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Excuse Me, Your Cut Scene is In My Game
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."
...which was more like an interactive movie with occasional times when you could play... ;)
"Christ what a design! I could eat a handful of iron filings and PUKE a better emergency pump than that!"
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.
Another game that did it "properly" was Prince of Persia: Sands of Time... where a lot of the plot-advancing stuff occurred during gameplay (e.g. the main character musing aloud).
The idea is that the player wants to play out the storyline of a cool movie. Not watch short clips from a movie that get in the way of controlling action scenes.
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.
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.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
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 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.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
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.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
... 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.
The original generic sig.
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. personally i find it a matter of opinion which one is better. i figure it really depends on if you play for story, the interaction, or gameplay. sometimes i find it almost rewarding to see a beautifully rendered cut-scene (that until now has been unparalleled compared to actual gameplay). some games have cutscenes that are too long for all but the most die-hard story-lovers (xenosaga comes to mind). its hard to say one method is better than another. some get annoyed by the cut-scenes where you have to participate but you can't do anything go in one direction because its just viewed as pointless and some just think, "why couldn't they make this part a cut-scene?"
Bravo, sir, bravo. But next time don't sell yourself short. It's better to go for the gold and fail than go for the bronze and succeed.
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.
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.
I bought it: My Game. If I wanted direction I'd be watching a movie. Non-skippable cut-scenes are of the devil.
They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.
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...
You can't take the sky from me...
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.
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.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
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 by Square, but to this day I will maintain that Final Fantasy VII is the best game I've ever watched.
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 voice: "But I've seen this movie seven times!" Let me tell you something: when grampa played his video games against the Nazis, he sometimes had to watch the same cut-scene two dozen times! And that was just one of the scenes!
Urge to kill, sure. What about your urge to endure? What about your urge to make a sacrifice, to Do Whatever It Takes to finally defeat the ultra-hard Boss at the end of the level?
Do you think others haven't failed before you? The Boss keeps a trophy from each one. So many answer the call. So few are worthy.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
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 everybody who has a sex scene in their game should do so. And that's just one example. In pure talking scenes where characters are making eye contact, it makes sense to take control of the camera and focus in on the character's face. This isn't really compatible with control.
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't' factor, and so on) and makes them reasons you should have known something was going on.
The cut scenes play around you as you still walk around, choosing to view whatever you want to view. At times, you can basically walk right by them entirely if you are in a rush, but if you want to stop and savor the details, you can.
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 cutscenes are comprised of text dialog. One remarkably aggravating example was Okami. I recall seeing this game for the first game and become intensely aggravated at the opening cutscenes. A introduction that could have been told in 3 minutes was dragged out to perhaps 30. I was ready to shut off the console because the intro was even done. The annoying voices didn't help either. Although, I think it was otherwise a good game, but I doubt I'd have the patience to play it a big reason being those cutscenes.
"I get it! You've crafted this wonderful, unique game world. Stop beating me over the head with it!"
I think one of the few genres well suited to extensive story telling is the adventure. The story was an integral part of the gameplay. There was no need to interrupt the player because it was the player himself progressing the story. While I enjoy RPGs and have played some with great stories I don't think those are quite as conducive to storytelling because these games tend to be broken up into very distinct components and gameplay generally consists of very repetitive activities broken up by storytelling elements.
I think this has become more of an issue in recent years because of the more realistic nature of current games. When a player is interacting with a somewhat realistic game world certain expectations are formed. When an NPC blocks a doorway for the sake of telling a story or a player's actions are restricted in some way it feels unnatural and becomes a source of frustration.
Without a doubt it's possibly to tell a story effectively in any game, but it's very difficult. More often than not developers don't do it well. But the absolute worst thing a developer can do is to force the player to sit through cutscenes with no option at all to skip it.
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 Episode 2, yet, but only two in Portal.
And I wouldn't really count the "cutscenes" as such, I'm only saying they technically are, as the player has absolutely zero control. But I'd argue that yes, you do have full control over Gordon Freeman (or <<Subject Name Here>> in Portal), they just don't have full control of themselves at the time. (If I was being glomped by Alyx Vance, I'm not sure I could move much, either.)
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Excuse me, your f1r5t p0st is in my article discussion.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
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 people play the games, they click through the interactions, skipping story and character development while others prefer to read and listen to the character interactions. I agree that there are times when the interactions/cut scenes are a bit too long, but at the same time, there will ALWAYS be a split between the people who want/prefer a storyline driven game, and those who don't care and just want to play.
The better developers understand this, so in some cases you see ways to skip past much of the NPC dialog. Neverwinter Nights 2 for example had some dialog options like, "Just skip it and I'll check the info in my journal".
This split in what people like is also seen in regular movies, where some people are put to sleep by character development and just want to see the big special effects, while others enjoy the whole movie, including the character development between characters. One is not necessarily better than the other as it is a subjective thing. There does seem to be a relationship between the age of the person and their preference, but I don't have the resources to do the study.
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 because, and I found myself stopping and focusing just on what was being said. It probably would have annoyed me if it forced me to stop and listen, but given the choice, with an interesting enough story line, I did so of my own accord.
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 cutscenes, and I'll always prefer those over the games that resort to lame shortcuts.
CRPGs are exactly the kind of game that shouldn't have to make do with cutscenes. In CRPGs, the story is vital to the game. It's what the game is about. If the game doesn't support the ability to tell a story, then your game is wrong. Clear an simple. Cutscenes aren't a reward for progress, progress should be its own reward. The story should be told by that progress itself.
I also revel it story, but I hate cutscenes. I don't want to watch a movie interspersed with bits of game, I want to play a game that's all about story, where the story is part of the game. A cutscene for the intro at the start of the game is okay, since it allows you to learn a bit more about the background of the setting before you start to play. Maybe the occasional cutscene for when you go to a completely different location by helicopter or something, but monologues (dialogues, preferably) should be supported by the game engine itself. Planescape:Torment, possibly the most story-driven CRPG ever, tells it story entirely through the game itself. Why can't other games do that?