Port Canaveral, FL – Royal Caribbean International’s (RCI) Enchantment of the Seas was welcomed back to Port Canaveral today launching a new season of three and four-night cruises to the Bahamas from the Port. Port Canaveral was the homeport for the 2,950 passenger Enchantment until 2016. In response, Tom Zito founded Digital Pictures and worked to port Sewer Shark and Night Trap to the Nintendo add-on, as well as develop all-.
Ground Zero: Texas is a full motion video game, released for the Sega CD in November 1993.[1] The game relies heavily on video footage, with which the player interacts. It contains 110 minutes of interactive footage from four different cameras. It was directed by Dwight H. Little,[2] who is also known for the films Marked for Death and Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers.
Plot[edit]
Aliens known as Reticulans have attacked El Cadron, a small border town in Texas. The player has arrived to save the townspeople, who have been disappearing. The aliens have clever ways of disguising themselves as townspeople. The player's mission is to do away with the Reticulans, but they cannot be killed with regular guns. The player is armed with four BattleCams, with a stunning particle beam that stops the alien temporarily. The player must rid the world of the Reticulan menace before the entire area is destroyed by a nuclear bomb.
Four special operatives will help the player by providing clues to the Reticulan base. When a special operative is fighting with a Reticulan, the player has to shoot the enemy before they can abduct the special operative. After the enemy is disposed of, the special operative can look at its pendant. On each pendant is a number and a shape that corresponds to a special lock. Once the code is cracked, the vaulted door opens to reveal the Reticulans' weapons arsenal and a cold storage area.
After the base is secured, all of the player's BattleCams become reprogrammed with Reticulan weaponry. Upon learning of this development, the Reticulans deploy stormtroopers to destroy the town and its people. The Special Forces fight back as the areas of the town explode into debris.
In a desperate attempt to stop the Special Forces, the Reticulans abduct Reece, take him to their mothership, and prepare to take off. DiSalvo rigs a special BattleCam armed with a giant alien cannon. With a single well-placed shot, the mothership is obliterated, saving the town and Earth from the Reticulan army.
Development[edit]
Ground Zero Texas was a 'second-generation' title for Digital Pictures, their first titles for the Sega CD having been rehashes of titles developed for Hasbro's aborted NEMO system. The game had a two million dollar budget - most of which was generated by the bundling of Sewer Shark with Sega CD consoles.
The game started life with the codename Project X, a script written by Digital Pictures co-founder Ken Melville that was inspired by Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Invaders from Mars. By the time development started, the script had been re-written by Alan B. McElroy, Edward Neumeier and Joshua Stallings.[2]
The game's FMV was shot by a full Hollywood film crew, which meant that Digital Pictures had to negotiate with the Directors Guild, Screen Actors Guild and Writers Guild - the first time this had been done for a video game.[2]
In the game, the film elements suffered due to the technical limitations of the Sega CD. The film had to be processed to reduce it to a palette of 64 colours and to accommodate the slow data transfer rate of the CD drive. Despite the limitations, the game's visual appearance was still described as 'breathtaking' for 1993 by Edge.[2] In a retrospective interview with Edge, Ken Melville of Digital Pictures expressed his displeasure at the technical limitations of the video, 'All our video had to be tortured, kicking and screaming, into the most horrifying, blurry, reduced-colour-palette mess imaginable in the Sega CD. I shudder to think about it'[2]
Reception[edit]
Ground Zero: Texas was a bestseller in the UK for two months,[5] and was awarded Best Sega Mega-CD Game of 1994 by Electronic Gaming Monthly.[6] Though their review of the game criticized it for poor control design, bad acting, and corny dialogue, they praised the music and storyline and scored it a 7.5 out of 10.[4]
References[edit]
External links[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ground_Zero:_Texas&oldid=937158819'
Full Motion Video (FMV) games were quite new when the Sega CD was released. At least as far as mainstream gaming goes because Sewer Shark and Night Trap are both about half a decade old upon their release in 1992 on the newly released Sega CD add-on. Sega knew they had to get unique games out and in the face of gamers. They knew simply going with a remix of Sonic the Hedgehog with 1000+ levels probably would do well but it would not show the power of the new, rather expensive, add-on to their popular Sega Genesis console. Enter the Full Motion Video Games like Sewer Shark and Night Trap.
Feelings were not a concern back then
If you were thin skinned gamer then Sewer Shark was probably not the game for you. Why? Because this game insults you worse than Mega Race ever thought of. This is all done by an overweight, obviously more privileged, white guy living the life somewhere you are not (which makes it easy to hate him from the start).
Sounds simple
The premise of Sewer Shark is simple. You are riding around tunnels and shooting rats and other denizens of the underworld. Your job is to rid the underground of these creatures without screwing up. You will screw up. You will hear about it in insults and the like from the big guy. When you do well though, you will receive promotions and a new call name, such as Dog Meat or something similar.
All about the, grainy, video
Everything is played out in video clips which for many gamers gets old quick. There is not a lot of variety to the scenery to enjoy so the awesome effect of “playing a movie” wears off rather quickly. What is left is a rails shooter with realistic graphics and for some that is enough to find some enjoyment.
Ports upon ports
Sewer Shark has hit a ton of platforms so you may have experienced it on better hardware than the Sega CD. The Sega CD edition is probably the worst looking of the bunch (as is the case with being early technology). Check Ebay for the platforms Sewer Shark hit and some decent prices (it is still not all that sought after).
It is time gaming journalism takes its rightful place as proper sources and not fanboys giving free advertising. If you wish to support writers like Carl please use the links below. https://www.paypal.me/WCW https://www.patreon.com/CarlWilliams
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