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Watch The American Hero Movie Online


Clint Thompson

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One of the reasons that I'm so fascinated by the Jaguar era of Atari Corp. is that they would try random things like this. It seems like Atari didn't have a unified vision for the platform or what a next generation console could/should be. As a result, they spent millions on developing new concepts/innovations as if in an effort to "find" the right formula that would resonate with consumers. The American Hero "GameFilm" concept is a prime example. It was an attempt to up the ante for FMV games by providing players choice that would change the outcome. It was not really fun outside of the glorious camp. Also, by '95 the FMV trend was losing steam and Atari's concept was well off the mark. Playstation and Saturn would essentially ignore FMV altogether in favor of 3D rendered cutscenes.

 

To be fair, in the early-mid 90s game developers were struggling to take advantage of the CD-rom medium. Instead of making bigger, better games with great soundtracks, they tried to wow us with FMV clips and "interactive" movies. This really plagued the earliest CD platforms (Sega CD, CDi, 3DO, PC) the most. American Hero, had it been commercially released, would have been among the worst of these curiosities.

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 American Hero, had it been commercially released, would have been among the worst of these curiosities.

Baloney! I have the playable alpha/beta of the game and what's there is very fun and outclasses any of the true crap FMV on other systems. This was a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' book in a movie and would have ROCKED! The beta is fun as it is, and it actually has some decent B-list actors in it instead of the usual terrible high school quality actors in just about every other FMV game I've ever seen. Timothy Bottoms went on to have his own TV show, IIRC, 'That's my Bush' or something like that, a comedy-parody on George W. Bush when he was in office, the officer in it was a regular on either 'Heat of the Night' or 'Matlock' (forget which) back in the 90's, and the General from American Hero has been a character actor in countless movies and TV shows for decades. This was not the usual FMV crap and the game engine was a new state-of-the-art system. Atari just didn't have the funds to get it all done  in the end (the rest of what you said was true with their lack of direction, but this one would have hit the mark). Maybe not a system seller, but it would have been great and led to real FMV games that were actually good for a change, what everyone really envisioned for FMV all along, but never could get it right.

Edited by Bakerman

"Slugs, he created slugs?...Is this not the work of a complete incompetent? I would have started with Lasers, 8 o'clock, day one."-Evil (Time Bandits)

"...burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me..."-theme song (Firefly)

"I try to respect him, I really, really do, but he's just such a Smeg-head."-Lister (about Rimmer, Red Dwarf)

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Baloney! I have the playable alpha/beta of the game and what's there is very fun and outclasses any of the true FMV crap on other systems. This was a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' book in a movie and would have ROCKED!

Could you post a video of the aplpha/beta in action? I have never seen or heard of it before! 

 

Does it include anything more than the OP video? 

I am Rob aka MaximumRD aka OldSchoolRetroGamer and THIS is my world http://about.me/maximumrd

"For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday."

 - M. Bison

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Yes it does, it's a working partial game and I think it would have saved FMV tech and led to A-list interactive movies, and we might still have them today on Blue-ray and streaming video. I think hollywood would have stood up and taken notice in this case. Truely an unfortunate loss in  the technology, IMO.

unfortunately I have no way of making videos right now, but I would be happy to make you a copy if you have a Jag CD. it was freely distributed a number of years back on several Jaguar forums, it may still be online somewhere. Covers and everything were made up for it by fans. As a matter of fact, and I might be misremembering, but I think it was Clint Thompson had a hand in it's release, though, again, I might be misremembering that part, it might have been some one else. But he started this thread so he can confirm or deny. But I think there are other members who may have it and may be able to upload game-play video. Still, no problem to make a copy for you, or I could upload an ISO in a PM or something...whatever, I don't want to break any forum rules, but this isn't a pirate thing, it was legitimately released. Some Atari dealers may even sell it. 

 

For starters I'll post some pics of it here.

 

There is also another tech demo available, IIRC, called 'the cave', not to be mixed up with the infamous 'Cave' Jag infomercial, and I know B&C sells copies of it, to at least check out the tech. But AH is much better with better actors and story, etc.

Edited by Bakerman

"Slugs, he created slugs?...Is this not the work of a complete incompetent? I would have started with Lasers, 8 o'clock, day one."-Evil (Time Bandits)

"...burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me..."-theme song (Firefly)

"I try to respect him, I really, really do, but he's just such a Smeg-head."-Lister (about Rimmer, Red Dwarf)

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here are some pics. covers came in jewel case style and dvd.

post-878-0-73577300-1447985474_thumb.jpg

post-878-0-08010200-1447985499_thumb.jpg

post-878-0-37693200-1447985514_thumb.jpg

post-878-0-98119800-1447985525_thumb.jpg

"Slugs, he created slugs?...Is this not the work of a complete incompetent? I would have started with Lasers, 8 o'clock, day one."-Evil (Time Bandits)

"...burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me..."-theme song (Firefly)

"I try to respect him, I really, really do, but he's just such a Smeg-head."-Lister (about Rimmer, Red Dwarf)

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Yes it does, it's a working partial game and I think it would have saved FMV tech and led to A-list interactive movies, and we might still have them today on Blue-ray and streaming video. I think hollywood would have stood up and taken notice in this case. Truely an unfortunate loss in  the technology, IMO.

unfortunately I have no way of making videos right now, but I would be happy to make you a copy if you have a Jag CD. it was freely distributed a number of years back on several Jaguar forums, it may still be online somewhere. Covers and everything were made up for it by fans. As a matter of fact, and I might be misremembering, but I think it was Clint Thompson had a hand in it's release, though, again, I might be misremembering that part, it might have been some one else. But he started this thread so he can confirm or deny. But I think there are other members who may have it and may be able to upload game-play video. Still, no problem to make a copy for you, or I could upload an ISO in a PM or something...whatever, I don't want to break any forum rules, but this isn't a pirate thing, it was legitimately released. Some Atari dealers may even sell it. 

 

For starters I'll post some pics of it here.

 

There is also another tech demo available, IIRC, called 'the cave', not to be mixed up with the infamous 'Cave' Jag infomercial, and I know B&C sells copies of it, to at least check out the tech. But AH is much better with better actors and story, etc.

 

Oh no thanks for the offer but I have no JAGUAR equipment at least at this time, even being an Atari fan and having a fair size classic console / computer collection I just never ended up with anything Jaguar related, I will be honest, a year or so ago I kind of bumped it down on my priority list specifically because I had some annoying experiences in the Jaguar community and forums and yeah you guessed it over at Atariage, silly I know to be effected by such things but these days of course part of the fun of any system platform at least for me is discussing it sharing with the community (I am sure you get that lol) so I was kind of soured on it and pushed it down the list and than other things happened I wont get into that pretty much ensured I would not be getting into any new/old platforms anytime soon  :mellow: BUT anyway I try to keep options open and look at things with a different perspective and screw what anyone else say / thinks. 

 

As for FMV honestly, I quite like the genre, being from a time the industry just found they suddenly had dis format capacity and multimedia capabilities I think they all wanted to exploit but just really didn't know how to go about it perhaps in some ways it was too much too soon and ahead of it's time. While 3do titles like Plumbers Don't Wear Ties was a definite bad idea I really enjoyed things like Sewar Shark or PHANTASMAGORIA etc, I liked them a lot on 3DO as that system outside of a full blown multimedia PC offered the best visual quality.

 

Thanks for the info and pictures.  :thumb:

I am Rob aka MaximumRD aka OldSchoolRetroGamer and THIS is my world http://about.me/maximumrd

"For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday."

 - M. Bison

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Yes it does, it's a working partial game and I think it would have saved FMV tech and led to A-list interactive movies, and we might still have them today on Blue-ray and streaming video. I think hollywood would have stood up and taken notice in this case. Truely an unfortunate loss in  the technology, IMO.

unfortunately I have no way of making videos right now, but I would be happy to make you a copy if you have a Jag CD. it was freely distributed a number of years back on several Jaguar forums, it may still be online somewhere. Covers and everything were made up for it by fans. As a matter of fact, and I might be misremembering, but I think it was Clint Thompson had a hand in it's release, though, again, I might be misremembering that part, it might have been some one else. But he started this thread so he can confirm or deny. But I think there are other members who may have it and may be able to upload game-play video. Still, no problem to make a copy for you, or I could upload an ISO in a PM or something...whatever, I don't want to break any forum rules, but this isn't a pirate thing, it was legitimately released. Some Atari dealers may even sell it. 

 

For starters I'll post some pics of it here.

 

There is also another tech demo available, IIRC, called 'the cave', not to be mixed up with the infamous 'Cave' Jag infomercial, and I know B&C sells copies of it, to at least check out the tech. But AH is much better with better actors and story, etc.

I believe that was called "Caves of Fear." It needs a bypass cartridge as well. You are right. It used the GameFilm engine, like "American Hero." It was totally FMV and also interactive. I have heard of, but never, played it. I am sure it would be fun. :)

Edited by DegasElite
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You can also, if you are technically inclined enough and good with a soldering iron, modify the Jaguar CD drive into a developer's drive. This can be done with off-the-shelf parts and a cracked developer's Jag CD BIOS. Robert Demming shows how to perform it on his site. This way, you would not need a bypass to read unencrypted CDs if you want to play them.

 

He has some other really technical hacks that he has performed listed on his site. Here is the URL:

 

https://rdemming.home.xs4all.nl/Atari/index.htm

 

Interesting stuff. Thanks. :)

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