For a few years in the mid-90s, Full Motion Video was seen as the future of the games industry. CD-ROM technology was still a relative novelty and the medium allowed compressed video to be integrated with games like never before. Whether the end result was good or not can be debated far and wide, so it is with mixed feelings that we can now report that one of the genre's long-lost titles has been found.
We're talking about Sega's FMV game The Sacred Pools, which was supposed to have been released in 1997 and has now been rescued from the brink of ruin by Gaming Alexandria, a site devoted exclusively to preserving gaming history. So for those who want to, the prototype is now available for free download on PC, Saturn and PlayStation. Very cool! You can read a bit more about the game below.
"The Sacred Pools was developed by SegaSoft, a studio which was formed in 1995 to replace Sega of America's development group with the aim to release games for "all platforms", but would ultimately only end up releasing games for the Saturn and PC."
"The game reportedly had a budget of $3 million, which was enormous at the time, and made use of what SegaSoft called VNRS technology (Virtual Navigation in Real Space), which seamlessly joined together FMV clips to make it look like the player was moving through 3D worlds without pausing to load the next clip."
A video with some gameplay is also available HERE.
Is there any game that was never released that you wish was available as a playable prototype?