Wirehead

The Good
Full-motion-video was quite loved and hated in the 1990s. Video games were moving to the CD format, and one of the initial genres to come out of this advanced hardware was FMV.

I liked some of the full-motion-video games, albeit sometimes because they had a certain campy, MST3000 appeal. In this case, an "average, everyday" family man finds himself with a hi-tech device in his head.

The silly premise boils down to being able to make a few choices in the character's conduct. The full-motion-video tale primarily centers on the various people who want to get a hold of the new technology, even if that means your painful demise.

The full-motion-video is quite decent for the Sega CD hardware, and while only the 'right' decisions will allow the story to complete, their is some appeal in making bad decisions in a B-minus film that could easily be parodied by mystery science theatre 3000 (mst3000).

The Bad
The Sega CD was saddled with weak hardware capabilities, which hurt the system on many levels.

The quality of the full-motion-video was one such problem and while this game shows how much progress had been made in a few years, it cannot but help serve as a reminder to the systems faults.

The level of interactivity in a game such as this is very limited. The 1990s promise of interactive films was largely a rerun of the 1980s Dragon's Lair.

Once you know what choices to make the game, the reply value evaporates. The full-motion-video is not tv quality, the actual story is fairly short, and is not going to keep you coming back for more.

The Bottom Line
Wirehead was one of the last Sega CD games to be released. It highlights some of the improvements made in full-motion-video technology, and their is a certain campy, novelty appeal to the game. It is not the worst or best full-motion-video game released for the Sega CD.

The Good
The game came out in late 1995, with the Saturn being the new Sega console, and the controls are straight forward, the D-pad being the direction, and the A and B buttons to punch or kick. The plotline is told by a opening cinematic, where it is explained by the doctor who gave you the implant device, that the FBI is after you. There are multiple paths, sometimes you need to go 'trial and error' each time to remember which way to go. If it is a wrong path, you lose a life. When all of your lives are out, the game is over and you have to start from the first area. The indicator is handy so if it is off, you are completely screwed. The film's acting is quite good, so you need to hear it loud and clear. The musical score which is composed nicely sounds well, but the sound effects all sound pretty stock, even for a late 1995 game. There are three car chases, a scene where you eject from the plane via raft, escaping with three vehicles (wagon, motorcycle and a jeep) to get to the doctor's flat, using the zodiac to get to the shore and two driving (buggy and fish truck) sections to get to the Times newspaper company buliding.

The Bad
The film quality which looks grainy, even for a Mega CD game, the game gets short, so you have to beat it for 30 or so minutes if you are well to memorize the paths, or an hour if you are terrible at it.

The Bottom Line
A quite average game with lots of quick time events which occur, and it is one of the last Mega CD games, until it was discontinued and taken over with the 32-bit Saturn.