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Cinematics Do Matter?
In direct contradiction to a discussion we had about David Jaffe's opinion on the subject earlier today, GameDaily Biz has an editorial up arguing that cinematics and story are very important game elements. From the article: "There have been times in our industry where sub-par product has been sold through its cinematics, but there have also been times when products have failed to live up to the promise of its creators. The merits of if a cinematic and/or story detract from a game experience is rather mute, as story is one of the oldest and fundamental forms of entertainment, expression and communication"
Who didn't want to cry like a baby when Aeris died in FF7?
Cinematics are very effective in the right situations. Would a cinematic be a selling point for me if I wanted a new hack n slash? Probably not. Would I be disappointed if the next installment of FF had no cinematics? Deffinitely.
It's the story that matters in a plot-driven game. Who can honestly say that the Final Fantasy IV or VI's stories would have been more epid with FMV? Does Chrono Trigger _need_ FMV to be great? I think not.
Finat Fantasy Tactics, which has one of the most complex stories I've ever followed in an RPG, had no FMV. It is lauded by many as one of the greatest games of all time even though it came out after the FMV-heave Final Fantasy VII. People loved that game, too. Would it have meant less if Sephiroth killed Aeris using the in-game engine? No. The event is what moves us, not the pretty graphics.
Give me story-telling the way Half-Life 2 does it (interactive). Or the way Sly Cooper does it (slide show / comic book). It should be non-intrusive, and it should feel appropriate in the game's world. If that means we use the in-game engine, great. If it means we use FMV, that's okay, too. All I want is to make sure there's a good story to tell before you dump all your money into shiny FMV.
e2 | LJ
This isn't a technology reporting site, nor is it news. Slashdot is a discussion-oriented community site. Sites like Digg and Fark have horrible commenting communities (or they're more plainly visible because of the lack of moderation). This site fills a specific niche (in fact, several specific niches -- note that this is only a section topic under Games, not a generally-approved story.)
trees are wood
rich people have lots of money
water is wet
-dk
Dream with the feathers of angels stuffed beneath your head.
You seem unware that other people MAY IN FACT have differing views than you. What seems to you unimportant, may be extremely important to other people. And what makes /. so great, is NOT the stories themselves, but instead the further discussion of them -- while articles of news are definitely informative, they remain the perspective of one, possibly one group of people. Through /. there are many thousands of different viewpoints, and THIS is what makes /. a worthy site for so many users' attention.
games journalism blog
Am I supposed to like cinematics and cut scenes or not?
Just see the way starcraft cinematics were done.
They are superb, funny, and even today they look nice.
However, if you skip them, you don't lose much from the history, and the game is just as good.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
The merits of if a cinematic and/or story detract from a game experience is rather mute..."
Merits sure is quiet!
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
And what makes /. so great, is NOT the stories themselves, but instead the further discussion of them
We already discussed this today! Is it really a topic worth posting a SECOND time, for a SECOND discussion?
I for one welcome our new cinematic overlords.
Sorry, I wasn't on earlier.
games journalism blog
Cinematics are not games and are no substitution for gameplay. They are just a waste of development resources. Too many artists in the industry think they are movie directors and think art is more important than gameplay.
Cinematics can, and often do, enhance and improve a game. But I do not think it is a good idea to have the cinematics eclipse the gameplay as a selling point.
The primary reason I stopped playing the final fantasy titles was because the cinematics became much more important then the gameplay.
The primary problem is that non interactive elements in games are not very replayable. Once the novelty of watching a long animation sequence wears off, I want to be able to skip it. And if I am forced to sit through a 30 second clip for the 19th time or so, I get very annoyed.
END COMMUNICATION
If those merits is (sic) _mute_, then how will they ever be able to communicate with us? I'd hate to be in a room with a bunch of mute merits struggling mightly to get their point across. Someone could get hurt.
This is one of my HUGEST pet peeves in the grammatical world. Let's go through this again:
A point in argument can be MOOT. It can then be considered either up for debate, or unworthy of debate, having been previously settled. Depends on the definition you want to use.
A point in argument cannot be MUTE. It does not have the capacity for communication, therefore it cannot lose that capacity and thus be rendered, unlike its brethren, mute.
Didn't anyone ever see that old SNL sketch with Jesse Jackson? The big sign behind Jesse said "The Question is Moot!", not mute. If we can't learn from television, we're truly lost.
Hell, I'm not even sure if a merit can be moot, let alone mute.
The merits of if a cinematic and/or story detract from a game experience is rather mute
Really? Yeah, try explaining that one to the maker or consumer of an interactive porn game. Much like the movies their based upon, there is no story or plot, regardless of how hard they try to make one.
If big boobed women work at Hooters do one legged women work at IHOP?
What's very sad is that some people cannot comprehend the fact that other views or perspectives even exist. Next time you encounter someone who you're having this problem with, poke them with a few questions and see what I mean.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
A story is important, it doesnt matter if it delivered in cinematics or not. look at half-life, awesome story, not a single cut-scene
Fascism is the greatest political ideology ever conceived. Sorry.
Story makes a big part of many of the games I like (since I'm big into RPGs), but it shouldn't be forefront.
The order of game creation should go:
Gameplay
Story
Graphics
Cinematics
I'm paying $30-$50 to play a game, not watch a movie. Well done cinematics, when they add to the story and aren't in the way (and can be skipped if I want to), are great, but should only be implemented after good gameplay and story are pretty much wrapped up.
Cinematics may matter. I'm not going to hold my breath. The grand majority of games that people consider to have "epic narritives" can't live up to dime-a-dozen pulp fiction. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who didn't care when Aeris died. I'm even more certain that I don't want to read what passes for a story in Ridge Racer 4.
On the rare occasion a game actually have a well written story, then, by all means, tell it however you want to. If not, don't force me to watch it.
Did none of you play Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight when it came out? I hold that up as the best FPS/nonRPG use of quality cinematics ever. The game was fun, and at the time pretty amazing, the cinematics made you feel like you were watching Star wars 7 back before there was news of any prequels, and the story worked on such a great level. That was a game that game publishers should aspire to put out over and over again. The total commitment to quality in that made the franchise for me. I've bought every one of those titles since, and I even when back and bought Dark Forces because of it. When you talk about classic melding of story and cinematography in games, Jedi Knight has to come up somewhere.
-|BlackErtai|-
But it's simply not as true anymore. Yes, render-farms can still churn out some stunning cinematics, but I've seen some pretty impressive examples of realtime-rendered graphics as well.
Some of the better ones use combinations, e.g. some really impressive texturing or animated textures for background, etc, combined with realtime rendered character graphics etc.
Game engines and graphics cards have come a long way since FF7. Render farms can do a better job as well, of course, but at some point there will be a trade-off and I think the realtime may just win out.
You might just call the cinematics eye-candy, or you might call it a reward. Some missions were a real pain in the butt, but it was worth it to see the cool FMV's after various points.
Fast-forward to Warcraft III and realtime-rendering cutscenes. While this could have been done with a better engine to be more impressive, it simply was not Starcraft. It was less rewarding, and even a bit sappy. One could argue that the overall plot was sappy at points, but I think a more little rewarding FMV (there were some, and there were good) would have gone farther, particularly with Frozen Throne.
This article seems to assume that cinematics are synonymous to storytelling, which is a mistake made by many. You do not need to force the player to watch non-interactive sequences to convey narrative. The interactive medium by nature is a platform for the player to tell their own story. Many designers confuse games as a medium for a story they themselves want to tell, as opposed to providing the player with a blank canvas that allows them to form their own.
Interesting stories are made with interesting characters. We like to see motivation, and the many choices that the characters make allow us to get to know them while weaving an interesting tale. That is the anatomy of a story: a linear history of choices made by one or more people. Developers should focus on creating as wide an interactive space (in terms of possibility) as they are capable. Allowing their audience to make the choices within this space will build their own character, and motivation in the form of overarching plot can be driven by dozens of different ways aside from cinematics.
I'm not an anti-cinematics guy, but I hate to see people bumping their heads on the same wall over and over again; namely, trying to figure out how they can force the tired, old form of linear narrative into the interactive genre. Sometimes it works, but only half way, and someday someone will realize this and create a work that we've never dreamed of playing, and it will be engaging, and memorable, and when we're done we'll play it again a dozen more times to see the outcome of different choices. Story *is* important, but there are other ways to present it.
That's funny. This article wasn't posted to the front page, it was posted to the Games section. Yes, article stories now appear on the front page in a condensed form, but the articles in the gray boxes are specifically articles that interest a smaller group.
If you're not interested in a section, go to Preferences, Homepage, and disable it. You don't have to read articles you aren't interested in, that's the entire point behind sections.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Why the hell do they always have to have some sort of epic action 0.23 seconds after a cut scene? Let the game play out, if you want to have some shitty little "you win" cut scene at the end fine, aside from that let ME play the game, not watch it like some second rate film.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Please leave and don't come back since you don't have anything of value to add to the discussion anyways. Digg is a site that's designed for retards so I think you'll fit right in. Digg is the perfect site if you're looking for a site where the average IQ of the story submitters and commenters is in the negatives. It was created by Kevin Rose, need I say more? ++DIGG!!!111!!eleven!!11
They're definitely not important game elements, but they can certainly help you tell a story. The mechanics of Final Fantasy games haven't changed since the series' NES debut, even though they are now basically CGI films with nice little "gaming breaks" to draw out the experience.
I would like to say that, unless they're taking the place of a loading screen, cinematics need to be skippable. As much as I love Nintendo, this is something that they're very bad about. The last boss of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door features a five minute long cinematic with text bubbles that must be closed by tapping the A button. Starting a new save in Four Swords Adventures results in the exact same situation - what a way to kick off a multiplayer game!
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If you can't appreciate a real website, please do the rest of us a favor and leave like you're saying you will.
[yes, I am aware my karma is about to plummet, but some things just are more important than karma!]
Remember, open source is free as in speech, not free as in bear.
What is Digg?? and please post a URL.
I assume that this was meant as a joke/troll
But there is something worth mentioning. Digg is similar to Slashdot, but the key difference is the manner of selection of stories. At slashdot, the stories are chosen by the editors, to the amazement of the readership, who may or may not agree with the choices. At digg, the submitted stories are voted on by the membership, and those that score well enough make the frontpage. This is not always a good thing.
Thus you have the choices of a few, who have attracted a following for whatever reasons, vs the choices of the many, for whatever reasons. The tastes of both will differ, and alot depends on the taste of the original crowd. Digg has an obvious enough url.
other than that, YMMV
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
1999 called. They want their joke back.
Btw, I think you misunderstand the slashdot slogan. It's an 'or' construct, not an 'and' construct. And if you want to flame me for being a geek about that, then you're definitely reading the wrong website.
But I wish you well at Digg. Your insightful and reasoned commentary will fit right in with all the "Digg! This is kewl!" comments. Although if you throw your toys out of the pram whenever you get a couple of offtopic mods, you might want to toughen up that skin a bit.
I think the largest benefit in having a story (plus, potentially, cinematics) is in the potential there for creating those (for me, at least so far) rare moments in games where the player actually cares, emotionally, what's going on to those pixels on their screen.
:)
Others have already mentioned Aerith's untimely death in FF7 (which, BTW, I thought was very well done cinematically, with the White materia falling from her hair to plop into the pool, and her theme music swelling in the background...). After that happened to me in the game, I blitzed my way through the rest of it, wondering, hoping, wishing she would come back (yeah, I know now, impossible without a hex editor). I moped around for weeks (months?) afterwards, my mind still roiling around in the FF7 universe. Unhealthy obsession, sure, but it was captivating nonetheless, and ensured that FF7 would forever be enshrined in my own personal game hall of fame.
I've enjoyed many games since FF7, from different genres, but haven't really felt the same way emotionally until recently with (don't laugh...) Prince of Perisa: Warrior Within. Convoluted and inconsistent though the story was, and as ludicrously presented as the girls within the game were, still I couldn't help but become enthralled by Kaileena and her struggle against her fate.
Or maybe I just like imaginary girls with sob stories.
But let's not forget Blizzard. They spend ages on beautiful cinematics. These are totally skippable, and IMHO, add very little to the games. Now, Blizzard have created some of the most popular games today. Everybody who plays Starcraft, or WoW, only watches the cinematics once. They surely aren't a reason for success, are they? But DAMN, success is there. Perhaps seeing what the characters you manipulate should really look like before you play the game really sucks you in. -- (sorry about the configuration of that sentence)
Consciousness is a myth. Trust me.
Games were fun before there even were cinematics/cutscenes. They are not, and never will be, very important. Sure, a nice cutscene can convey a lot about the story, but for the seconds or minutes the player is watching a cutscene, it is not a game, it's a movie, and if developers don't think of such scenes as movies, they too will suck.
This issue isn't whether a scene is pre-rendered or not. Non-interactive scenes are just as non-interactive if they are rendered realtime. They may be more easily integrated with dynamic content, but they are still cinematic. The issue is whether to take away the users control and force feed them the story, or to attempt to tell the story around them, while they are in control.
1999 called. They want their joke [suck.com] back.
Ahaha that site is great. However, the best part is I've never seen it before (kinda weird, ehh?)
There are games where the cinematic has immersed the player and made playing the game essential, there are games where everything has suffered just to get you a 30 second poorly animated piece of crap.
Cinematics are just like every other part of a game. If its in and it improves gameplay its good, if it doesnt its bad. Really it is no different to graphics, sound or any other tool in games.
That said I have to support this article more than the previous one. This article recognises they are not always a good thing but doesnt mind them being there. The previous article seemed to argue that they are never a good thing and need to be removed. This is daft, and you could make exactly the same argument about removing every other component of a game. Sure they might not be essential to gamplay but youd be playing pacman and pong till the end of time.
but then the first article writer seems to be under the impression that all games should be entirely non-linear. Now ignoring the fact that there are genres that pretty much completely destroy any idea of a non-linear world, this is cutting off a huge avenue of gaming for no other reason than he thinks its better that way.* Its true non linear gaming is often great and we could probably do with more of it, but the fact remains that some of the best gaming experiences I have had are in games that are very linear. Half Life2 which is also mentioned in many other posts is a great example. It was as linear as you can get right down to wooden barriers that can only be smashed if the game wants you to go through them, this didnt take away from the fact it was a brilliant gaming experience.
It also proves the point of cinematics. Wood doors being a baracade accept in certain situations can be argued to be a very bad idea and if you go by the first persons article it would be banned from being in any game at all afterall how is that any different to a cinematic guiding you past that particular door. Yet the one game people have argued repeatedly for how cinematics are a bad thing utilises it in order to move the player where it wants them to go.
Non-linear gaming isnt necesarily a bad thing, tools utilised in it are not a bad thing (including cinematics), poor use of both of those is a bad thing. Simple.
*I.e. the article was trash. Seriously, it was just some guy whining about a specific type of game that _he_ liked and how all other games whether other people liked them or not are in someway wrong. He may have been more diplomatic about the way he said it but thats basically the bottom line.
The onlee weigh too get peeple too youse the English language write is two take them too task wen thay miss spell wirds oar uze them ink or rectly.