The very best of the very worst
Oh my man, Giantbomb has finally given this "thing" a page all its very own! Now I can tear this thing to shreds.
I remember that this was one of the principal subjects of a United States Senate committee hearing on violent video games, along with Mortal Kombat. This was back before I was even born. But looking at this thing now makes me want to split the disk apart. It was cited during the hearing as promoting gratuitous violence and sexual aggression against women, prompting toy retailers to pull the game from shelves that December (like they would years later with Stupid Invaders, which, if anything, is even worse than this thing and I hate that game, oh I hate it so much just thinking about Stupid Invaders and this garbage game makes me wanna puke my guts up), and Sega to cease producing copies almost two years later. The Senate hearing led to the creation of the infamous and greatly despised Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), the North American video game ratings board still in use to this day with hardly any changes at all.
So, anyway, basically, this was an interactive horror B-movie with FMV, featuring these actors that no one cares about. The film was actually shot during the late 1980s, several years before it was actually released to consoles. It was originally meant to be released on an interesting device that used VHS technology to create movie-like gaming experiences and allowed four video tracks to be played simultaneously. This system, codenamed "NEMO" (Never Ever Mention Outside), was the Control-Vision. This game was meant to be one of the proposed launch titles for that system. The system was never released and canceled because of the high costs of hardware.
The rights to the abandoned Control-Vision games were later acquired, and after it was learned that Sony was considering Sewer Shark (another such FMV) for a release on its forthcoming Super NES CD-ROM, an independent company named Digital Pictures was formed to bring them to the system. When the Super NES CD-ROM failed to materialize, the Sega CD was developed but short-lived. Night Trap transitioned from VHS to CD-ROM and was released in 1992 for the Sega CD, five years after it was originally filmed, which is kind of a problem with filming as it may seem very dated upon theatrical release after having been filmed several years before. British censors later banned the game from being sold to children under 15 years old in the United Kingdom, which led to Sega creating the Videogame Rating Council (VRC) age rating system, which turned into the ESRB.
The game has had a divided reception originally, but nowadays in retrospect, its reception has been incredibly negative as it is also one of the worst games ever for all its controversial content, such as slasher violence and X-rated (or at least NC17-rated) materials featured and depicted throughout, as well as its horrible acting and dialog.
I recommend you DON'T play this game at all.