I'm saddened by the sight of bare-footed orphans selling cast-away cigarette butts for a few pennies, but I'm devastated by the over-eager acting that accompanies some game FMVs. It wasn't so bad in the Playstation era: most of the voiceovers for early anime cutscenes deserved to be ridiculed, and at least the “actors” got to live in infamy.
But for a mercifully short time, gamers were infatuated with turtle-paced CD games that featured real actors, and not just a voice transplanted to a flapping mouth. These are the games that lived and died on the Sega CD and CD-i. Most FMV-based games were as much fun as sitting on an upright knife, but sometimes you have to look at the actors and think, “God bless them. They tried so hard, but to what avail?”
Mystic Midway: Phantom Express is an on-rails shooter for the CD-i that stars an unapologetically sarcastic carnival barker. The barker heckles you mercilessly, opening the game with a joke he cribbed from the tuff grade two kids who hogged the sand pits at recess: ”I was just reading the most hilarious story! It's called...YOUR LIFE!”
If you have at least one eye and/or one ear, you should be able to surmise why this guy's drama major probably never found use beyond a bottom-feeder game console. Still, he throws so much into the whole performance that just want to stand there and take his jabs. Yes, yes, my life is pitiful and my memory swarms with chilling instances of abuse and neglect. Shhh. It's okay. Go to sleep now.
Yeah, actually, this whole game is pretty depressing.
Related Links:
FMV Hell: Zombie Dinos from the Planet Zeltoid
FMV Hell: Mega Man X4
FMV Hell: Sonic CD