Late Shift

Late Shift is a neat little blending of movie and video game known as a FMV, or full motion video. FMV’s first showed up in the mid to late 90’s when the hardware for gaming systems could sort of handle movies but not really 3d models yet. These were often cheesy b movie style actor’s and settings, but the real interesting part of it was that you could interact with a movie. Usually, they consisted of choose-your-own-adventure style games, or point-and-click style games, where you would make a choice, or interact with an item on the screen, and a subsequent scene would play out. FMV’s in general died out shortly after 3d animation began to really hit it’s stride in the late 90’s to early 00’s, with only short cameo appearances in a few games afterwards. This is what makes Late Shift such an interesting game to me, as I was too young to really appreciate the genre back then. Instead of grainy, b-movie tier effects and actors, you have one with effects and acting comparable to today’s standards.

Late Shift plays out as a young man who takes a job as a graveyard shift garage guard gets involved in a heist. Gameplay is extremely bare, with only the option between making one of two choices in a short amount of time. The thing that makes it worthwhile over FMV’s of the past, is the fact that acting is relatively good in this movie. There are seven possible endings to the game, with only one of them being the preferred “good” ending. Each playthrough of the story takes around 60 to 75 minutes. The only issue I have with this game is the fact that you can’t fast forward from any scenes you’ve already encountered, so if you accidentally fall into the same choices as a previous ending, you have to watch through the whole thing again. The movie itself not the most original, but is entertaining enough that I replayed through almost all the endings.

Do I think FMV’s will make a resurgence, probably not. Do I think that this game is worth the price tag on Steam? Yeah, its around the price that you would pay at a theater, plus the added benefits of choosing different endings to it. And the refreshments are arguably better and cheaper too.