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Croal vs. Totilo - The God of War 2 Letters
I've mentioned previously how much I enjoy the writing of Newsweek's N'Gai Croal and MTV's Stephen Totilo. All this week, then, it's been a pleasure to enjoy their witty exchange on the PS2's most recent blockbuster, God of War 2. The conversation is spread across both Croal's LevelUp column and Totilo's Player Two blog, and features ruminations on the title from a number of viewpoints. If you have some time this afternoon I highly recommend you give their full correspondence a look. More than just a discussion about a single game, they manage to capture some of the greatness of the medium, with their conversation ranging across genre, time, and content to get at some of the most fundamental elements of videogaming. From N'Gai's final post: "I've said before that we 'see' videogames with our hands. Extending that analogy further, the way cutscenes are used today is the film equivalent of title cards during the silent film era: even though the audience came to the movies to watch people move, they had to do a fair bit of reading to get the full measure of the filmmaker's vision. Similarly, cutscenes leave gamers watching when they should be playing. Sure, cutscenes can communicate critical information; they allow for dramatic and spectacular sequences that might be too difficult to pull off interactively; they provide a nice breather or bookend to lengthy gameplay sections. But just as silent film gave way to the talkies, cutscenes need to keep giving way to gameplay so that our eyes--excuse me, our hands--are constantly engaged."
*crickets chirping*
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First comment!
The paragraph appears to imply that the interactive portions of video games are some sort of objective evolution from non-interactive film. Why would games need to wholly abandon the latter if we still enjoy the occasional trip to the movies or watching a DVD at home? Video games don't need to constantly engage your thumbs to be wholly immersive or compelling, and to abandon cutscenes on the basis of some arbitrary need to always be "in control" ignores the fact that these scenes can serve to communicate something that interactivity will not. A cut to the villain plotting your demise many miles away, a flashback to a prosperous city you now see before you in ruins -- these are scenes that you need to know, but you will lose nothing by not being "in control" of those scenes. Some games don't need cutscenes and do well without them, but others need them badly. Where would FFXII be without its FMVs and plot-progressing cutscenes? Can you really replace that game's opening movie with equally compelling gameplay that tells the same story?
I like basketball!!1!
I've been playing GOW II recently and I have to say it's a FANTSTIC game. It looks great on my TV at widescreen and 480p, and it's a blast to play. Despite the fact that they to handicap Kratos (he was a god at the end of the last game, they had to do SOMETHING) they've done an excelelnt job in the parts I've played so far and handling his abilities, story telling, and keeping me hooked. The camera works great (because it's scripted). Loads are fast. For the most part, it's a textbook case of how to do a great game.
The only complaint I have is the visual tearing which is by no means infrequent. It looks like VSYNC was turned off. It is rather annoying. I'm really sorry that made it through QA (probably done to keep the frame rate up, but in a game like this with so much fast moving stuff it is quite noticeable).
Still, games like this and Shadow of the Colossus have come out of the PS2. I'd be happy with God of War II on a next-gen console if it was just anti-aliased. I can't wait to see what people can pull out of the PS3 and 360 4-5 years from now. Can you imagine what people would have said if you had Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, or God of War (1/2) near the PS2 launch. That would have blown people's minds of what "next-generation" could be at the time.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
You mean like alpha and omega?
The PS2 hardware was pretty much finalized back in late 1997/early 1998 and hit the shelves in 1999 in Japan. Just think how long ago that is and how far technology has progressed in that decade since.
My god are Sony virtuosoes in designing and manufacturing console hardware. The PS2 will go down in history as the pinnacle of console design and engineering. So much power for so little silicon.
One look at games like Little Big Planet, Ratchet and Clank, Heavenly Sword, Lair,...and try to imagine how utterly insane GoW 3 is going to look on the amazing PS3 hardware.
That quote is such an enormous piece of crap that I can smell it from here. Hell, I don't even know where to start. We "see" video games with our hands? Well that will teach all those people who make games that you play with your feet, or that you interact with through audio, or video. Get them out of the market! Watching when we should be playing? God forbid! How dare they make us experience something we have no control over. Until video games are a direct projection on the screen of exactly what's going on in our mind, I guess he won't be happy. Of course, once we get to that point, who needs developers... Or artistic direction. We certainly can't let a game convey any static concepts to us though!
Fuck this guys eyes and hands. The point of games are to keep your brain entertained. And if he can't be entertained by a cut-scene, he should play something else, or go back to jerking off.
Yes, you can. Not necessarily the same story, but it's hard to top Marathon. Some would also mention Half Life. Different approach to storytelling, but still no FMVs to sit through.
Basically, from what I got out of TFA, one guy thinks cutscenes should be interactive always, even if the level of interaction is low. The other guy says there's nothing wrong with non-interactive cutscenes.
As with most things, I think the best result is usually a happy medium. As the guy who is okay with non-interactivity says, sometimes, a scene is more powerful when you can't control it. He uses the big plot reveal from KOTOR as an example. The cut scene makes you wait as the camera pans around to reveal the big twist. You can't hurry it along. Moments like this make much more sense in a non-interactive form, because the director can time all of the various elements to his vision -- the sound goes dramatic, the camera sweeps in, right as the voice actors say their line.
In other situations, keeping the story telling interactive makes more sense. Some games go overboard with cutscenes. Xenosaga is one example of one that went too far, imo. If you've got a lot of meat to the story, tell it during gameplay, not during a 15 minute cutscene. Have party members talk about the issues while I'm navigating a dungeon, or whatever.
I don't think there's a concrete right way to do it. It just depends on the situation, and its up to the designers to find out what works best for what they're trying to do.
Sorry it took so long for me to post...my eyes and my hands were engaged in other activity.
Among its many simplistic strokes of genius (redundant, I acknowlege) Gears of War offers a way around this quandry- the "Y" button during in-engine events. By making them within the scene and completley optional, you *want* to press it to see what happens. It's the videogame equivalent of having a sixth sense. Simple and perfect.