Night Trap

The Good
Woah!!!! O_O Its an interactive cheesy 80's horror flick!! >< These are real actors doing the scenes so it really does feel like an interactive movie! =D I laughed my ass off watching those cheesy early 90's girls "party". Its so weird to see stuff like this in a video game. Night Trap is truly quite the unique game. And... OMG... I am totally in love with the lip synching girl!! The one that screams 80's with her looks. You should see her acting! x_x

The Bad
The only downside is that it has two drawbacks. The first one is the lack of replay value. --;; Capturing gets quite repetitive. The second drawback is not being able to catch every aspect of the storyline in just 1 game because clips often play at the same time as others. It all depends on which room you decide to watch at a given time. You need to play the game several times to catch everything that goes on.

The Bottom Line
There are 8 rooms (outside, two hallways, bedroom, family room, kitchen, bathroom, staircase). The point of the game is to prevent as many creeps (the people dressed in black) as possible from going into the house and entering hidden passages (the house appears to be some kind of secret enemy lair). Each room randomly has things going on like the characters doing stuff and invaders coming in. You can only watch one room at a time. During a "creep scene" you have 1 chance and 1 second to execute the trap. BUT the trap will not work if your color code does not match the color code of the trap system. It starts out Blue but characters change it constantly. They say out loud what the new color is, but you won't know if you're not watching the room at the time.

The Good
Night Trap was probably the first Full Motion Video game released for a home console, CD-ROM system. As games started to make the transition to the CD format, consumers eagerly looked at what this "Next Level" of gaming would offer.

Slasher film fans will recognize the game's storyline. Sexy college co-eds are vanishing. Local law enforcement is baffled, so a special military unit has been assigned to crack the case by focusing on the one thing that seems to link these disappearances: a Yuppie family and their lakeside cabin.

The special, top-secret military unit has set up hidden cameras throughout the cabin and you, with a little help from an undercover agent, have to switch between the cameras to protect the new batch of college co-eds.

It seems that the seemingly all-American Yuppie family are really vampires who, with an army of goofy-looking minions, have been devouring the nation's all-American, wholesome youth!

The Sega 32X edition of the game features much better Full Motion Video, in comparison to the original Sega CD version. This is because the 32X device can display over 32,000 colors on screen, while the Sega CD can only display 64 colors on screen.

The Bad
Night Trap is a B-minus slasher film earning a PG-13 rating. Despite the controversy that surrounded the video game, complete with Congressional hearings, the player is much more likely going to laugh at the cheesy production values, than find anything in this game comparable to an R-rated slasher film. It seems that the Next Level of gaming was mostly harmless.

As with other Full Motion Video games, the actual level of interactivity is pretty limited to switching between cameras, trapping a villain or overhearing a conversation. Little room for error exists and once you get past the initial awe at playing an interactive movie, Night Trap is not especially fun to play.

Either you fail to protect the kids (and have to re-watch the same video clips over and over again), or you manage to memorize when you need to visit a particular camera (and thus are treated to a fairly tame mystery).

The Bottom Line
Night Trap defined the interactive movie genre, helped pave the way for video game ratings and is so cheesy, you may wonder why this game has never been riffed by the Mystery Science Theater 3000 folks. Students of video game history should give this game a try, but if you want to see R-rated horror and suspense in a video game, I would suggest trying Resident Evil instead.

The Good
Night Trap is the game that is famous for being famous. Parents and politicians, on the political left and right, used it as the poster child of an industry that (they felt) was out of control. Its place in gaming history is reason enough to give it a try. Compared to the original Sega CD version, the DOS version features superior graphics, an on-screen map, the ability to pause the game and a nice little documentary about the controversy that Night Trap generated.

The Bad
Night Trap follows a certain format that became all too common with these "interactive movies". Success depends on your ability to memorize the right order required to switch between a series of hidden cameras. If you trap enough yuppie vampires, protect the sexy co-eds and switch to the proper the security code you will save the day. Little free time exists to follow the B-minus, 1980's storyline and if you memorized the order on the Sega CD version, then you will find little challenge on the DOS.

The Bottom Line
Night Trap is famous for being famous. While the full motion video never went beyond a PG or PG-13 content rating, the technology was so advanced, for its day, that it became used as a scapegoat by a laundry list of parents, teachers, media critics and politicians. The game is worth playing for its history, especially if you enjoy these type of full motion video games. However, the game is not really that scary and its replay value is limited.