''Maximum Surge'' is a cancelled video game by

Digital Pictures Digital Pictures was an American video game developer founded in 1991 by Lode Coen, Mark Klein, Ken Melville, Anne Flaut-Reed, Kevin Welsh and Tom Zito. The company originated from an attempt to produce a game for the failed VHS-based NEMO (vid ...

. Planned for release in 1996 for the 3DO, Mac, PC and

Sega Saturn The is a home video game console developed by Sega and released on November 22, 1994, in Japan, May 11, 1995, in North America, and July 8, 1995, in Europe. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it was the successor to the succ ...

, it was to feature full-motion video in the same way that many of Digital Pictures' releases of the time did. The game's 90 minutes of video footage starred

Walter Koenig Walter Marvin Koenig (; born September 14, 1936) is an American actor and screenwriter. He began acting professionally in the mid 1960s and quickly rose to prominence for his supporting role as Ensign Pavel Chekov in ''Star Trek: The Original S ...

and

Yasmine Bleeth Yasmine Amanda Bleeth (born June 14, 1968) is an American actress and model. Her television roles include Caroline Holden on ''Baywatch'', Ryan Fenelli on ''Ryan's Hope'', and LeeAnn Demerest on ''One Life to Live''. Early life and career Blee ...

, was directed by

William Mesa Flash Film Works is a computer graphics company that provides visual effects for films, television shows and commercials. It is owned by director William Mesa and is located in Los Angeles, California. History In 1993, Visual Effects Supervisor ...

, and was written by J. Garrett Glover and Charlie Ogden. According to

Flash Film Works Flash Film Works is a computer graphics company that provides visual effects for films, television shows and commercials. It is owned by director William Mesa and is located in Los Angeles, California. History In 1993, Visual Effects Supervisor ...

, the studio responsible for the special effects used in the game, ''Maximum Surge'' was never released. However, the

ESRB The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) is a self-regulatory organization that assigns age and content ratings to consumer video games in the United States and Canada. The ESRB was established in 1994 by the Entertainment Software Asso ...

's website lists a rating for the game on multiple platforms, suggesting that the project made it at least to the late stages of development. A short playable demo of ''Maximum Surge'' was released as part of a Digital Pictures

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturin ...

demo disk.

Plot

The game is set in the 21st century. The player character, an unnamed soldier, is hired to protect the Brokaw Territory and stop Drexel (

), who is trying to replace humanity with evil cyborg beings which transfer information by means of umbilical data cords. It is up to the player character to destroy his bases and ultimately face him in the final battle. Alongside him in the fight are a mercenary named Jo (

), a computer hacker, and the resistance commander.

Production

''Maximum Surge'' differed from previous Digital Pictures games in that the gameplay graphics were not crafted from standalone

full motion video Full-motion video (FMV) is a video game narration technique that relies upon pre-recorded video files (rather than sprites, vectors, or 3D models) to display action in the game. While many games feature FMVs as a way to present information duri ...

, but from bits of full motion video superimposed upon traditional computer graphic backgrounds. This allowed the gameplay to break from the on-rails format typical of FMV-based games, giving the player the ability to look from left to right to a limited extent in order to shoot enemies who appear outside the player's initial range of vision. Digital Pictures president Tom Zito commented that "''Maximum Surge'' is really the first game in which we used the camera as a tool rather than as a recording device. Just as if you were going to create ''

Doom Doom is another name for damnation. Doom may also refer to: People * Doom (professional wrestling), the tag team of Ron Simmons and Butch Reed * Daniel Doom (born 1934), Belgian cyclist * Debbie Doom (born 1963), American softball pitcher * L ...

'', you would go to a

SGI SGI may refer to: Companies *Saskatchewan Government Insurance *Scientific Games International, a gambling company *Silicon Graphics, Inc., a former manufacturer of high-performance computing products *Silicon Graphics International, formerly Rac ...

workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''workstat ...

and create all the pieces of ''Doom'' as computer graphics, in ''Maximum Surge'' we have taken a video camera and done exactly the same thing." The video footage was filmed in

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...

and

Long Beach, California Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California. Incorporate ...

commented "''Maximum Surge'' was a completely new experience for me. It was great to get tough and gritty. The whole concept of CD-ROM is still mind-blowing to me." Footage from this and other

games was used by Insight Film and Video Production, Shavick Entertainment, and Avrio Filmworks to create a movie originally titled ''Maximum Surge Movie'', which was later rereleased on DVD by York Entertainment under the name '' Game Over''. The game cost $3 million to develop.

References

External links

Flash Film Works' information page
* {{Digital Pictures Cancelled 3DO Interactive Multiplayer games Cancelled Sega Saturn games Cancelled classic Mac OS games Cancelled Windows games Full motion video based games Digital Pictures