The Bunker

Oh I remember this one... modern FMV game with a very enticing story, highly recommend it.

I honestly thought FMV games largely died out in the 90's, so seeing one pop up on this list had me intrigued. I picked it up on sale for about 40% off on the Microsoft store (played this on the Xbox One). The game is essentially a point-and-click adventure style game within the confines of an FMV game.

The story, I felt, was good and the acting is done rather well. You play as John who was birthed by his mother Margaret and he has spent his life growing up in an underground bunker since Britain has been ravaged by nuclear war. Fast forward to the present day and John's mother dies of old age, leaving him as the bunker's sole survivour. While going about your daily routine, a failure in the bunker's system triggers an alarm and thus begins the adventure to fix the problem while also learning about the history of the bunker, your childhood within it and why you're the only one left alive.

You learn about your life and the ultimate demise of the bunker's inhabitants through a series of flashbacks, flavour text left on computers and audio logs played on tape cassettes. The ending has a nice twist and shows just how far Margaret went to protect her son. You're then faced with the choice of leaving the bunker, presumably explore the world and possibly get microwaved by nuclear radiation or stay in the bunker that is also leaking nuclear radiation and honour your dead mother's wishes, even after everything you've learned about what she did to protect you.

The game has some memorable moments, including one fucking hard-to-watch scene which involved the treatment of a serious injury that John suffers while trying to fix an air filter, as well as a rather "troubling" aspect of John's daily routine.

The game is quite short and I kind of wonder if this would've been better off as a movie, rather than an FMV game.

I haven't really bothered playing any games that are point-and-click and/or FMV games and I don't think The Bunker has done much to change that any time soon. It's got a good story and it's a technically sound product, but I'm just not convinced this game is for me.

Overall rating: Pass

It's a FMV adventure game, if you're the sort to be into these sorts of games then you'll at least get a kick out of it. Much of the exciting, high stakes part of the story play out through flashbacks. While it was a interesting tale it falls into a problem a lot of FMV games do, why isn't this a movie? All of the danger already transpired, and his bumbling made me laugh more than wince.