Night Trap

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VideoGameCritic
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Night Trap

Postby VideoGameCritic » September 22nd, 2012, 2:06 pm

I am finishing up re-reviews of Night Trap for the Sega CD, 32X, and 3DO.  I'm thinking that since this is a vampire game at its core, maybe it deserves to be in the Halloween special??  What do you think?

darkrage61
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Night Trap

Postby darkrage61 » September 22nd, 2012, 3:21 pm

I think it fits in pretty well.

Irenicus1
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Night Trap

Postby Irenicus1 » September 22nd, 2012, 4:33 pm

I think that Night Trap is one of your "guilty pleasures" that most of us don't share w/ U.

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Retro STrife
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Re: Night Trap

Postby Retro STrife » June 2nd, 2017, 10:15 am

Had to revive this thread, as I've started playing Night Trap (32X version) for the first time this past week. I like oddities and one-of-a-kind games, so this one has been at the top of my "to-play list" for a long, long time. In fact, I've owned Night Trap in my collection for about 10 years--I came across it at a flea market for $10 in the mid to late 2000s, so I bought it...before even owning a Sega CD or 32X. Not long after that, I did buy a Sega CD and 32X, but they've mostly sat in storage during the years since. Now, finally, with the gameroom up and running, the two have converged and I've finally tried the game.

And I have to say, I really like it, and it's definitely better than I expected. I agree with the A- score from the Critic. The campy aspect of it is great, yes, but it's also fun to play. I really like how the story is playing out across multiple rooms at once, so you have to do many playthroughs to ever see all the scenes (in fact, with so much going on, you'd be hard pressed to ever see every scene). I like that one playthrough is a short commitment, though. While a complete game is about 25 minutes long, it'll take a lot of playthroughs before you're good enough to make it that far. With trial and error, you start to memorize where to go.
But honestly, I think it'd be hard to ever complete this game without a walkthrough, because you need to catch a high percentage of "augers" in the house to keep the game going or it will end prematurely...and, trust me, you'll also need a friend handy to read the walkthrough to you, because everything is happening too fast-paced to follow it on your own. Luckily for me, my girlfriend is also a fan of Night Trap. While she's not a gamer, she was enjoying the story enough to watch along and, surprisingly, even requested that I play it again. I did about 4 or 5 plays without a walkthrough, but we finally resorted to it after I couldn't get further than 13 minutes in the game. Even with the walkthrough, we still haven't finished it..it's a challenge. Like the rest of us, she doesn't understand why this game was so controversial in the early 90s...I assume it was just old people who heard exaggerated tales about the game and assumed the worst..but horror movies of the era were much worse.

Overall, this is a really unique and interesting game that I think any retro gamer should experience at least once. And youtube videos won't do it justice; you gotta try the real thing. Between the old versions (Sega CD, Sega 32X, 3DO, and PC) and an upcoming limited run on the PS4, it's out there for you..scoop it up.

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Re: Night Trap

Postby Retro STrife » June 2nd, 2017, 10:59 am

Just wanted to add, this game has got to be the best use of FMV gameplay ever and probably the best FMV game ever too (I consider those as two separate categories). Any better that I'm forgetting? I know that's not saying much, considering its competition, but still...

Night Trap is often treated as a joke in gaming history, and while it does deserve that in some ways, I also think it deserves to be more highly regarded as a game. Maybe it doesn't belong on a "Best Ever" list, but it's way closer to that than the "Worst Ever" lists that it commonly appears on.

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Re: Night Trap

Postby matmico399 » June 2nd, 2017, 2:41 pm

Boy that game will bring back memories and nostalgia when I pick it up. When I first got my Sega Cd around '93 or so that and Road Avenger and Tomcat Alley were all I played. I was very disappointed with the rest of the library. Until Snatcher. But that system died long ago. But I picked up a front loader about a year ago. Time to get Night Trap back!

Sut
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Re: Night Trap

Postby Sut » June 3rd, 2017, 3:52 am

Retro STrife wrote:Just wanted to add, this game has got to be the best use of FMV gameplay ever and probably the best FMV game ever too (I consider those as two separate categories). Any better that I'm forgetting? I know that's not saying much, considering its competition, but still...

Night Trap is often treated as a joke in gaming history, and while it does deserve that in some ways, I also think it deserves to be more highly regarded as a game. Maybe it doesn't belong on a "Best Ever" list, but it's way closer to that than the "Worst Ever" lists that it commonly appears on.


I enjoy Tomcat Alley it has a very B movie TopGun vibe, but the gameplay is pretty seamless for an FMV title. It's a bit samey but they do add variety in later levels like bombing runs, there is also a secret level to find. For me one of the better Sega CD FMV titles.

goldenband
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Re: Night Trap

Postby goldenband » June 21st, 2017, 10:49 pm

Retro STrife wrote:But honestly, I think it'd be hard to ever complete this game without a walkthrough, because you need to catch a high percentage of "augers" in the house to keep the game going or it will end prematurely...and, trust me, you'll also need a friend handy to read the walkthrough to you, because everything is happening too fast-paced to follow it on your own.

My wife and I were able to complete Night Trap 32X without a walkthrough, though we had to look at one when we were trying to get a perfect score and the very best ending (confusingly, the game tells you that you didn't trap all the Augers when the real issue is that you accidentally trapped a teammate).

However it took dozens of attempts while keeping meticulous notes, and I'm not sure whether there's any way to do it other than the way we did: basically, letting each camera run until the game kicks you out, then repeating that for each segment of the game until you hit a bottleneck. Fortunately towards the end you can get away without doing that since there's a lot less going on and they stop changing the codes.

My main problem with Night Trap is that it could really use a mid-game save point. Playing through the first 15+ minutes just to try to figure out the last 10 minutes got old fast. If it weren't for that issue, it would have been a lot of fun; with it, the game became very repetitive, though maybe it's appropriate that trying to get a perfect run became very stressful in an almost Pitfall-esque way. The very last camera switch required to get a perfect score is brutal, though -- you have a margin of less than a second to make it happen.

Retro STrife wrote:this game has got to be the best use of FMV gameplay ever and probably the best FMV game ever too (I consider those as two separate categories). Any better that I'm forgetting? I know that's not saying much, considering its competition, but still...

We (my wife and I) liked Wirehead on the Sega CD and Psychic Detective on the 3DO, as well as the two Kingdom games (The Far Reaches & Shadoan). Fahrenheit had its charm but it's got some annoying randomness that can make the game essentially unwinnable. I know some people really love Road Avenger but I haven't played it much.

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Re: Night Trap

Postby Retro STrife » June 22nd, 2017, 9:12 am

goldenband wrote:My wife and I were able to complete Night Trap 32X without a walkthrough, though we had to look at one when we were trying to get a perfect score and the very best ending (confusingly, the game tells you that you didn't trap all the Augers when the real issue is that you accidentally trapped a teammate).

However it took dozens of attempts while keeping meticulous notes, and I'm not sure whether there's any way to do it other than the way we did: basically, letting each camera run until the game kicks you out, then repeating that for each segment of the game until you hit a bottleneck.


Wow that's some dedication right there. Rather than using a walkthrough, you basically created your own. I didn't have that level of patience... we did try several playthroughs on our own first, though, before resorting to the walkthrough to get deeper in the game. Along the lines of what you noted, it's annoying that you have to keep replaying the first half of the game just to get to the second half, especially since you almost always make it to at least the 12 minute mark pretty easily. After that is when it gets tough.

goldenband wrote:We (my wife and I) liked Wirehead on the Sega CD and Psychic Detective on the 3DO, as well as the two Kingdom games (The Far Reaches & Shadoan). Fahrenheit had its charm but it's got some annoying randomness that can make the game essentially unwinnable. I know some people really love Road Avenger but I haven't played it much.


Thanks for the ideas. I think I own a few of those...definitely Psychic Detective, Kingdom: The Far Reaches, and Road Avenger..but I haven't played any of them yet, so I'll have to check them out. Burn: Cycle for CD-i is supposed to be good too (some say it's the best game for the CD-i), but I haven't played that yet either despite owning it. Way too much backlog, of course.


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