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Cinematics Are Killing Gameplay?
Howard Brown writes "David Rodriguez is a Lead Game Designer at High Voltage Software. His latest article on Buzzscope discusses videogaming's overabundance of cinematics, and how their misuse is taking us further and further away from what videogaming is all about." From the article: "I made it perhaps three virtual feet before managing to trigger another cinematic. Silently biting back a curse I again attempted to button through it, but those rat-bastard developers were bound and determined to have me watch their cinematic magic. Idly tapping the button, as if hoping that somehow the rules would change, I sat and listened as some NPC taught me all about targeting."
Hey some games have lots of cutscenes, some have few. RPGs require more cutscenes than other genres, but having too many/too few is bad for any genre. But, there is a huge difference between a CGI cutscene and a real-time cutscene. Always keep that in mind when talking about cutscenes.
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This article nails the issue on the head and voices a common complaint of mine regardling cinematics in games. The single greatest source of irritation for me is watching a 3 - 5 minute FMV (full motion video) segment and then once its over and the mission/chapter/whatever starts, realizing that whatever was in that video has no effect at all what so ever on the gameplay or how I will continue playing the game. Funnily enough, as a kid, FMV was all the rage (remember the Multimedia/CDROM explosion) and I ate it up without hesitation. Video games with real life video in them, awesome, thats like something out of the movies! But now, about 90% of the time, if possible, I will just skip the FMV (assuming like the author noted, that its possible, damn thats annoying) since its usually not too great and also completely irrelevant to the gameplay that follows. Note that this is also due to the fact that very often, game stories are nothing more than half-hazardly used glue to keep levels/missions together; if you remove the story, the game loses some context but the mission objectives remain nonetheless.
Its kind of how a soldier IRL is given a set of orders but is rarely given a great deal of context regarding their orders outside of the immediate need of whats required to complete their mission. Johnny Soldier just needs to know that he needs to storm that building and secure 3 known surviving civilians and eliminate any hostiles. Whether that building was is additionally the center of a complex political plot involving several governments and trans-national companies is largely irrelevant to his mission.
Games with FMV will give you a nice 5 minute cinematic on that whole political plot and then will put you, virtual Johnny Solder into the mission with the actual objectives (secure building, rescue civs, eliminate hostiles), and in the end, that whole cinematic doesnt matter one bit when completing your mission so long as you just follow your objectives. Maybe a scripted event happens relating back, but more often than not, theres only the mission. This is also partially to blame on the saturation of purely linear stories and largely non-open games. The future is surely in games like Elder Scrolls Oblivion rather than Final Fantasy since while Final Fantasy may tell some nice stories, the games are little more than interactive showcases for stories. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed FF as a kid but these days I prefer the gameplay itself to be the sole means of telling the story as well as the ability for emergent gameplay as the article said, and non-linearity. Heres a salute to all those that are forging that road into the emergent future.
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Fox Hunt(My personal favorite), Dragon's Lair, Psychic Detective, Nightrap...sure these games are kind of campy, but I think they're fun as hell. I want to see some more "interactive movies". As far as cinematics killing gameplay, if it's a game that doesn't need it (sonic, mario, a racing game) then as long as I can hit the start button and skip the video I don't really care. I guess I only care if they're wasting significant resources on making these things. Cinematics actually _add_ to gameplay in those interactive adventure games and RPGs, games with a heavy story. But I still wish they made some FMV games...
You brought up my favorite example for this argument. Sands of Time stands is not just an example that gameplay does not need cinematics, but that you can have a rewarding and thorough narrative accompanying your game without resulting in endless cutscenes.
Sands of Time still manages to tell a great story through character monologue and vocal narrative, and that game literally had more depth of character than most games with hours of cinematics.
I always tell everyone to play it just to see for themselves. It's a great excercise in design by Ubisoft on that one.
I guess this must be talking about Japanese console games, since as a mainly PC gamer I haven't been annoyed by cutscenes/cinematics. On Japanese consoles, however, I feel that there is WAY WAY WAY too much handholding and inane dialogue (cinematic or otherwise). I think I just have a different idea of what makes a good game (e.g. pacing, timing, quality minimal dialogue, character driven story over combat sysem gimmicks, etc.) than do the Japanese and their fans.
Handholding is a different issue:
I often rant to my console gaming friends about how games USED to just make early levels more forgiving and let you learn how to play by PLAYING, but for some reason game designers feel like they need to subject you to a two-hour tutorial level at the beginning to teach you how every little thing in the game works. Next to the issues in the above paragraph, I think excessive handholding has contributed the most to making me stop playing a lot of games over the past few years.
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Totally. Though I haven't played an RPG in years and years, I quit the Ultima series after having played II-V when the character pictures were all of a sudden detailed (VI). I found I just like the abstract representation better because I had the images in my own mind.
iirc the first (and of course the best) game cinematics were in Karateka.
must... stay... awake...
That's a game that now sits at the bottom of my stack unfinished because of damned unskippable cinematics.
I loved that whole game and never really minded the cinematics until I got to the boss, had my ass handed to me, and tried it again.
So I load up my save, walk through the portal, and sit through probably three weeks of badly compressed video. I mean, that first time I wouldn't have thought to skip it- it was helping develop the story. Check out those elder gods! Second time? Don't need it. Just let me get in there and try to finish the game. Then I died again.
Third time, I stepped through the portal, went outside and had a smoke, and came back to find that the damned scene still wasn't done. There's no reason for that. If your cinematic is that damned important, at least let me save after it so I don't have to watch it every single time.
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I've worked in the industry a good 10 years now... and i've got to say that cinematics are the worst excess of the industry, maybe second to crap marketing (read G4).
Let me tell you, a serious game Dev project involves about 60 people and 12-18 months. A whole lot of that time/effort is spent building the graphics. This involves artists working long hard hours pushing pixels and vertexes around, just to get models, textures and UI ready.
So why do game projects often take a good half the artists and devote them to these big, expensively rendered, extravagant FMVs? It is especially maddening when you consider that they are almost always skipped by people eager to get to the game play!
It's all just a matter of self-serving ego or laziness. The artists want 'hot' stuff on their reels, especially since the vast majority of them are sad-sack losers wishing they worked at ILM or Pixar. The Art Directors need to show their state-of-the-art grasp of tools like Maya and 3D Studio (watch for how often 'realistic' looking smoke, fire and water are used in these FMVs) and their ability to wring the fanciest looking stuff out of their artists... The producers go along with it so they are able to show non-gaming bean counters and check writers something flashy in a dark conference room, and the marketers are all behind it so they can show the flash at g3 and the other garish, cheesy game conferences. Last, we have the designers, who leverage these FMVs to give a false sense of 'depth' by establishing some silly context for their weak or uninspired game design.
In short, these FMVs represent and tie together all that is disgusting and pathetic about the game industry, with a very short list of exceptions. They are both the cause and the effect of and endless cycle of crap games, cheesy spectacle, increasingly more expensive and less entertaining choices we have today.
Some people hate cutscenes, but when they are done right they can be awesome. Warcraft III comes to mind. Another game that blew me away was FFX when I first got my PS2 (at least the opening scene -- some of the dialogue scenes were interminable).
To me, a video game is best when it is a movie that I can play. I enjoy the cinematics when they add to the plot and draw me into the game. But obviously, they should be skippable. I doubt that the testers and developers manage to complete the product without a skip option. And playing the same cinematic more than once during a gaming session doesn't make sense either. This is just plain common sense.
The problem is not the cinematics, it's the crappy implementation of them.
I don't mind the FBI warning on the front of a DVD - I just mind that I can't skip it.