Full-action video games occupy an interesting place in video game history. If you’re not familiar with the term, it refers to games that use actual real-world footage in their gameplay. The genre briefly flourished in the mid-90s, when the advent of CD-ROMs provided developers with enough storage space to use pre-recorded footage—first in point-and-click games. 7c Guest and Phantasmagoriaand later in movie titles Wing Commander IIIwhich was memorable Mark Hamill.
While the idea of games using real footage with real movie stars was exciting at the time, it proved somewhat difficult in practice, and when the advent of 3D acceleration allowed CG to advance in quality and speed, FMV suddenly became yesterday’s news. Today, it’s more the province of intrepid indie developers – Sam Barlow, for example, used it to great effect. His Story and Immortality-and sigh, “adult games”.
But there is another, earlier chapter in FMV history: in the early days of gaming, arcade machines sometimes used taped footage. It is by far the most famous example of this kind of game Dragon’s Lairused pre-recorded rotoscoped animations to create a kind of (somewhat) interactive Disney movie. It still seems impressive today, so you can imagine how much it gripped people’s minds. Space invaders and Donkey Kong.
Because of his recognition Dragon’s Lairpeople (myself included) tend to think this is the first game to use this technique. But it wasn’t. Almost exactly ten years ago Dragon’s Lairgame called Wild armed used FMV to create an interactive Wild West gun game. (Surprisingly, a sequel of the same name, which did not use FMV, was released in 1985 and is f.eaten in it Back to the Future Part II.)
The original game, the first coin-operated release by a small and ill-fated Japanese game company called Nintendo, consisted mainly of an arcade cabinet consisting of a light gun and sensor, two 16mm film projectors, a screen, and some logic circuitry. After you join the two quarters and the game plays various intros, you’ll be greeted with Clint Eastwood-esque shots creeping menacingly towards the camera.
You have to wait until you see the shooter’s eyes light up, at which point you unholster the light pistol and fire at the screen. If you’re quick enough at the draw, your reward is your victim’s right to fall to the dusty floor and face another villain. Otherwise, you see the gunman shoot you, at which point it’s game over and you’re on the hook for another 50 cents.
If you’re wondering how the game goes between ‘win’ and ‘die’ movies, that’s why there are two projectors. One is loaded with a so-called main reel, featuring footage of various gunmen approaching and firing; the other is loaded with a sub-reel featuring footage of gunmen being shot and knocked down. The simple logic scheme of the game simply blocks the output of one or the other depending on the success status returned by the light weapon. The game shipped with four main reels and four sub reels and provided 15 or more gunmen to shoot. So yeah, the more analog nature of the game is probably something that’s often under-appreciated in the history of FMV games, but damn.
So with all this history out of the way, why are we writing about it? Wild armed now? Yes, the original game has been something of a holy grail for arcade fans, as finding a working copy today is pretty much impossible. However, copies of the original film reels recently surfaced on eBay and were snapped up by YouTuber and game collector Callan Brown, who posted a video about his efforts to restore the game.
Brown did not acquire all the footage of the game—the reels he purchased included multiple copies of Reel/Sub-Reel B and D, but only one (slightly degraded) copy of Reel/Sub-Reel A and no copy of Reel/Sub-Reel C. 1974 arcade cabinet. It’s not a straight-up replica: the hardware has been updated, all the lights, etc. it is now controlled by an Arduino and the projectors have been replaced with a single digital projector that provides a 4k scan of the original footage. The actual game is now handled in Unity.
The result is clearly a labor of love, and Brown is confident that it’s the only playable Savage Gunslinger experience in North America — “and possibly the world.” While the game is conceptually pretty simple, watching Brown play it is still wild to think that it was released over half a century ago.
