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Night Trap Remastered coming to PS4 & Xb1 Spring 2017


TheOcelot

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Back in 1992 a game called Night Trap (developed by Digital Pictures and published by SEGA) was released on the (SEGA) Mega CD for North America and then in 1993 for the other regions. 

Well, in celebration of it's 25th anniversary Screaming Villains is remastering Night Trap, bringing it to PS4 & Xbox1 in Spring 2017. You can download the games theme song for free via their site.

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So, erm...what exactly is Night Trap about? Well, it involves trying to stop vampires from eating teenage girls. Hmm....sounds like Buffy the Vampire Slayer :P

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A group of young women are staying at Mr. and Mrs. Martin's house for the night. The Martin family seems like a normal American family; however, odd things have been occurring at this house. Five girls who previously stayed there had disappeared, so the "Sega Control Attack Team" ("Sega" changed to "Special" once the game was ported to other consoles) is called upon to protect the new guests and find out what happened. As the new wave of girls arrive for a slumber party (one of whom is undercover SCAT agent Kelly (or Kelli) Medd, played by Daana Plato), the vampiric Augers begin to invade the Martin family house, and it's up to the player to save the girls.

 

 

What's the gameplay like?

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The game is an example of the trap-em-up genre. Referred to as "control", the player views events via hidden cameras set up in eight different locations, which can be viewed one at a time. As the aforementioned Augers creep into the house, the player has to spot them and use traps to capture them. At the bottom of a screen rests a small meter; when this meter fills, it is the player's signal to activate a trap in the room being viewed (e.g. a revolving bookcase or a faux seal on the floor) and capture the Auger(s) on screen, adding to the score.

The player must also have the correct security access color code selected on screen in order for the traps to work. The code is changed four times throughout the course of the game, and keeping up with the accurate code requires listening in on key conversations. Ultimately, high performance requires repeat plays in order to gain complete knowledge of the story and capture all Augers possible. Time always moves forward, cannot be rewound, and if too many vampires are missed, the game ends. The game will also end if certain characters are taken away or if the hosts of the slumber party disconnect the player's access to the traps.

 

Night Trap has caused it's fair share of controversy (quoting from SEGA Retro):

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Night Trap stands as one of the most controversial video games of all time, with its existence, alongside Mortal Comabt, Doom and Lethal Enforcers, eventually leading to the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board(ESRB) in North America to regulate video games for the general public.

However, while the aforementioned games earned their status through their presentation of graphic violence (and in Lethal Enforcers's case, shipping with a physical gun), Night Trap lacks violent content, with Augers simply being pushed or dropped into holes in the walls or floors of the house. In many cases, blood is not extracted by biting as is common with vampires, but is instead extracted with a machine, designed specifically to look unrealistic and mitigate possible controversy.

Likewise it was misconstrued for having sexual content, as in many scenes partially dressed girls are chased by Augers around the house. However, no nudity of any kind is shown at any point. Lisa's death, which occurs in a bathroom while wearing a nightgown is an often cited scene, but like all deaths in Night Trap, features no physical violence or nudity, just the screaming girl being led out of the room. Likewise the player is not directly responsible for any deaths, though can choose to drop Kelly down a hole at the end of the game.

Night Trap was the first game to be given an MA-17 rating by Sega's Videogame Rating Council, although it is not thought any versions of the game were explicitly labeled as such. Some retailers chose to add their own notices for "violent" content, or indeed not stock the game at all due to the controversy.

Due to the problems Night Trap and violent video game content was causing in the US, Sega of America temporarily banned sales of the game in January 1994. When the product re-emerged in 1995 (with an ESRB "M" rating), it was given new cover art (which would be retained in other releases of the game), as the original, depicting a blonde-haired woman in a bakini, was also proving controversial for retailers. The game itself was not changed.

Press coverage of Night Trap is said to have led to a greater interest in the game than was otherwise expected, leading to increased sales and numerous other FMV games being released for the next few years.

To mitigate controversy in the UK, Sega voluntarily referred Night Trap to the British Board of Film Classification, where it received a 15. This did not stop complaints, such as mother of three Jacqueline Nicholls organising a protest after her 9, 11 and 12-year old children witnessed scenes of the game on a shopping trip. Her local MP Tony Marlow subsequently wrote to the Home Secretary and Trading Standards, although no further action is believed to have been taken.

The game was completely banned from sale in Germany.

Legacy

Despite the controversy caused by its existence, sales of Night Trap were strong enough for Digital Pictures to port the game to other systems, starting with the 3DO in late 1993 before releasing versions for IBM PC and Macintosh computers in 1994. It was also released as one of six Mega CD 32X games.

Image result for night trap box art

Image result for night trap box art

 

Resolution and aspect ratio increase:

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So yeah, sounds interesting! Will probably end up getting this purely out of curiosity!

Any of you guys ever played Night Trap?

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It's certainly sobering to know that nostalgia can run so deep that there is a market for "games" that were known to be abysmally shitty even 25 years ago when they were new.

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Really surprised to see Night Trap of all games getting a HD remastered but I'll be buying it all the same. There's a certain charm to FMV and it's a real shame that more modern games don't make use of it.

Anyway, still great to see Nigh Trap coming back. Feels like vindication after that witch hunt of a US Senate hearing in the 90s.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

We have a release date for PS4 & Steam:

 
The digital release is the same day as Sonic Mania. Lol!
 

 

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This is super surreal! I like the pseudo old SEGA case even if I'm not a fan of the original game and have, no interest in buying it or playing it. It's always baffled me that this game so controversial- hearing about it you'd think it'd be some mega gory trash em up slasher game but it's just goofy as shit. You could watch way worse in the cinema at the time 

 

Man if they wanted to do an FMV game remake from the SEGA CD I would actually buy/play, they should crack one out of Road Avenger/Road Blaster, (basically an FMV Mad Max fan game) which is a game I used to play the shit out of as a kid (my other SEGA CD games being MK1 and Yumemi Mystery Mansion)

 

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  • 8 months later...

Night Trap is coming to Switch!

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So a few weeks ago I spotted the Limited-Run packaged edition of Night Trap on Amazon.co.uk. There was only one copy left (for PS4) and I decided to purchase it. I've never played the Mega CD version and I was keen to see what all the fuss was about, why this game caused such a stir back in the 90's. The reversible box-art SEGA CD styled cover which comes with the packaged version is pretty cool.

Despite how bizarre this game is, it's actually really fun. The story is entertaining. Some of the acting is good and some is rubbish, but that's all part of the fun. It's quite clever how you can switch between each room and see a different part of the story playing out.

After countless attempts I finally managed to achieve a perfect run and capture all 100 Augers. This is so hard to achieve. Part of the problem is that a few of traps don't seem to activate reliably (mainly in the living room) and some of the Augers that you have to capture in different rooms are so close - a few seconds between each capture - that you literately have to change screens super quick with no margin for error. It's still a really good challenge.

This is the perfect run I did spamming the color code button and trap button which isn't the most reliable (or correct) method, but it works:

 

This is also a perfect run I did by changing the color code for the traps when prompted to do so (which is the correct method) by listening into the conversations:

 

Night Trap is still not available to download on PSN in Europe. The delay is something to do with having to add additional languages which has hampered any chance of a European release at the moment. 

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