A very dodgy PC game by American Laser Games in the tradition of titles like Mad Dog McCree, Who Shot Johnny Rock? is an early version of the interactive movie using similar principles to today's on-rails shooting games (eg. Virtua Cop series). The game was first released as an arcade shooter in 1991, which consisted of a lightgun, and a colour TV monitor with the video being played from a laserdisc player. A PC version was released on CD-ROM a couple of years later and Who Shot Johnny Rock? was also released for the 3DO and Sega Mega-CD consoles.
The plot is a stock-standard, cliché-as-hell whodunnit revolving around you playing the role of a private detective in 1920s Chicago. You are hired by a pretty dame named "Red" to investigate the murder of a rich guy named (funnily enough) Johnny Rock, who was (suprisingly) shot and killed by a person unknown. In following the trail you must dodge bullets from very badly-dressed Z-movie actors trying to play old-school gangsters. For finding clues you earn money, which you use to buy ammo and to get healed by the hospital when you're (often) shot.
Gameplay consisted mainly of shooting a specific spot on the screen at a specific time or being killed. Even so, the timing was never perfectly coded and the game was more trial and error than a game, as such. Luckily, this type of "game" was phased out by common sense (ie. lack of sales) and the more interesting and interactive forms of the genre took over using real-time generated worlds. Now in what must be a violation of the Geneva Accord for cruel and unusual punishment, the "game" is being released by a company called Digital Leisure for DVD-Video, X-Box, Playstation2 and CD-ROM (again).