, I mean I LOVE, The Night of the Living Dead. The movie, that is. This game has robbed me of any interest in watching the masterpiece again anytime soon, and I've only played it for a quarter of an hour or something. If you love the movie like I do, just do yourself a favour and watch the movie again.
There are several of these games, and they're very affordable, so feel free to ignore my advice and see for yourself, just don't say I didn't try to warn you. ;)
