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God of War Creator Hates Cutscenes
1up has a short piece talking about God of War creator David Jaffe's commentary on game cinematics. From the article: "Jaffe isn't saying players don't welcome this style, but claims it's not the best approach. 'It's almost like you appreciate the creativity but as a game it doesn't work,' he says in his latest video blog, citing Super Mario 64 as a good example of a game that works without cinematics. 'Obviously Mario 64 doesn't evoke a lot of emotion and political ideas, but it keeps you in the game.'" One of the reasons RE4 has been so well received, I think, is that it give you some interactivity during what would otherwise be a passive experience.
Xenosaga
You don't so much play Xenosaga as help Xenosaga play itself
Game companies love cut scenes. They are easy to make, they stretch "playing time", and they provide much prettier material for the marketing department than the actual gameplay does.
I don't mind them so much, as long as I can hit a button to skip them. It's also nice if the planned it well enough so you watch the cut-scene while data is loading. (That seems to almost never happen anymore though. It's: wait for the cut-scene to load, watch cut-scene, wait for the level to load. That is t3h suck..)
Then there are games like that dreadful Lord of the Rings series on the X-Box, which seem to be 90% cut scenes (and those are actually just low-ish resolution clips from the movie.) Bleah.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Also, problems arise when the ratio of game content to cutscene gets too high. Players don't want to watch their games, they want to play them.
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(-1 obvious)
This is really surprising, considering God of War was nothing but one continuous barely-interactive cutscene. (all the gameplay of a slide projector, woo-hoo!)
This is not a troll. Have you played God of War? At what point did you think you were playing a "game" instead of sitting through a cutscene?
I am not talking about cinematics, I am not talking about scripted events, I am talking about the game itself. The "game" was a cutscene.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
David Jaffe seems to be talking more about Adventure/Action games like God of War and Mario 64, and I think he's right that immersion in those games might be even more important than in other genres. More importantly, though, the setting and plot of Adventure/Action games can be told through the gameplay, so cutscenes (especially those that cut away from the game engine) should be unnecessary.
But to but it simply, cutscenes in games are almost always less interesting than a good movie, and everyone not looking for an interactive movie would rather just play the game.
POP has pre-rendered cutscenes that are often unskippable. Shadow of the Colossus has cutscenes that are rendered in-game and are skippable. These two differences have a huge effect. Of course unskippable cutscenes are annoying, especially after you've seen them 5 times, but also annoying are cutscenes in which the entire world suddenly looks completely different. Especially obvious in POP was when you went from the opening movie to the in-game graphics. The graphics are good, but they don't look like the pre-rendered stuff. Really lame.
Shadow of the Colossus handles cutscenes well, but I think they could still be improved. Yes, everybody wants the option of skipping cutscenes, but I think a lot of people want to watch them, too. How come I can't pause the game during cutscenes? What am I supposed to do when a 5 minute ending movie is playing and somebody knocks on the door? I either don't answer the door, or I beat the game again later so I can see what happens. Lame.
My suggestions:
1. No pre-rendered cutscenes
2.Ability to pause the cutscene and bring up a menu with the option to skip
Why are these not universal in modern games? Does anybody disagree with these preferences?
[javac] 100 errors
One thing i absolutely hate about those cutscenes is that they can't be cut! I really wish i could press the start button to skip the scene with the bosses. I nearly memorized that fight between the prince and the axe/sword monsters.
*growl*
(prince draws his sword)
(prince gets hit from behind)
*growl!*
"Well, i have to admit, i didn't expect that..."
(monster grabs sand and burns the grass around the arena)
(boss fight begins, until you get killed and have to continue the game, to see the stupid scene over and over)
At least the Ubisoft guys could've put a "Skip cutscene? Yes/no" dialog.
On the other hand, for games like Final Fantasy X, I absolutely LOVED the cutscenes. I just kept playing so I could play more cutscenes and see what happened with the story.
See, it's all about if the cutscenes contribute to the story or not. AND if you can skip and later replay them - but PLEASE, PLEASE... allow me to save between cutscenes!
Well done cut-scenes using the in-game engine.
Advanced the plot, great cinematics, fun to watch, easily skippable.
That's how they should always be!
You know what I hate? When guys like David Jaffe stumble ass-backwards into public domain Greek mythology, staple GWAR armor onto everything, dump blood eveywhere, and call it the greatest IP since the world cooled. Maybe if you could tell a story that wasn't completely obvious and boring from the first half-hour (as God of War was), then maybe you'd have more use for cutscenes.