Revenge of the FMV

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Tracking the sordid history of interactive movies

Probably not, reckons Steve Eastin, who appeared in TV shows like The A-Team, Wonder Woman and Little House On The Prairie, before taking the lead role of Commander Reece in Ground Zero Texas, one of the few FMV titles not released for CD-ROM. “When I got a call to audition for Ground Zero Texas I thought it was just a film,” he drawls. “I was thrilled because I was the main actor.”

What did the role entail? “Reece was a soldier of fortune, so it was physically demanding. There was a lot of technical jargon, talking into the camera and the like. The main difference (between FMV and conventional movies) was that they kept re-shooting the same scene, especially green-screen footage of the guys getting killed. The stuntmen got the shit beat out of them over and over again.”

Robert Culp, a respected character actor who appeared in classic shows such as Rawhide, played Reed Hawke in saucy escapade Voyeur. “We worked in a round set and everything was CGI’d in later on. Tables were represented by cubes, as were the chairs. It was difficult to work in such artificial surroundings and to tell a real mystery story because the format was so highly stylized,” says the 76-year-old, who recently voice-acted Dr. Wallace Breen in Half-Life 2.