History VideoGame / LateShift

You're a night watchman working at the local parking garage, it's pretty boring work and tonight is just as slow as ever. Best to just sit back and study while the hours tick away... until you notice something come up on the monitor. You investigate and before you know it you're being held at gunpoint by a gang of thieves intent on knocking over an auction house... and they need your help. So begins Late Shift, a 2017 [[InteractiveFiction interactive movie]] done entirely in live action that casts the players as protagonist Matt Thompson. A throwback to the FullMotionVideo game genre.

Do you help the thieves with their job in exchange for a cut of the profits? Do you try to alert the police and bring them to justice? Are you willing to stick your neck out for other people or be a greedy bastard and only look out for yourself? A lot can happen with a single choice and players change the story with their decisions. Of course, its much better to experience the game firsthand rather than read about. It's available on UsefulNotes/XboxOne, UsefulNotes/Playstation4 and UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} so pick your poison and get on with your night.

!!''Late Shift'' provides examples of:

* {{Auction}}: The first stage of the heist involves participating in one.

* DirtyCoward: [[spoiler:After recovering the real cup Matt has the option of abandoning May-Ling to the triad and keeping it for himself.]] The movie will give the player a few chances to back out of this, unlike almost every other choice in the game. [[spoiler:Sticking to your decision to shaft May-Ling gets you a bad ending.]]

* EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler:After all of the crap Matt is put through its possible to walk away with May-Ling and a ton of cash at the end of the movie. It's fairly hard to achieve but definitely worth it.]]

* FaceHeelTurn: Very possible depending on your choices, since you can make Matt either a cowardly pacifist or prone to violence.
** Particularly evident with [[spoiler:using the golf club to destroy Parr's valuables and potentially shooting him]], which may not match at all with how you played Matt earlier.
* FallGuy: Matt becomes this in one of the bad endings: [[spoiler:the Tchoi crime family murders May-Ling and frames Matt for it.]]

* GolfClubbing: Matt uses a golf club briefly during one of the endings where he [[spoiler:[[InterrogationByVandalism smashes Samuel Parr's valuables]] to get him to reveal the location of the cup.]] In another ending [[spoiler:Samuel Parr does this to Matt himself after smashing the cup and dooming May-Ling.]] Ouch.

* HospitalHottie: Elodie.

* JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: Jeff. He kidnaps Matt at gunpoint and drags Matt into the heist. However, Jeff does explain that he isn't murderer and he seems like a nice guy to Matt if he follows Jeff's orders during the heist. When the heist is done however, Jeff then seems fine with silencing Matt regardless of how well he followed Jeff's orders.
* KarmaHoudini:

* MacGuffin: The priceless Ming Dynasty cup.

* MultipleEndings: Things can go poorly or smoothly depending on the choices made and many actions lead to [[BittersweetEnding Bittersweet]] or straight up [[DownerEnding Downer Endings.]]
* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: If Matt decides to do the right thing and [[spoiler:attempt to ruin the heist or contact the police the game will punish the player for it, including having him arrested.]] Fortunately, neither action has particularly long term consequences afterwards.
* ParkingGarage: This is where Matt works at the beginning of the film. The plot kicks off when he gets kidnapped and roped into a heist by a car thief at gunpoint.
* PlotHole: How did Matt learn about [[spoiler:the secret compartment in the chest? It's stated during the auction a {{foreshadowing}}, but when Matt interrogates Sebastien at the hospital, Sebastien tells it to Matt as new information and makes him promise not to reveal that he learned about it from him. If you skip the visit to Sebastien, Matt still knows about it in "The Delivery" ending.]]
* PoliceAreUseless: Try to bring the cup to the police, and Matt will promptly get arrested, with the officers not only blowing off his (true) story of what happened, but accusing him of being part of the robbery from the very beginning and just chickening out, hence him going to the police. All this without so much as a background check on the guy or viewing the security footage of the parking garage he claims to work at, and [[JerkAss while essentially mocking him to his face the whole time]]. You can't help but feel glad when [[spoiler:the Tchois intercept his transport and take him away]].

* SirSwearsALot: Matt is fond of saying the f-word. He says it in almost every scene, even in front of the old lady sitting next to him at the auction.

* TheTriadsAndTheTongs: They serve as the main villains for most of the story.

* VillainWithGoodPublicity: [[spoiler:Samuel Parr.]]
* WhamEpisode: The [[spoiler:car crash scene]] that occurs roughly a third of the way through the movie. Up until that point it was a pretty standard heist movie. Afterwards the whole thing takes a noticeably darker turn with [[spoiler:everyone of the main characters save for Matt and May-Ling dying and the two finding out that the cup they worked so hard to steal was actually a fake.]] After that both characters face intense torture and interrogation and must [[spoiler:find the real Ming Dynasty cup]] before the triad has them both executed.

* AssholeVictim: May-Ling's crew, Jeff included. None of are nice guys and are perfectly willing to kill Matt after the job is done, regardless how well he preforms. [[spoiler:Suffice to say, no tears are shed when they all die in the crash.]]

* BilingualBonus: Sebastien calls Matt a "whore" and "shithead" in French.

Do you help the thieves with their job in exchange for a cut of the profits? Do you try to alert the police and bring them to justice? Are you willing to stick your neck out for other people or be a greedy bastard and only look out for yourself? A lot can happen with a single choice and players change the story with their decisions. Of course, its much better to experience the game firsthand rather than read about. It's available on Xbox One, Playstation 4 and Steam so pick your poison and get on with your night.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: May-Ling claims the Tchois want to reacquire a porcelain bowl that has been in their possession for over a thousand years. During the auction, the bowl is claimed to be of Ming construction. The Ming came to power in the 1300s, well under a thousand years, even if the Tchois had the bowl the entire time, and that even assumes the bowl was created at the beginning of the dynasty, as the Ming dynasty lasted over three hundred years.

* Auction: The setting of the first stage of the heist.

** Matt if you [[spoiler:become a known fugitive on the run if you botch the heist or go to the police (and get broken out), then choose any of the endings where you aren't apprehended, especially "The Bribe"]].

* PlotHole: How did Matt learn about [[spoiler:the secret compartment in the chest? It's stated during the auction a {{foreshadowing}}, but when Matt interrogates Sebastien at the hospital, Sebastien tells it to Matt as new information and makes him promise not to reveal that he learned about it from him. If you skip the visit to Sebastien, Matt still knows about it in the "Delivery" ending.]]

* KarmaHoudini: Regardless of the outcome, [[spoiler:the Tchois are never punished for their crimes (unless not getting the cup back counts as punishment).]]

* SadisticChoice: This comes up a lot, such as choosing what type of instrument of torture you want used on you or whether or not to abandon someone else to safe yourself.

!!Late Shift provides examples of:

* AssholeVictim: May-Ling’s crew, Jeff included. None of are nice guys and are perfectly willing to kill Matt after the job is done, regardless how well he preforms. [[spoiler:Suffice to say, no tears are shed when they all die in the crash.]]

* JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: Jeff. He kidnaps Matt at gunpoint and drags Matt into the heist. However, Jeff does explain that he isn’t murderer and he seems like a nice guy to Matt if he follows Jeff’s orders during the heist. When the heist is done however, Jeff then seems fine with silencing Matt regardless of how well he followed Jeff’s orders.

* NotSoDifferent: When Matt and May-Ling's RomanticismVersusEnlightenment argument boils over, May-Ling suggests that Matt isn't really being more logical than she is. He's just making gut decisions, then using numbers to justify it after the fact.

You're a night watchman working at the local parking garage, it's pretty boring work and tonight is just as slow as ever. Best to just sit back and study while the hours tick away... until you notice something come up on the monitor. You investigate and before you know it you're being held at gunpoint by a gang of thieves intent on knocking over a auction house... and they need your help. So begins Late Shift, a 2017 [[InteractiveFiction interactive movie]] done entirely in live action that casts the players as protagonist Matt Thompson. A throwback to the FullMotionVideo game genre.

* ReplacementLoveInterest: At first it seems that Elodie, the young woman who asks Matt for the keys to the Maserati, will be Matt's LoveInterest. [[spoiler:This doesn't happen because, no matter what the player does, she doesn't get the Maserati and May-Ling becomes the love interest for the rest of the game.]]

You're a night watchman working at the local parking garage, it's pretty boring work and tonight is just as slow as ever. Best to just sit back and study while the hours tick away... until you notice something come up on the monitor. You investigate and before you know it you're being held at gunpoint by a gang of thieves intent on knocking over a auction house... and they need your help. So begins Late Shift, a 2017 [[InteractiveFiction interactive movie]] done entirely in live action that casts the players as the protagonist. A throwback to the FullMotionVideo game genre.