When Sega released the Sega CD in 1991, one of the most prominent supporters of the add-on were Digital Pictures, who specialized in Interactive Movie games. They had limited gameplay, but were still games. The player had controls, an avatar that factored into the story, often scored points, and otherwise had an objective to accomplish in order to win.
And then there was the Make My Video series.
They were among the earliest releases on the platform, all debuting in 1992, but calling them "games" is pretty generous. The player is tasked with splicing together a music video using official footage from the music group on the disc, as well as assorted public domain footage, in order to appease a random group of people with equally random suggestions on how to improve the video. There was little reward for meeting their expectations, aside from getting to watch your creation... which you had already just done in the course of making it. Not to mention that, given the color limitations of the Sega CD, what footage you were seeing was confined to a tiny window and had very washed-out visuals. These products quickly became a laughingstock of the console and a demonstration of everything wrong with the new full motion video craze.
In all, there were four Make My Video titles released, each focused on a different artist and each containing three songs:
- Power Factory Featuring C+C Music Factory — "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)", "Things That Make You Go Hmmm...", "Here We Go (Let's Rock & Roll)"
- INXS: Make My Video — "Heaven Sent", "Not Enough Time", "Baby Don't Cry"
- Kriss Kross: Make My Video — "Jump", "Warm It Up", "I Missed the Bus"
- Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch: Make My Video — "Good Vibrations", "You Gotta Believe", "I Need Money"
This franchise contains examples of:
- The '90s: This series is swimming in the time period, between the artists involved, the video and effects designs, and the limitations of the hardware.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: The siblings' parents in Marky Mark offer to help, being big fans of VH1. The dad threatens to call your parents if you "screw up".
- Bad Guys Play Pool: Sort of. Two girls are hogging a billiards table in the INXS game and won't let anyone listen to anything else until someone makes the best music video they've ever seen.
- Bait-and-Switch: The girls promise "Poindexter" that if you make a great video, they'll put on whipped-cream bikinis. When he comes to collect afterwards after you screw up, they just spray the whipped cream in his face, followed by the camera. They go through with it if you meet their expectations, though.
- Color Wash: You can invoke this, saturating the visuals in red, green, blue, or monochrome.
- Console Cameo: A Sega CD features prominently throughout Power Factory when you finish videos.
- Dumbass DJ: The host of Kris Kross, Boyd Packer, takes listener requests about what kind of video you should make and heckles his callers while mugging for the camera with various toys.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Besides the different title, Power Factory is the only game which makes an effort to have a real story, with you being recruited to the "actual" C+C Music Factory to crank out discs.
- Easter Egg: In each title, pressing all three Genesis buttons plus right would bring up some behind-the-scenes footage, including Tom Zito's initial pitch about the series.
- Excuse Plot: Each game gives the flimsiest excuse for why you're being tasked to create music videos.
- Expy: The band friends of the brother in Marky Mark are especially unsubtle ones of Bill & Ted.
- Meaningful Name: Power Factory turns C+C Music Factory into this, making it an actual factory with hammers and hard hats which presses out video discs as a product.
- No Fourth Wall: The characters all address you directly between videos.
- Random Events Plot: The first three at least have some sort of coherent setup. Marky Mark, though, just deals with a brother and sister, Jimmy and Leda, who consult whoever on what kind of video should be made, which incidentally makes it the entry with the biggest cast. The introduction of Jimmy just meandering around a bedroom for two minutes before switching off the camera seems almost normal compared to what follows.
- Replay Value: Absolutely none. They barely even have play value.
- Sensory Abuse: Possible to invoke; just go wild with the video editing options, like mirroring, strobing, grayscale, etc. Some might even consider the grainy Sega CD visuals enough of an example on their own.
- Shout-Out: Flo and Tiger in INXS would really rather listen to Megadeth. They also name-drop a Nirvana song if you screw up.
- Stock Footage: Outside of the song's actual video, your other options to draw footage from are all public domain clips.
- Surfer Dude: A couple named Ted and Gomez feature in INXS, hanging out in the bar.
- Surreal Music Video: What you'll likely end up creating, especially if you dabble in the stock footage the whole time.
- Those Two Guys: Dwayne and Franklin, your two helpers in Power Factory, who like to joke and snark about your editing efforts.
- Totally Radical: You're asked to "Enter Yo' Tag" after you complete a video in the later installments
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Already part of Marky Mark's footage, and the women consulted often ask to see lots of it.
- What the Hell, Player?: The characters make fun of you supposedly for producing a bad video, but good luck understanding what criteria constitutes a good one. Demonstrated in Spoony's video on the series, where he shows how he actually topped the game's high score list, and the game still made fun of him for making a video that wasn't good enough.
