Ground Zero: Texas

Ground Zero: Texas

European cover art
Developer(s) Digital Pictures
Publisher(s) Sony Imagesoft
Designer(s) Tom Zito
Platform(s) Mega-CD
Release date(s)
Genre(s) Shooter
Mode(s) Single player
Rating(s) VRC: MA-13
Media/distribution 2 CD

Ground Zero: Texas is a full motion video game, released for the Sega Mega-CD in November 1993.[1] The game relies heavily on video footage, with which the player interacts. It contains 110 minutes of interactive footage from four different cameras. It was directed by Dwight H. Little[3], who is also known for the films Marked for Death and Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers.

Contents

Plot

Aliens have attacked El Cadron, a small border town in Texas. The player has arrived to save the townspeople, who’ve been disappearing. The aliens have clever ways of disguising themselves as townspeople. the player's mission is to do away with them, but they can’t be killed with regular guns. The player is armed with four BattleCams, with a stunning particle beam that stops the alien temporarily. The player must rid the world of the Reticulan menace before the entire area is destroyed by a nuclear bomb.

Development

Ground Zero Texas was a "second-generation" title for Digital Pictures, their first titles for the Mega CD having been rehashes of titles developed for Hasbro's aborted NEMO system. The game had a two million dollar budget - most of which was generated by the bundling of Sewer Shark with Mega CD consoles.

The game started life with the codename Project X, a script written by Digital Pictures co-founder Ken Melville that was inspired by Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Invaders from Mars. By the time development started the script had been re-written by Alan B. McElroy, Edward Neumeier and Joshua Stallings.[3]

The game's FMV was shot by a full Hollywood film crew, which meant that Digital Pictures had to negotiate with the Directors Guild, Screen Actors Guild and Writers Guild - the first time this had been done for a video game.[3]

In the game, the film elements suffered due to the technical limitations of the Mega CD. The film had to be processed to reduce it to a palette of 64 colours and to accommodate the slow data transfer rate of the CD drive. Despite the limitations, the game's visual appearance was still described as "breathtaking" for 1993 by Edge.[3]

All our video had to be tortured, kicking and screaming, into the most horrifying, blurry, reduced-colour-palette mess imaginable in the Mega CD. I shudder to think about it.
 
— Ken Melville - Digital Pictures co-founder, [3]

Cast and crew

Reception

Ground Zero: Texas was awarded Best Sega Mega-CD Game of 1994 by Electronic Gaming Monthly.[4]

References

  1. ^ a b Peter M. Nichols: Home Video. In: New York Times, December 10, 1993. Accessed: 2010-09-16. (archived version)
  2. ^ BBFC rating of Ground Zero: Texas
  3. ^ a b c d e f "The Making of...". Edge (215): 111–113. June 2010. 
  4. ^ Electronic Gaming Monthly's Buyer's Guide. 1995.