Ripper (1996)

Ripper is another classic, sci-fi adventure game of the 90s. The major difference with the games we have already seen? It is Full Motion Video.

And yes, Christopher Walken is in it! The year is 2040 in NYC and your hero is a reporter. A reporter with information that his girlfriend is the next target of The Ripper, a cyber-punk serial killer, who manages to choose his victims using cyberspace (let us say that it is a part where augmented reality meets the web and then they both get married with a greenish character from Tron). At that point, Ripper gets to your girlfriend but weirdly she manages to survive.. in a comma! Now, it is up to you and the police to get to the killer before.. well before it is too late. Corky? Yes. Cliche? Sure. But, also, really really well-written, very well-acted and full of small surprises along the way. 

Ripper was probably the first adventure game with a high degree of replayability. The killer is different at each time you start the game and is almost random. That means that there exist 4 different scripts with different cutscenes and different places. In addition to that, Ripper was an almost-impossible, kill-me-now game to finish. The puzzles have gained notoriety over the years. The 10/10 puzzle (the first one of the game) still haunts me today. I get more nightmares about Ripper getting me before I solve it than being in school in my underwear. 

Overall, a great game and one that started the fuss around fmv-based games again. They existed before it and they continued to sell after it, however it is not always that you get a cast led by Christopher Walken and including Paul Giamatti (before he became cool) and John Rhys-Davies (yes the dwarf).  

Why is it in this list?

Excruciatingly soul-breaking hard puzzles. They tend to make sense (after you solve them). Great plot and a great cast to support it. Since you probably cannot act, this is the closest you will ever get to starring in a movie. And what a movie! One full of suspense, blood, terror and a little bit of sex under the music of Blue Oyster Cult and co-starring Christopher-fucking-Walken. Heaven (in a very weird way since the game is taking place in a perverse future of NYC where an internet virus can kill you, but anyways, heaven)!