C&C3 To Feature Live Actor FMV (May 10, 2006)

ChrisReid

Super Soaker Collector / Administrator

Preview impressions of Command & Conquer 3 are pouring in now that the Electronic Entertainment Expo is under way. A small number of official screenshots have been released, and more will filter out over the course of the week. Goku has also provided a couple neat shots from the recent PC Gamer announcement article. The text of the piece also makes a reference to the game's upcoming video shoot. Apparently Electronic Arts is putting together another live action film component for this popular franchise. A little while ago I would have said it was a foregone conclusion that the next Wing Commander game would use computer generated characters, but EA still seems to have faith in classic concepts for classic games.
Some questions, such as how Kane has returned from the dead more times than Jason Voorhees, will be answered when the game ships sometime in 2007 (we'd guess later in the year rather than sooner). But other questions, such as whether Joseph Kucan will reprise his role as the villainouse Kane, can't be answered because casting for the live-action scenes hasn't yet begun.
The said, the team at EA LA knows quite a lot about what it wants the game to deliver. C&C3 will use a modestly updated version of the brawny SAGE engine that powered The Battle for Middle-earth II, with tweaked particle effects to "double down on making cool explosions, weasther effects, dust, and smoke."






--
Original update published on May 10, 2006
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Don said:
I wouldn't put my hopes up just yet.
I'm not, I'm just saying that with each FMV game there is the chances get slightly better, because if I'm not mistaken, WC3 was the 1st game with FMV.
 
No, WC3 was not the 1st game with FMV.

FMV can be said to transpire a meaning of any cutscenes involved in a game...so when you said FMV, you could mean the FMV's seen in games such as Doom 3, Assassin 2015, Imperium Galactica and so on. FMV's are created either with a live action set or a computer-generated sequence.
Of course I know what you meant about your comment (with WC3 and live action-video sequence). But there were many games with live-video FMV way before WC3 and these were popularized in many genres of games that were played on very few consoles (the sega CD, Amiga etc.) before, very shortly, it got to the PCs and just after CD ROMs were becoming popular, this being in the early 90's. One such game that had the necessity and advantage of FMV's (and being for the PC CD-ROM) was the 7th Guest - a 3D puzzle game with the point-and-click procedure. It had FMV's simply because it called for what it was - a 3D puzzle game.

Many games have used live action FMV. Some a success, some failures. The failures being what they are because really having FMV's for their games that really didn't need it was just pathetic.
But what sets WC3 apart from those games is that it was a game that called for a great live-action film sequence, a great script, great acting and entwined all of this with fantastic gameplay. It was indeed a one-of-kind game and was dubbed a 'true' interactive movie. Something that gamers had been waiting for and really WC3 had set the statement for such title. Which is why many gamers would like to think that WC3 (inc. WC4 and Prophecy) as being THE ONE with a great success of using live FMV...or just plain FMV.

There have been many games from the late 90's and onwards that use live FMV. Apart from the long running franchise of WC...others games include Black Dahlia, 11th hour, Tiberium Sun and recently Act of War (parallel to the C&C series).
 
Don said:
No, WC3 was not the 1st game with FMV.

FMV can be said to transpire a meaning of any cutscenes involved in a game...so when you said FMV, you could mean the FMV's seen in games such as Doom 3, Assassin 2015, Imperium Galactica and so on. FMV's are created either with a live action set or a computer-generated sequence.

Here you're actually wrong Don, though I know what you mean. FMV stands for "Full Motion Video." While many early games strived for a cinematic presentation, including Wing Commander 1, they cannot be said to have FMV. Alot of games pre wc3 have what looks like video, but is by no means "full motion". Games like Lost in Time cheat by having most of the picture actually a static image and only small "masked" portions are in motion. Myst had this, even early games like access softwares Tex murphy games (Mean Streets and Martian Memorandum) had limited use of video capture.

As welll, A pre rendered cutscene of CGI can be considered FMV, but realtime in-engine cutscenes are absolutely not FMV.
 
Then what do you consider about WC3?

I've never considered WC1 as having FMV.
 
Don said:
Then what do you consider about WC3?

I've never considered WC1 as having FMV.


I'm not sure why your asking because WC3s cutscenes are obviously FMV. I never said that you said WC1 had FMV. Though I mave have read too much into your statement about "any cutscene" being FMV.

It is true however that as the graphics abilities of todays machines increases, studios more and more are moving away from pre-rendered FMV to in-engine cutscenes. And with some of the latest graphical quality, it actually benefits some of the games by not breaking the immersion.

As far as wc3 goes, it may not have been the very first "FMV" game, but it certainly the first runaway success.
 
AD said:
As far as wc3 goes, it may not have been the very first "FMV" game, but it certainly the first runaway success.
And from what I've heard, the only one(I can't really judge, I was 5 at the time):) .
 
The thing is, Myst also had FMV. I've been playing it again recently. Atrus and his sons all feature in FMV scenes in one way or another (usually involving being confined in books). The 7th Guest was like this as well. Granted there was a lot of pre-rendered cgi, but both of these pre-WC3 games featured FMV. And both were runaway hits that spawned sequels. Myst, in fact, spawned an ongoing series that never seems to die no matter how long it disappears.
 
meisdavidp said:
The thing is, Myst also had FMV. I've been playing it again recently. Atrus and his sons all feature in FMV scenes in one way or another (usually involving being confined in books). The 7th Guest was like this as well. Granted there was a lot of pre-rendered cgi, but both of these pre-WC3 games featured FMV. And both were runaway hits that spawned sequels. Myst, in fact, spawned an ongoing series that never seems to die no matter how long it disappears.
I thought that Myst V (or whatever it is, I don't keep up with it:) ) was the last one.:confused:
 
There were still popular games back then that had CGI-rendered scenes...one such being was Magic Carpet. Certainly that qualifies for having FMV...but indeed not an FMV game.
 
Lt.Death100 said:
And from what I've heard, the only one(I can't really judge, I was 5 at the time):) .

This very thread is about an even more successful series with FMV, Command & Conquer.
 
How could we forget. C&C is another long running franchise that uses live FMV; a good thing it is still running on our shelves today.

hmm....there was another thread about the FMVs and C&C
 
Back
Top