A playthrough of Digital Pictures' 1995 interactive movie/FMV game for the Sega Saturn, Double Switch. Starring Corey Haim (a famous 80s child movie star who ironically shared the same tragic fate as Night Trap's Dana Plato), Deborah Harry (lead singer from Blondie, the popular 70s band), and featuring music by Thomas Dolby, it's clear that Digital Pictures was serious about their games and making them marketable: by game development standards of the late 80s/early 90s, these interactive movies had absolutely massive budgets. The acting in Double Switch is a fair step above Night Trap in most cases, the video quality is substantially better, and there's a lot more variety (though I don't really get why they went with the weird Egyptian theme...). I went with the Saturn version for this playthrough mainly because the original 1993 Sega CD release is way too fugly and the Windows 95 version kept crashing on me when I tried to switch CDs. The Saturn version does look pretty good - much closer to the Win95 version than the Sega CD one. Double Switch is the spiritual successor to Night Trap. There's no shared story or characters, but rather, Double Switch's gameplay mechanics are largely based on Night Trap's. There are a few big differences, though. Rather than needing an access code and springing a general room trap, you now have control over which trap within the room is triggered and when: knowing the timing of these is super-important since the trap needs to be ready to spring the instant a bad guy stands on one of the trap tiles. It certainly gives the player more to do than Night Trap did, but it's not really an improvement. Granted, it gives the player a much more reasonable and fair chance, but it also turns the story into something of a schizophrenic mess- you'll get a game over off you let too many guys escape or get to the building's power switch, but they happen so often than you never get a chance to breathe, let alone attempt to follow the plot at any length. It's a bit strange that, for a game that relies entirely on video, it doesn't seem interested in letting you watch any of it. But, it's more than campy and cheesy enough to keep you laughing. I can't always tell if it means to funny or not, but that just makes it all the more fun to watch. It's fun once you forget trying to follow along in any coherent manner, and it's certainly easier to get through than it's predecessor. Ultimately, Double Switch is an interesting relic of an age gone-by, and though it never quite lives up to the (albeit low) bar that Night Trap set, it's still an amusing distraction that'll keep you occupied for a bit. ____ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (
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