Related Web Sites. Video review of the system (WARNING: Language) (The Angry Video Game Nerd, James Rolfe, reviews the Sega CD and gives brief reviews of some games, including Ground Zero Texas.).
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Ground Zero: Texas is a full motion video game, released for the Sega CD in November 1993.[1] The game relies heavily on video footage, with which the player interacts. It contains 110 minutes of interactive footage from four different cameras. It was directed by Dwight H. Little,[2] who is also known for the films Marked for Death and Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers.
Plot[edit]
Aliens known as Reticulans have attacked El Cadron, a small border town in Texas. The player has arrived to save the townspeople, who have been disappearing. The aliens have clever ways of disguising themselves as townspeople. The player's mission is to do away with the Reticulans, but they cannot be killed with regular guns. The player is armed with four BattleCams, with a stunning particle beam that stops the alien temporarily. The player must rid the world of the Reticulan menace before the entire area is destroyed by a nuclear bomb.
Four special operatives will help the player by providing clues to the Reticulan base. When a special operative is fighting with a Reticulan, the player has to shoot the enemy before they can abduct the special operative. After the enemy is disposed of, the special operative can look at its pendant. On each pendant is a number and a shape that corresponds to a special lock. Once the code is cracked, the vaulted door opens to reveal the Reticulans' weapons arsenal and a cold storage area.
After the base is secured, all of the player's BattleCams become reprogrammed with Reticulan weaponry. Upon learning of this development, the Reticulans deploy stormtroopers to destroy the town and its people. The Special Forces fight back as the areas of the town explode into debris.
In a desperate attempt to stop the Special Forces, the Reticulans abduct Reece, take him to their mothership, and prepare to take off. DiSalvo rigs a special BattleCam armed with a giant alien cannon. With a single well-placed shot, the mothership is obliterated, saving the town and Earth from the Reticulan army.
Development[edit]
Ground Zero Texas was a 'second-generation' title for Digital Pictures, their first titles for the Sega CD having been rehashes of titles developed for Hasbro's aborted NEMO system. The game had a two million dollar budget - most of which was generated by the bundling of Sewer Shark with Sega CD consoles.
The game started life with the codename Project X, a script written by Digital Pictures co-founder Ken Melville that was inspired by Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Invaders from Mars. By the time development started, the script had been re-written by Alan B. McElroy, Edward Neumeier and Joshua Stallings.[2]
The game's FMV was shot by a full Hollywood film crew, which meant that Digital Pictures had to negotiate with the Directors Guild, Screen Actors Guild and Writers Guild - the first time this had been done for a video game.[2]
In the game, the film elements suffered due to the technical limitations of the Sega CD. The film had to be processed to reduce it to a palette of 64 colours and to accommodate the slow data transfer rate of the CD drive. Despite the limitations, the game's visual appearance was still described as 'breathtaking' for 1993 by Edge.[2] In a retrospective interview with Edge, Ken Melville of Digital Pictures expressed his displeasure at the technical limitations of the video, 'All our video had to be tortured, kicking and screaming, into the most horrifying, blurry, reduced-colour-palette mess imaginable in the Sega CD. I shudder to think about it'[2]
Reception[edit]
Ground Zero: Texas was a bestseller in the UK for two months,[5] and was awarded Best Sega Mega-CD Game of 1994 by Electronic Gaming Monthly.[6] Though their review of the game criticized it for poor control design, bad acting, and corny dialogue, they praised the music and storyline and scored it a 7.5 out of 10.[4]
References[edit]![]()
External links[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ground_Zero:_Texas&oldid=937158819'
This was one of the better FMV (Full Motion Video) games for the Mega CD/Sega CD. In this game a small Texas town is being invaded by aliens, and you're their only hope.
If you can't stop them, they'll invade the entire world. Most of the time, you have four cameras that you control at four critical points in the city.
You have to switch between the cameras and shoot the aliens when necessary. You do this by controlling a cross hair with your control pad.
You also need to collect letters and numbers for a code that will later get you into the aliens secret base. It's a pretty cool game that's pretty well acted. It kinda feels like you're controlling a cool B-movie. The game was directed by Dwight H.
Little, who has directed films such as Murder at 1600 and Rapid Fire, and TV show such as The X-Files and Prison Break. It's a pretty fun game, and it shows what you can do if you really try to push the FMV game formula to the max. If you have a Mega CD/Sega CD, don't pass this up! Ground Zero Texas is a full-motion-video (FMV) shoot-'em up, that was released by Digital Pictures for the Sega CD/Mega CD. There is plenty of full-motion video footage in this game, so if you like these type of games then you are half way to liking this game. The other half is a shooting type gallery game, and it's also critical that you're at the right place at the right time, for the moments where you need to save people.It's a pretty fun game, and it feels like you're in some kind of old B-movie.
They really took care in supplying plenty of fmv game fillers to build up the story and get your adrenaline pumping.Some people might not like this game because of the limited game play and just shooting things on screen. But i don't know what these people are expecting, this is an interactive game that uses your participation, that's what it is.
Overall i think it's great for an Fmv type game, it's also one of my favorites. Conclusion - Ground Zero Texas is a cool fmv game, So if you enjoy these type of games, then be sure to add this to your collection! Rated this 8/10. You know what that means!?! Yep, lots of lame acting and the same footage being shown over and over and over again.
To be fair, it was not horrible, but beyond one rental in the 90's I never had the urge to touch this one again. You use cameras and guns to take out aliens who are disguised as humans first. You shoot them, they fly Hollywood style. Then they come at you in all their alien glory and you shoot them and they explode.
This segment of the game is the most fun as the music sets the mood and it is a tense situation. Then the finale comes and you have no idea what to do to win the game and you only have one shot. You miss, you have to go back and do a whole heck of a lot of stuff again to get to that point. I would of given the game a six if not for this annoyance. Never won the game thanks to this. What is so wrong about letting me just continue right before the finale? Seriously, the girl that is helping you tells you to shoot it in a vague location and you see something and have to shoot it in the right location and at the right time.
This CD game follows the usual format of games made for Sega CD, a few B and C list stars talk to you and you view a bunch of film clips and then you have some action. You see the same shot of people flying backward when you shoot them, and you see the same explosion of aliens during the attacks when they are aliens. The Sega Cd was a strange device.
It produced these throw away games, but it also had a fairly good set of role playing games in Lunar and Lunar II.
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