Quick Look: Night Trap - 25th Anniversary Edition

Boy, if there's one game that's held up over time, it's Night Trap.

Wait, Jeff isn't invited?

Relevant (and still great):

If there is one game that deserves a 25th Anniversary edition, its this game!?

I kinda wish we would see more games like this but well ones that worked lol....the idea of FMV games was always to me a unique concept

It seems like they put a lot of effort into the presentation, at least, with the prototype version and the documentaries and the quality-of-life stuff with the active thumbnails of the rooms and all the different modes that recreate its various incarnations on 3DO/Sega CD/etc. I know there were some questions about the enterprise when they attempted crowdfunding for this, but they were apparently serious about the endeavor.

If you can't trust in the SCAT team, who can you trust?

So, they couldn't find the original film, so they only had the master tapes to work with in terms of footage. Better than the Sega CD sure, but not exactly amazing. Having it be a smaller area makes it less apparent, but still odd considering they promised film scans for the kickstarter.

I wanted to buy tickets to that Dog Bottom show, but they're already sold out. I hear their live shows always go loooooong.

Wait, people actually wanted this game to be remade? I understand Night Trap is a classic, but in more of a "wow, games in the 80s sure were weird" and a "no, we're laughing AT you, not WITH you" sort of way.

I love this game. Both ironically and a little bit for real. I just hate how hard it is to see the story that's happening because if you play it correctly you hardly ever see what the characters are actually doing around the house- a lot of which happens at the same time.

From a narrative angle it's completely brilliant and insane all at the same time.

I'm adding "Guy who Plays a Whole Lot of Video Games" to my resumè.

@dasakamov: there is something nice about having this game with an odd place in the history of games with high quality video now

Heh, I played the shit out of Night Trap on my Sega CD. It wasn't a great game, but I had fun all the same. Trial & error was a huge part of it, and for the 15-year old that I was, it was perfectly fine. I had a pen and paper and methodically took notes about when every augur and other important event occurred. Obviously, this was before the era of GameFaqs.

It took many playthroughs to get it just right, and even then with a complete notesheet with timestamps it was a challenge to catch everything. I think I only saw each ending once.

That revamped mode that shows all the video feeds in real time would have been real handy when I played it, but of course that wouldn't have been possible on the Sega CD.

Don't die this time, Codename Mike.

Fantasiacle!

I'm reporting this video for not having an age gate.

Really bad Quick look with unprofessional mean spirited feel to it.

Yes, Night Trap is a bad game but it is also a pop relic. One of the documentaries was giving really interesting story how this game was first made for weird VHS console - but I guess it was more important to take turns to shit on the game than listen to that.

Night Trap white knights? Who knew!?

I remember going to a friend’s house to spend the night back in, oh, sixth grade or so, and getting my first taste of the Sega CD (his parents were loaded, he had everything). He didn’t wanna play Night Trap because he’d already played it to death but in the end he acquiesced. By that point in my life I was already a huge horror dork so Night Trap was right up my alley. Sure, it isn’t scary (then or now), but it still has a special place in my twisted old heart, right next to all the crappy slasher movies of my childhood that I still happily watch.

Didn't Jeff and Brad/Ben do a video of this earlier this year when this came out?

@charlie_victor_bravo: They did mention that it was an important game historically, for the rating system etc. They watched the doc so I'm sure they were aware of all of that. I'm not sure what more you wanted from this QL. Of course they are going to riff on how goofy the whole thing is/was.

Maybe they missed the bit about the VHS console, but I don't really think it's a big deal or was in mean spirit.

@charlie_victor_bravo: It's a quick look, not Giant bomb presents the oral history of Night Trap.

The game is not fun to play and it's hard to follow if you are playing it right. Just because it was a novel idea doesn't mean it is good or worth taking seriously. It's like the William Hung of video games.

Six crazy frights... trap... this game was supposed to be scary?

@johnymyko: Always good to have that on hand.

@charlie_victor_bravo: I think they paid it just about the right amount of reverence it deserves.

It came up in a Bombcast IIRC, but they didn't do a video of it.

Edit: Forgot it was also on briefly at the end of Jeff and Ben's Taste of Summer stream.

I think one thing that sets the game apart from others of the era (besides the controversy & everything) is that it's evident that the people making it had some experience in framing & blocking out scenes, camerawork, etc. Yes, the technique's on the level of a TV sitcom, but if you compare it to other FMV productions at the time (where gaming creators with no film experience were just pointin' cameras at stuff), there is a noticeable difference in basic craft.

Their job is to show people the game and tell them if it might be worth playing or not, not to give an oral history lesson about the development of a bad game that became a "pop relic". They are charging 15€ for this game and people want to know if it's actually worth playing or not.

Wow, that's terrible.

I'd totally be onboard with buying this for the theater mode (like Vinny, I'm a sucker for goofy FMV); too bad it's buried behind a bunch of gameplay requirements. 'Cause that gameplay looks terrible.

I'm old enough to remember the scandal when this game came out, but was too young at the time to actually have the means to play it and know what the gameplay was like. Looking at it now, the 'horror' seems like nothing in comparison to your average CSI episode, and undeserving of its reputation even at the time. Fascinating stuff, I'm glad they went through it with someone who never experienced the game or the original fallout.

I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS PAIN!!

Night Trap. It's always been a bad game and it's still a bad game. But it is a historic game because of everything it led to. I think the price for this is too high frankly; Noctropolis is £6.99, Starship Titanic is £4.79. I'm glad it got re-released but I'm certainly not spending £10.99 on it.

What's funny about Night Trap is how much Five Nights at Freddy's is kind of inspired by it.

To expand to what squiggle posted above, there were a couple other factors that combined to intensify focus on Night Trap:

- The original Mortal Kombat came out in arcades at about the same time, meaning that the U.S. Congress & media had another reason to be focused on video games & their attendant violence at the time.

- Well-known, but it bears repeating: video games (particularly console video games) were viewed in the U.S. as strictly for kids at the time, so the violence in Night Trap and Mortal Kombat was perceived as being marketed to little kids.

- Though it seems like a joke now, the fact that the graphics in Mortal Kombat were digitized and that Night Trap was video was a big reason why the games drew more scrutiny - it meant, in the eye of the general media, that they were more "realistic" than the "cartoons" previously depicted in games, and that therefore the violence was more realistic. (And, I mean, maybe that's true, but the attention given and importance ascribed to digitized graphics & FMV from & by the general media in that era was disproportionate. There are real people in these video games! Does that mean they're moving into adult territory? Time even had a cover story about it in 1993, and while the cover has cameos by the recognizable Mario & Sonic, the bulk of the article (yeah, I remember reading it at the time) focuses on stuff like MK and Voyeur and CD games of the era.)

So there were a few other things going on in the era that helped elevate Night Trap to its position of notoriety. (I did not wake up today expecting to make three posts on Night Trap.)

If you want a take on this gameplay that is actually fun, check out Star Fox Guard on Wii U.

I love gilms

I think that it's pretty cool how those eight rolls of footage are all running concurrently, despite it making a for a lousy game to play.

More like Night Crap, am I right guys..... guys?

Yeah, I'm utterly shocked that GB didn't give this game the somber, reverent reaction it deserves. Especially Vinny and Alex, who have never, EVER made fun of an FMV game before. Light, unoffensive jokes about bad acting and gameplay are a bridge too far, and they should seriously consider starting a rating system for these videos to keep them out of the hands of impressionable children. The ESRGB, perhaps.

I cannot FATHOM why you would make the bonus features on an anniversary release of a game this impossible to play UNLOCKABLES.

Of all this times to have to work for access to something in a game. That is bonkers.

Vinny just overpowered that intro then drag that bit to the ground....................................................

I never realized that 5 Nights At Freddy's was actually Night Trap...

This was so fantazayical.

I must say Abby's style of sarcasm in relation to the game's design preventing you from watching the scenes they paid actors to be in and speak is just delightful. It's not just bad game design, it's oddly bad game design.

After watching the documentary portion of the quick look I’m imagining the shit show that would have gone down if it was Phantasmagoria 2 getting dragged before Congress instead of Night Trap.

I'm very disappointed that guyswhoplayawholelotofvideogames.com doesn't redirect here.