"We're just two nobodies who are probably going to get taken for a ride."
Article
by Robert Purchese, Senior Staff Writer
Updated on 27 May 2021
There's a stigma attached to full-motion video games. They're known for hammy acting and titillation: an image they haven't been able to shake since the 90s, thanks to infamous games like Night Trap. A few companies still make them but they tend to be made on a budget, so they fly just under the radar, not quite meeting a threshold to get excited about.
But Erica was different. It had a classiness to it, and a refinement. It was beautifully shot, the acting was believable, and it was tense. And it felt different. In Erica, you could interact with the world in a more engaging way than with other FMV games. Those games tend to keep you standing back from the action, feeling as though you're only ever choosing a film clip to watch next. But Erica pulled you in. It let you touch the world, pulling ribbons to open presents, pushing pencils across paper to draw, pressing keys to play a piano. Little things, but many things, always reinforcing that you were in this world and it was responding to you.