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Games Entertainment

Excuse Me, Your Cut Scene is In My Game 142

Posted by Zonk from the why-can't-i-just-play dept.
Via GameSetWatch, an interesting critique of game cut scenes at the blog ItBurns. He compares and contrasts several games and their use of story, gameplay, and in-game movies (with video) to get across his point. "Splinter Cell takes a more simulative approach to many of the character interactions that occur in the game. In the next clip, Sam Fisher grabs his target, Sadono, from behind and places a gun at his temple. Using Sadono as a shield, Fisher backs towards the door and forces Sadono's head into the retinal scanner to open the lock. Fisher continues through the doorway towards the roof, interrogating Sadono as they walk to the waiting helicopter for extraction. At no time during this sequence does the player relinquish control."
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Excuse Me, Your Cut Scene is In My Game More

Excuse Me, Your Cut Scene is In My Game

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  • As opposed to Xeno Saga... (Score:4, Funny)

    by twilightzero ( 244291 ) <mrolfs.gmail@com> on Wednesday October 31, 2007 @03:48PM (#21187785) Homepage Journal
    ...which was more like an interactive movie with occasional times when you could play... ;)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AuMatar ( 183847 )
      There were playable sections? Even those tiny bits were straight forward, no options, move from point A to point B. It felt like another cutscene.
    • Well what did you expect when the game is subtitled:
      "Xenosaga: Hey, you got your GAME in my CUTSCENE!"

  • Rendering Power (Score:2, Insightful)

    by UnderDark ( 869922 )
    Cut scenes were originally used to fowward the plot in games because the computational power to render those scenes was not available in a real-time system. They were run in batches and the resulting movie was tied to a trigger in-game. It stands to reason that as computers became more powerful, the reliance on pre-rendered cut-scenes would diminish. For evidence, look at HL2: almost no cut-scenes at all.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Altus ( 1034 )

      I don't think this guy cares if they are movies or if they are rendered in the game engine (though movies are more jarring especially if they look better than the game play). I think this guys complaint is that you don't have control over the character.

      In the Splinter Cell example he likes the fact that the player always has control. I haven't played the game but I wonder. He describes the actions the character goes though and says that they player has control, but is this still basically on rails or cou

      • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

        by twosmokes ( 704364 )
        You're pretty much on rails. Really Splinter Cell is a terrible example of being able to control your character. It's been a long time since I played it (and only the first one), but from what I remember you have to just stand there and listen to dialog until you get a "Mission Accomplished" message. I think you can drag the guy around, but the level of interactivity stops there.

        On top of that, I believe right after that there's a.... cut-scene. The type where you watch a little movie.
        • Your not really on rails. You can at anytime release the guy, shoot the guy snap his neck, drag him anywhere you want. You can do pretty much anything. Most of those things will automatically fail your mission but that is very different. Splinter Cell is a linear game for the most part. There are things you must do to continue but that is a totally different compliant.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Gulthek ( 12570 )
        Please, enlighten us to a game that isn't "basically on rails". Many games hide the rails very well, but all games are on them.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rhombic ( 140326 )
          Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. There are a handful of short, in-game cutscenes where you lose control of your character. One or two places where you have the possibility of screwing up & having no choice but to re-load (Martin getting whacked near the end). Other than that, you can totally abandon the plot & just screw around until you get bored & quit.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Gulthek ( 12570 )
            Crimminy. This is valid for ANY game. The rails are still just as much there for any other game. I submit that Super Mario World has just as much freedom, you just get bored a lot faster.

            If, by freedom, you mean the ability to dive away from the plot into inanity then the ruler has got to be Ultima VII. You could not only completely abandon the quest, but take up and progress in many profitable jobs from blacksmithing, to carting goods and produce, to baking, to piracy.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Luyseyal ( 3154 )
              Just had to get in a "me too" comment for Ultima VII. Hot damn I loved that game.

              -l

            • I suppose the key is how quickly you get bored, or, put differently, how enjoyable the game is in terms of its actual gameplay.

              In my opinion, the cutscenes and strict scripting (you must agree that while all games have constraints, some have more strict constraints than others) also serve the insidious purpose of disguising how bad, unfun or non-innovative the game is. They are a kind of crutch. You end up playing to advance the storyline, not for the sheer joy of playing. And I think this kind of story-h

              • What about Animal Crossing. You can kind of do whatever you want. You never lose. There are no goals. There are certain things that happen when you do other things, but nothing is compulsory, and there is no end to the game. Contrast this with other open-ended games like Simcity, where you can build the city however you want, but get penalized if your city is badly planned, Eventually you will run out of money. In Animal Crossing, you can go fishing all day, every day for 3 months, and nothing bad will
          • "Other than that, you can totally abandon the plot & just screw around until you get bored & quit."

            You can do that in pacman too, I don't think that's exactly what he meant by not being on rails.
          • Martin getting whacked near the end? See, I *never* would have wanted to see that, say, presented in a nice cutscene while playing the game instead of hearing it from you. I know anyone who's anyone has already long since beaten the game, but loser that I am, I started playing not too long ago.

            I'm sure you didn't mean to do that maliciously, but... nice spoiler? :(

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by rhombic ( 140326 )
              Sorry, didn't mean to put in a spoiler for a three year old game ;). Not really a spoiler, he only gets whacked if you screw up, then you have to re-load. It's the only "success is not possible, please reload from a saved game" point in the game.
              • Glad to hear it. It's only been out a year and a half though, and even less time than that for PS3 owners. No biggie though...

                I was really enthusiastic about the game when it first came out and played quite a bit, but was really disappointed when I discovered the auto-scaling in the game (which sort of ruins - for me at least - the whole point of making your character stronger and collecting better and more powerful loot). So, I put the game down for a while, and only recently started playing it again wi
            • Nei dies halfway through.

        • Please, enlighten us to a game that isn't "basically on rails". Many games hide the rails very well, but all games are on them.

          "Frontier [wikipedia.org] retains the same principal component of Elite--namely completely open-ended gameplay--and adds to this realistic physics and an accurately modelled galaxy. There is no plot within Frontier, nor are there pre-scripted missions. [..] As a consequence, Frontier cannot be completed or "won"--instead, players themselves decide what to aspire to and set out to achieve it."

          And that game is 14 years old.

          The Mercenary [wikipedia.org] games, although they had objectives and some scripting, also allowed a large freedom

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by dishpig ( 877882 )

          Please, enlighten us to a game that isn't "basically on rails". Many games hide the rails very well, but all games are on them.

          Well, I know it's not the genre you're thinking, but The Sims comes pretty close. You can take any path you like. Will a game be successful if your Sims pee on the floor and die in kitchen fires? That depends.

          The question is, how do you measure "success" in a game? By completing objectives or by engagement? If your answer is the first, yes, you are restricting the parameters of the game and it must be guided - it is necessary to push it down a fairly straight track (or at least a choice of several). If

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by TexVex ( 669445 )
          Don't confuse "rails" with "constraints".

          In the Final Fantasy games, you have to complete each piece of the game in order before you can move on to the next. They are linear. The game is all about the story, and that fact is thrown in your face with every non-skippable ten-minute cutscene. This is what is meant by rails.

          But something like Crackdown is not on rails. You can go anywhere in the city you want. You can turn on your own faction, just to see how many hit squads it takes for them to kill you.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Kidbro ( 80868 )
          - Elder Scrolls (I only played III and IV, but they both qualify)
          - EVE Online
          - Elite
          - Sim City & clones

          I see you contesting someone else's claim that Oblivion isn't railed.. and I honestly do not understand what your criteria is, then. I fail to see how a game can get much more free than the Elder Scrolls games. They can become bigger, yes, but less railed? Doubtful.

          • I see you contesting someone else's claim that Oblivion isn't railed.. and I honestly do not understand what your criteria is, then.

            I can only assume he's upset that the main quest exists... which is, frankly, just plain stupid.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by WNight ( 23683 ) *
              Well, in Oblivion, the main quest does suck for a lot of reasons. Not terminally, but in little console-friendly ways. The levelling in the whole game means that the Soldiers are in front of Kvatch from the time you're level 2 until the time you're level 20, still at a standstill, but with bigger monsters.

              And where do they get off having the main quest be one for the fate of the world, run, run, run, or go off and collect side quests for a while, do totally irrelevant things, then have the characters saying
          • WOW, for all its quests, isn't on rails. It isn't really the same thing as a single player game, but whatever. You can do quests, fight with the other factions, slaughter pigs, go fishing, whatever. Hell, I like to go find the cool scenery built for my amusement and just look at it.
        • I'm gonna say Portal even though it's linear, because there's a point at which you have to acknowledge that your definition of "on rails" doesn't cut it. I can think of no other game that offered as much freedom.

          Except for programming languages, perhaps, but you'll probably insist that those aren't games.

        • Please, enlighten us to a game that isn't "basically on rails".
          Animal Crossing: Population Growing (for Nintendo GameCube) and Animal Crossing: Wild World (for Nintendo DS). The first hour of the game has the player working a temp job for Tom Nook, but after that, everything is open-ended.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Bloomy ( 714535 )
            The Gamecube game is just "Animal Crossing." "Population: Growing!" is no more part of the game's name than "Welcome to" is.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by grumbel ( 592662 )
          How about XCom:UFO? Sure, you still have to defeat the final boss at the end and your scientific discoveries also add a bit of linearity to it, but that aside its a mindbogglingly awesome piece of game and has no visible linearity enforcing borders. You simply have the earth and some alien invaders and its your job is to protect earth. There are no preset missions, since all missions you get are the result of your own action (i.e. shoot down alien ship -> send ground troop to investigate; you build a bas
        • LucasArts' Thrillville: Off the Rails.
      • I think we're still at a point in the evolution of games where, for the most part, you're picking between either rails or story. You don't get a lot of freedom unless you abandon the story.

        Even a game like, say, one of the GTA or Elder Scrolls series that lets you sandbox style do what you want generally lets you do so at the cost of the story not progressing at all while you do.
      • Half-Life 1, 2, and Episode 1 had probably five cutscenes between them.

        Wait, let me count...

        One in Half-Life, two in Half-Life 2, maybe two in Episode 1.

        Oh, sure, there are times you could classify as a cutscene, but you absolutely do have control of your player. It's still "on rails" in that it's a linear game, and that sometimes you really do have to wait a bit for the plot to develop, but you can always go play with the miniature teleporter while they're talking, or something similar.

        Haven't played Episo
    • I was rather shocked at the intro of Episode 2, where there actually WAS a cut-scene.
      • Yeah, but it was just re-capping Ep.1 for people who either hadn't played it (probably no one, but they're covering their bases) or, more likely, people who HAD played it, but had forgotten parts of it.
    • HL2 certainly has cut-scenes. You might be able to run around the room you're stuck in, but you certainly have to just sit there and wait for the NPCs to quit talking at you before you can continue.

      Being able to crouch, jump, and run in circles while exposition happens isn't any more fun than just watching a pre-rendered movie. Not that I have a problem with either method.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by flitty ( 981864 )
        When cut scenes are integral to the story, even interactive cutscenes such as *SPOILER* the death of Andrew Ryan in Bioshock, How do you tell your story without your character "losing control". Either directly, or sitting in a room listening to deposition, you can't extend the story without losing control usually. Giving andrew ryan a gun to shoot at you so it becomes a kill/be killed scenario was disengenuous to the characters/story. I think that the cutscene where you kill Andrew Ryan, and the underlyin


        • I think that's a lot of the genius of Bioshock, really -- it takes a lot of the conventions that you just sort of accept as part of playing a video game and makes them integral to the story. Or, to look at it another way, it takes things you'll ignore or not think very hard about because it's a video game and you're used to them (e.g., the 'coincidence' of the plane crash, the vita chambers, the lack of choice in what to do next, the 'why can this lone stranger do what better trained/prepared assassins can

      • Being able to crouch, jump, and run in circles while exposition happens isn't any more fun than just watching a pre-rendered movie.

        You apparently haven't found the little things they leave you to do -- for example, in HL2 "Red Letter Day", there is a mini version of the teleporter you're about to use on a desk somewhere. You could easily spend most of that time playing with setting various items on that teleporter and testing it out. Or climbing on boxes.

        I did appreciate one technique used for most of Por

    • For evidence, look at HL2: almost no cut-scenes at all.
      And yet I still maintain that, in spite of the fact that this is hyped so much, it's a horrible thing. HL and HL2 have awful storytelling compared to other games because of their idiotic insistence of not using cut scenes. Cut scenes are the most immersive, dramatic way to tell a story, and it's for those damn good reasons that games still use them.

      • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        So.... standing there in the MIDDLE of the story is not immersive?

        They make a point of never taking you out of first person, there isn't even a gordon model for a 3rd ppov to see in the first part of hl2.

        You may need to re-think your logic

        Playing most other games, cutscenes make me feel like I'm watching a story rather than being in the story. They may look awesome, and cool, and be very meaning ful, but in the end I wish I was there.
        • Yes. That is not immersive, not from the perspective of storytelling. Sure, one could argue that it makes the game world feel more seamless (a different thing entirely), but it makes the story feel more distant and less relevant. Even Halo 3 (an excellent game otherwise) suffers from this problem to a small extent, in some parts where there's minor plot exposition through a scripted event that you watch in first person (I'm specifically thinking of the part where you're defending the Marine base on Earth, a

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by heinousjay ( 683506 )
            I'm gonna have to just disagree with you. Cut scenes take me right out of the game, and most times annoy the hell out of me because they really aren't telling me anything I need to know to enjoy playing.

            And truth be told, the story is nearly always irrelevant, and typically about as cheesy as a daytime soap.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by grumbel ( 592662 )
          ### So.... standing there in the MIDDLE of the story is not immersive?

          It is not immersive, at least for me, because it lacks context. Why am I there? What is my mission? etc. You never get a proper answer and you don't have any way to have an interactive conversation with any of the NPCs to figure it out either. You run from 'shoot this' to 'shoot that' and almost never does it feel like any of that has a purpose. You don't fight your way to attack the Citadel, you simply end there at some point by pure coi
      • What you're basically arguing for is movies.

        Yes, I like a good movie, and I won't say one is better than the other. I will say that I have seen brilliant storytelling done (HL being one example of this) in first person. However, you do need to pay attention.

        And I have also seen cut scenes that just made the rest of the game worth playing, more real and personal.

        I think what we're seeing here is a fundamentally different medium. Movies (cut scenes) and games are two completely different ways of telling stori

    • Cut scenes were originally used to fowward the plot in games because the computational power to render those scenes was not available in a real-time system.

      Maybe so, but...

      It stands to reason that as computers became more powerful, the reliance on pre-rendered cut-scenes would diminish. For evidence, look at HL2: almost no cut-scenes at all.

      Come on, you've played Half-Life 2, but not 1? It's, what, $9.95 on Steam, now?

      Half-Life 1 proved definitively that you could have a relatively deep plot not only wi

  • I hate cut scenes (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    At no time during this sequence does the player relinquish control.

    To me, that's the key. Meshing the storyline into the game play is the right way to do it, whereas forcing the player to suddenly stop playing and listen to some silly dialog is the wrong way. Getting it "right" isn't easy to do, of course. Some games put a variety of sources of information scattered throughout the game (like dropped items, computer terminals, whatever) that in theory you are supposed to read. In practice, these also distra

    • Re:I hate cut scenes (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ObiWanStevobi ( 1030352 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2007 @03:59PM (#21187939) Journal

      I respectfully disagree. Several games that do not relinquish control, but restrict actions, during a "cut scene" are annoying. For instance Gears of War while you are on the radio. All it does is make you walk really slow. I found that slow walk terribly annoying for some reason. In Half Life, they stand in front of the doorway until they are done talking, also pretty annoying if you had already heard it or didn't care to hear it the first time. For me, I'd rather not have control instead of still being in control of a useless character.

      I don't know why, but I'm still in control, I'm still in an action mindset and I'm more likely to miss the parts of the story the game wanted to get to me.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by rkanodia ( 211354 )
        Metroid Prime 3 has a lot of 'plot updates/game hints' that take the form of someone contacting you on the radio. Unlike Metal Gear Solid or Resident Evil, however, this generally doesn't interrupt the flow of gameplay at all - you can be blasting Metroids left and right with your Plasma Cannon while General Whoever tells you about your new objective. While the game also contains its fair share of 'true' cutscenes, I found the radio communications to be a good way to keep things moving without constant in

  • Get off my lawn (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ObiWanStevobi ( 1030352 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2007 @03:51PM (#21187817) Journal

    Cut scenes are just like anything else in gaming, they might suck, they might be good. It's all a matter of taste. Take FF for example. Every FF game will have pretty much a feature length movie built into it. Now if you don't have the slightest care why you are fighting strange looking birds or large rocks, you probably hate the cutscenes. But if you want to have any idea what is going on in the strange plots, the cut scenes are a must.

    Plus most of us can't sit on the edge of our seats for hours on end. The cut scenes are good for a bit of relaxation and setting up the mindframe for your next objective. Now if the scenes don't drive a good story, and don't prepare you for what is going to happen next, yes, they do suck. But that isn't because it is a cutscene, it's because it's a shitty game.

    • Plus most of us can't sit on the edge of our seats for hours on end.
      Not saying I haven't, but I usually don't enjoy sitting on the edge for hours at a time playing a game, flying through the experience. I look at cut scenes as a way of the game saying "Hey, you are finished with this part of the plot. Get up and go take a walk before coming back." Final Fantasy VII did that a good bit(Sector Plate falling, Aeris (DELETED SPOILER), Ancient Temple, and so forth)

    • The cut scenes are good for a bit of relaxation and setting up the mindframe for your next objective. Now if the scenes don't drive a good story, and don't prepare you for what is going to happen next, yes, they do suck. But that isn't because it is a cutscene, it's because it's a shitty game.

      I don't mind cut scenes. I mind cut scenese that you can't skip.
      Especially the 10 minutes-long ones they put right before an ultra-hard boss battle that you'll have to go through 6 times in a row before you figure out how to beat it. Those make my urge to kill rise, and rise, and rise...

      • Re:I don't ask for much, just let me skip it! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Tim C ( 15259 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2007 @04:54PM (#21188649)
        That sort of thing often sees me simply stop playing the game if it gets in the way too often.

        Hell, I remember the train ride at the start of Half Life. Cool as hell the first time. Cool in a "oh yeah" kind of way the second time.

        By the third time I played through the game, years later, I thought "Oh, I'd forgotten about this..." and went to make a cup of coffee while I waited for it to play out.

        While we're on the subject of stuff you can't skip, adverts at the beginning of a game (eg for NVidia, the publisher, Intel, etc) that you can't skip fuck me off something chronic too. Attention game publishing infidels - I am fully aware of you, the dev house, ATi, NVidia, Intel, and all the other people paying you to piss me off. Please stop pissing me off, or I'll stop buying your games.

        • While we're on the subject of stuff you can't skip, adverts at the beginning of a game (eg for NVidia, the publisher, Intel, etc) that you can't skip fuck me off something chronic too. Attention game publishing infidels - I am fully aware of you, the dev house, ATi, NVidia, Intel, and all the other people paying you to piss me off. Please stop pissing me off, or I'll stop buying your games.

          Ah! Those are unskipable by decree of the console manufacturer! You can't get publishing rights if they can be skipped.
          At least that's how it was back when I had access to technical requirement checklists. No reason to believe that's gonna change anytime soon.

          • Then please, explain why Battlefield 2142 (a PC exclusive last time I checked) does this. Or did, until I removed the movies from my hard drive.

            The fact is, even if it was originally mandated by console manufacturers, a lot of PC game publishers are starting to do this, too. Hopefully it's not too late to get them to cut it out...

            • Then please, explain why Battlefield 2142 (a PC exclusive last time I checked) does this.
              Microsoft got into the console biz, and they're using the same tech requirements for their other platform?
              • Microsoft doesn't license PC applications, though (like they do with consoles). They can't stop you from creating and selling a program that runs on Windows. The closest thing they have is the "Games for Windows" marketing campaign / "certification." BF2142 isn't certified in this way, and they don't mandate un-skippable promos anyway (at least not in the publicly disclosed requirements, if you feel like wearing your tinfoil).

                I think it's more likely that hardware companies like nVidia, ATi, and Intel
            • I think that is mandated by EA, as you can't skip the EA advert in the beginning of the Crysis demo. All the other ads like Nvidia, Intel etc are skippable, so the EA one has been made unskippable on purpose.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Tim C ( 15259 )

            Ah! Those are unskipable by decree of the console manufacturer!
            I built my own PC, and I certainly didn't decree that the games I buy for it have unskippable ads in them...
            • But you obviously didn't build your own OS and your own game.

              What a bunch of cry babies. A lot of us linux types would love to have games with unskippable ads and cut scenes. I'd pirate a 10 year old Wing Commander port if I thought it might actually run in X windows.
      • I agree, I won't purchase games that don't allow me to skip them. I watch them first them, but after I don't care anymore ... I just want to play the game. I just won't purchase a game with low replay value.

      • Wimp! (Score:3, Funny)

        by Cajun Hell ( 725246 )

        It sounds like you don't have what it takes to be a big-boss-battler. Oh sure, everyone thinks they're cut out to be the most awesome badass freedom fighter. But when the going gets tough, they wimp out. You live in a fantasy world where it's all about the glory of battle. Forgotten, is the drudgery and hard work. Feared (by wimps!), is the mind-numbing repetition that Evil overlords so often uses to discourage Good's weakest and least disciplined so-called "warriors."

        I can just imagine your whiny vo

      • I don't think anyone will offer a serious argument against that. Cut scenes can be amazing, but if you have to watch them over and over again, they become much less amazing.
  • Metal Gear uses in game rendering when ever possible. But it also uses film clips when pseudo stock film would advance the story is a better style then in game scenes. I think most games are moving away from pre-rendered cut scenes as they tend to break the illusion of your world a little. FFXII was alright as the cut scenes were noticeably better but in the same style .FFVII was terrible for breaking the illusion with frequent cutscenes in a style very different from the rest of the game.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Osty ( 16825 )

      Metal Gear uses in game rendering when ever possible. But it also uses film clips when pseudo stock film would advance the story is a better style then in game scenes. I think most games are moving away from pre-rendered cut scenes as they tend to break the illusion of your world a little. FFXII was alright as the cut scenes were noticeably better but in the same style .FFVII was terrible for breaking the illusion with frequent cutscenes in a style very different from the rest of the game.

      All of which comp

      • 'Sit in this box and listen to the story', as others in the thread have pointed out, isn't really interactive. I found the tram ride to be interminably boring.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by p0tat03 ( 985078 )
        HL1 isn't the pinnacle of storytelling either. Yes, you retained control of Gordon the whole time, but there's a difference between full freedom and "oh hey, you're stuck in this room until this scripted scene has played through, then this door will magically be unlocked". I like Splinter Cell's storytelling because at least I'm actively doing *something*, as opposed to watching something happen through a bulletproof window.
      • I found HL2 to be incredibly frustrating in quite a few places, with regard to advancing the plot. Standing about in a room for 10 minutes waiting for NPCs to do things is not fun. Plugging cables into sockets isn't any fun either. Too often the few things you can do the plot-advancement sections are simplistic and boring and elicit no great urge to repeat them, making the thought of playing through the section again rather less than appealing.

        GoW annoyed me as well, occasionally putting cut-scenes between

  • I don't mind cutscenes (Score:4, Interesting)

    by hansamurai ( 907719 ) <hansamurai@gmail.com> on Wednesday October 31, 2007 @03:52PM (#21187841) Homepage Journal
    Not a very meaty article, and I don't really like how the writer says "my game". Yes, it is "your" game, but it was written, directed, and developed by someone else. The Metal Gear Solid series is directed by Hideo Kojima, who has a very large, convoluted, and highly entertaining story to tell. Kojima chooses to tell that story through non-pre-rendered cutscenes and radio conversations. Whether you like it or not, that's how he chose to tell "his" story and you undoubtedly know what you're getting into when you start a Metal Gear Solid game. There are many, many games out there that don't have cutscenes or choose to tell their story in alternative methods (see Okami [thefirsthourblog.com] which begins with 30 minutes of text reading).

    I honestly don't see a problem with cutscenes as long as they're still telling a story and not just wasting time or trying to show off their FMVs. Some genres and games work great with cutscenes, others don't.
    • I bought it: My Game. If I wanted direction I'd be watching a movie. Non-skippable cut-scenes are of the devil.
      • Well, you're arguing something else. Non-skippable cutscenese are annoying, especially to players on their second, third, or hundredth time through a game. I would agree that all cutscenes should be skippable, and developers are getting a lot better about this over the last few years. However, I don't think that cutscenes themselves are the problem.

  • my only peeve (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jollyreaper ( 513215 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2007 @03:52PM (#21187849)
    Is when a game is designed poorly in that there's no way to save within seconds of hitting a difficult stage of the story. For example, Independence War was an incredible game but the missions were very long with lots of scripting, lots of difficult points, and no way to save between stages. There was this one simply awful mission where you had to fly escort for some ship setting up observation satellites. Fifteen minutes or so elapsed from mission start to the beginning of the battle. Horrifying. The original Wing Commander Privateer was like that. The final mission to destroy that alien superweapon involved five minutes of dialog before the fight began.

    Regardless of the frustration factor concerning gameplay, this also cuts down on the drama of the moment. If you're forced to watch the same moment fifty times before you get through that spot of the game, the emotional impact is reduced.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Vexor ( 947598 )
      Exactly why and decent and respectable game will allow you to skip the cutscenes regardless if you've seen it once, twice, or two thousand times (better yet even 0 times). Some games like World of Conflict have excellent cutscenes that really give the characters a lot more personality and in turn give you more emotional attachment (hate or love). Which in turn provides a better gameplay experience. The game doesn't feature a lot of them but they're so well done I find myself wishing there were more of them.
    • I've noticed this problem as well. Some games actually have an ability to skip the cutscenes (breath of fire 5 comes to mind). However, most RPGs that I have played do not.

    • Regardless of the frustration factor concerning gameplay, this also cuts down on the drama of the moment. If you're forced to watch the same moment fifty times before you get through that spot of the game, the emotional impact is reduced.

      That's my biggest peeve with City of Heroes/Villains' occasional cutscene. When I go into a mission, the last thing that I really need to see is a narrator's view of some situation deep in the map, with characters that I'm going to pound the crap out of going on about th

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jandrese ( 485 )
        I've sometimes wondered if the macros weren't left enabled on purpose to let players MST3K the cutscenes if they wanted to. The fact that they are unskippable is bad, but being an MMO the only way to skip a cutscene is to have everybody vote and agree to skip the cutscene, which is more work and probably something the devs have well down on the priority queue. Fortunately cutscenes are pretty rare in the game so it's not a huge problem (it's a bigger problem in Villains than Heroes).
  • ... but instead, cut scenes that end with you being hurled back into the action without warning. I've known several games where I sit back and enjoy watching the plot develop or thicken during a cut scene only to find myself reloading a save point after being hurled into a gunbattle with little warning and no time to think.

    It's even more annoying when you,re REQUIRED to watch the cut scene again and again in order to get back into that action.
  • where the player pretty much is in control, but only in a way that pigeon holes them into one set of actions, such as only being able to move in one direction and all other controls are disabled or even forcing all controls to do the same thing. the only real control the user normally has is the equivalent of controlling the speed of the game. some games give a little bit more freedom, but their overall destination is usually the same, such as every door in a room is closed except for one, etc. personall

    • where the player pretty much is in control, but only in a way that pigeon holes them into one set of actions, such as only being able to move in one direction and all other controls are disabled or even forcing all controls to do the same thing.

      In the industry this is called a "track ride". As in an amusement park.

  • what's new? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Dance_Dance_Karnov ( 793804 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2007 @04:02PM (#21187967) Homepage
    cut scenes can be good, or they can be bad. as with everything else under the sun, it is how they are done which matters.
  • Just try putting out a major title without spectacular cutscenes. Gamers and critics will rip it on that basis. Cutscenes not only help sell games, they create for the gamer the feeling that a game is an event.

    Without cutscenes, a game feels like an unfinished demo.

     

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rayonic ( 462789 )
      The Half-Life series never has cutscenes in the traditional sense of the word. Everything is shown through the eyes of the player.

  • cutscenes... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Zarxrax ( 652423 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2007 @04:27PM (#21188331)
    I hate long cut scenes that you can't skip. If you wanna put them in your game, fine. If you wanna force me to watch them, thats usually ok too, as long as they are fairly short.

    It completely sucks though, when you pop in a new game and want to jump right into the action, but it makes you watch a freaking 15 minute movie before the game starts. And then as soon as it starts, you might be unfortunate enough to lose or have to stop playing before you reach a save point, and then you have to watch the crap ALL OVER AGAIN.

  • Cutscenes? Well, I like them... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Dutch Gun ( 899105 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2007 @04:57PM (#21188685)
    The article derides the common mechanism of losing player control during a cutscene. I suppose for some people, losing any time of actual gameplay is annoying. I happen to be the complete opposite. I tend to find most gameplay repetitive, and welcome a break in the form of a story, especially if told in a way that's interesting and engaging. To me, a game is so much more entertaining when I actually care about the characters / what's going on.

    Naturally, not every game is right for long, drawn out cutscenes. In general, people play shooters for an adrenaline rush, so taking someone out of that 'zone' for too long is probably not the best idea. In an RPG, the story often is considered to be a crucial element of the game, and so probably requires more elaborate exposition. Personally, in many games, I consider each cutscene a small reward for my progress, and look forward to each new story or character development. Some people complain about too much story - I tend to revel in it. 120 minutes of cutscenes in a game? Brilliant, looking forward to it. But don't tell me there's anything wrong with how *I* want to enjoy a game.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mcvos ( 645701 )

      I tend to find most gameplay repetitive, and welcome a break in the form of a story,

      And there you've got the real problem: for many games, the "story" is a break from the actual game. I don't want story interspersed with my game, I want the story to be an integral part of the game. Cutscenes are not the way to do that. Cutscenes are a lame shortcut for developers who have no idea how to make the story part of the game itself.

      There are many games that tell excellent stories without resorting to cutscen

  • Think of any Blizzard game, but specifically Diablo II. They use cutscenes to accent their games and provide complex plots that might otherwise be lost in their simple gameplay. While this might seem like a shortcut, I always come away amazed at the power behind their work.

    Final Fantasy is brought up by many on both sides of the arguement, but no one plugs the game into their system and is surprised by the amount of cinema they find. It caters to their customer base.

    Personally, I can't stand the gameplay
  • Some scenes work very well as gameplay. Some scenes do not. I don't like generalizing with broad strokes like that. Take an example everyone should be familiar with by now--Hot Coffee. You can make a sex minigame, but in this case it's mostly moving the stick back and forth (if I remember correctly) which is lame and annoying and induces tendenitis. The scene would have had more of an emotional impact as a cutscene. I'm not saying you couldn't make a deep, interesting sex game, I'm saying that not eve
  • Years ago I used to enjoy cut scenes. I always looked forward to them and felt cheated when a game which offered some sort of story didn't have them. However, in the intervening years my expectations have changed. I now find them a source of frustration when they cant be skipped and instead become an impediment to me playing the game.

    This seems to be especially problematic with Japanese games where the developer is intent on forcing the player to sit through the story. It's particularly frustrating when cut
  • There is a huge split in the gaming community over this sort of issue. Many action gamers seem to think that storytelling in a game is a nuisance because their focus is in running around shooting at things. On the flip side, there are also gamers who WANT more story in their game, where they play through a story to see how the story plays out, with the gameplay elements being important, but secondary.

    This split is often seen in the action RPG games that are out there, where even the first time some peop

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by grumbel ( 592662 )
      I don't think it is just a taste issue, but more an issue of games not being 'whole'. Stories are best told when gameplay, dialog and cutscenes work hand in hand, but in many games cutscenes and gameplay are very disconnected, sometimes so much that you could skip one or the other completly without even noticing it. Often your characters follow completly different rules in cutscenes then they follow in game (in cutscene one shot kills, in gameplay you need 20 and even then a health pack will revive everybod
  • I really liked the way Bioshock did it. Very few cutscenes. However, a ton of story and backstory information was present. Most of it was carried out on your radio as you did relevent stuff in the game. There were also many audio diaries scattered through the levels. These gave backstory and filled in a lot of gaps about what you knew.

    The amusing thing was, I started off picking them up, and just half listening to them as I went on with the game. But the deeper I got, the more interesting the story be

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