Late Shift (2016)

Structurally and gameplay wise, know what you get with FMVs: they’re such a unique genre within gaming that I always struggle to recommend any of them to anyone who isn’t firmly in their camp. I happen to enjoy them quite a bit, provided there’s enough narrative meat to fill its otherwise bare bones.

Late Shift does that. It’s not he most competent iteration in the FMV world - there are technical faux pas (occasional sound lag issues), beyond puzzling design choices (no way to replay specific chapters), and even a couple of narrative inconsistencies, which these types of games should avoid like the plague. But the overall acting is solid, the story is alluring, and there is a surprising amount of ending variety on display that, for the most part, flows logically from the choices you make throughout. Actually, replaying this game from the very start just to experience the other endings was not on my bingo card, but that’s exactly what I did, and I ended up having fun doing so.

Late Shift doesn’t seek to reinvent the wheel, but it didn’t need to in order to still offer a compelling tale of intrigue and mystery, one that feels grounded enough to pull you in and exciting enough to make you want to see it through. It’s not top notch, but I’d definitely recommend it to FMV buffs. 7/10

I didn't really know what to expect since I've never played an interactive FMV, but this was a pretty gripping game. I didn't expect a full run through to be so long though - I think it was 1 hour and 15 minutes total?

The acting was really good and there were no loading times. But I also wonder if I can "handle" these kinds of games. At times it was too suspenseful for me and I was worried I was making the wrong move that would result in someone dying.

FMV games still impress me. Technically speaking, I know they really shouldn't, but I can't help it. My nostalgia fills me with joy any time I see one on a digital store front.

For me, Late Shift really hit the spot. It's a heist story. It's cheesy. It's over the top. It's got holes in the plot. It has continuity errors. This is what an FMV game should be.

It also excels in a few areas, for an FMV game. Admittedly I'm no storytelling expert, but from my humble perspective, the narrative is decent and the characters likeable. Even the "bad guys" were endearing with comic, hiding deep within their stony-faced seriousness.

The whole experience is enjoyable. Then again, I considered playing this on a standard definition CRT to really capture that 90s FMV game feel - so I am extremely biased.

Is this the sort of game that you can review after only one play? Late Shift rides the line between Until Dawn and a theatrical film. Like Until Dawn, the meat of our engagement with the game is making choices, but the game itself is filmed cinematically. So it's a bit like watching Ocean's Eleven, except you're making the decisions instead of Danny Ocean.

The main character, Matt, is a carpark attendant. He's just settling down for his graveyard shift when he hears a sound. Upon investigating, he finds a bleeding man demanding he help him steal a car (not in those words, of course--if I remember right the bleeding man uses a bit more colorful language than that). Turns out he's a part of a crew about to pull off a heist. Unfortunately for Matt, he's suddenly in the thick of things--which is to say, he can either take over for the injured man on the crew, or he can get himself shot. I mean, easy decision, right?

Here's a few stats for you:

1. On my first playthrough I unlocked one of seven endings.
2. I found 9 out of 14 chapters.
3. In the amount of time I spent playing, I made 45 decisions.

I wish I could tell how long my first playthrough was, because it felt incredibly short. Maybe an hour? Maybe not quite an hour? I guess a bit over an hour is possible. Granted, some of the endings may have a bit more meat on their bones, but I'm going to guess that just over an hour will be a fairly average playthrough for most people.

But the depressing thing isn't that a first playthrough took me no more than an hour and 15 minutes--it's that I played an hour and 15 minutes and still saw 2/3 of the game. There are only 5 chapters I haven't seen. And if there are 6 more endings (which, mathematically-speaking, there are) that means that a bunch of those endings happen in the same location. Maybe not all of them. HOPEFULLY not all of them. But even if there are several ending locations, that still means that all of those decisions you're making are bringing you to the same handful of places. And yes, I know that those 45 decisions still change small things, like the way some dialogue plays out or what have you, but ultimately you're being shepherded along rails with a few key branches.

You could say the same thing, I guess, about TellTale games, the aforementioned Until Dawn, or even a game like Life Is Strange, but somehow those games feel meatier. They're longer, and the way dialogue choices mix in with decisions gives at least the illusion of a self-guided experience. Maybe it's a narrative structure issue? A good narrative (ie, the TellTales/Until Dawns/Life is Stranges) can mask the thin skeleton underneath, whereas here it is bubbling just under the surface.

There is something novel about playing a game that looks like a movie. It's a fun distraction for an hour and change. Yet I don't know how eager I'll be to replay this to see a second ending, let alone all of them.