THE BUNKER
I liked FMV when it was underground
Long-time gamers will remember the odd mid-’90s fad that was full motion video (FMV). Featuring live-action footage, the likes of Night Trap and The X-Files Game caught gamers’ interest… but not for long. The Bunker is an attempt to revive the FMV game for the HD era, and the results are interesting, but still problematic.
The story revolves around John, a lonely blighter living in an underground bunker following a series of nuclear strikes on the UK. After 30 years living like a Womble, John’s mum has pegged it and he’s now the sole survivor. Before long an emergency compels John to brave the unexplored sections of the bunker (took his time, didn’t he?) while trying to piece together his past.
Although many FMV games of old were cheesier than Wallace and Gromit’s fridge, The Bunker is an accomplished production. It looks beautifully moody and the actors’ performances are fantastic, particularly Adam Brown as John and Sarah Greene as his mother. 1 The other big star’s the bunker itself: a moody series of creepy corridors and unwelcoming rooms.
Yet it suffers from the same reasons why FMV games died out in the first place: there’s very little interactivity. It’s about as basic a point-and-click adventure as you’ll get, and there are no real puzzles to work through. Add to that some annoying buttonbashing QTE moments2 and you almost wish the ‘game’ (as it were) wasn’t in the way of the plot and performance.
And it lasts around two hours, which is rather slight for your £ 15.99. A beautifully made project, indeed, but one with limitations that peg it behind the likes of Virginia or Dear Esther.