"The beauty of full motion video is that you can capture all the human emotion of a live actor," said Jarvis.
He might have a point, but whereas Hollywood's reaction to 9/11 was to craft serious dramas, Jarvis went in the other direction with "Target: Terror." It's pure ridiculousness, right down to the use of decidedly ancient full motion video technology for the enemies. What redblooded American would not want to turn back time and heroically change history?" The 9/11 story is so rich in action, destruction, death, heroism, megalomania, patriotism and paranoia that it begs for a video game to be made. "I think video games spend too much time in fantasy realms of little relevance to life today. "Target: Terror was inspired by the human drama of the 9/11 tragedy," said Jarvis in an e-mail interview. It's the sort of charm that couldn't have happened unless the creator intended it. It's not a very good game in the traditional sense, but it's full of hysterical b-movie charm (think "Evil Dead"). "Target: Terror," released last month for the Wii, is awesome - just not in the way you'd think. I had no idea our interview would end up evoking 9/11. I tracked down Eugene Jarvis, the head of Raw Thrills, who created the arcade version of "Target: Terror." This is the man responsible for "Defender" and "Robotron" - true classics! It's a bit ironic I'm spending time writing about my love for "Target: Terror," a game with a Metacritic score of just 34, during a week where Stephen Totilo is examining reviews.