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When did cutscenes start getting out of hand?
- Jan 28, 2013 1:16 pm GMT
[QUOTE="ZombieKiller7"]
I hate cutscene especially when it is more than the actual gameplay.
Example of this is Mass Effect 3, where you watch 5 minutes, play 2 minutes, watch 1 minute, play 2 minutes. It's like the whole game is built around interrupting the gameplay.
If you make a game right, you don't need cutscene to tell the story.
Look for example Half-Life series, do you see a cutscene? Not 1 line of dialogue from Gordon Freeman but unfolds the whole story in gameplay.
Cutscene used to be a small treat that they reward you with.
But "business" mentality in the gaming industry says "If a little cutscene is good, ALL cutscene must be better" and they turn the whole game into a movie.
[/QUOTE]
DOCTOR! WE NEED A DOCTOR! QUICK!- Please wait. Quick reply will be available shortly.
- Jan 28, 2013 1:21 pm GMT-------------------------------------------------------------
Now make me a sammich! - My NEW and IMPROVED Blog. - Currently playing: Assassins Creed III, Just Cause 2
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I don't like them when there is no player interaction. See, there is a simple solution to it. Interactive Cut-scenes. Problem solved.- Please wait. Quick reply will be available shortly.
- Jan 28, 2013 1:23 pm GMT
[QUOTE="ZombieKiller7"]
I hate cutscene especially when it is more than the actual gameplay.
Example of this is Mass Effect 3, where you watch 5 minutes, play 2 minutes, watch 1 minute, play 2 minutes. It's like the whole game is built around interrupting the gameplay.
If you make a game right, you don't need cutscene to tell the story.
Look for example Half-Life series, do you see a cutscene? Not 1 line of dialogue from Gordon Freeman but unfolds the whole story in gameplay.
Cutscene used to be a small treat that they reward you with.
But "business" mentality in the gaming industry says "If a little cutscene is good, ALL cutscene must be better" and they turn the whole game into a movie.
[/QUOTE]
Mass Effect 3 is not where near that bad.
Half-life is the worse when it comes to it story telling. Trapping the player and just leaving you with poor angles to see things. It is worse when you are watching the screen to watch a smaller screen. I hate how Halt-Life does it and I do not want any game to do it that way,
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- Jan 28, 2013 2:07 pm GMTWords I think and things I say:@JessMcDonell
My least favourite thing about certain cutscenes isn't when they're long but when my protagonist starts doing all kinds of cool **** and fighting guys and I sit back wishing I was playing it instead of watching it.
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- Jan 28, 2013 2:30 pm GMT
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[QUOTE="ZombieKiller7"]
.
If you make a game right, you don't need cutscene to tell the story.
Look for example Half-Life series, do you see a cutscene? Not 1 line of dialogue from Gordon Freeman but unfolds the whole story in gameplay.
[/QUOTE]
The first HL doesn't really have much in the way of narrative. I think HL2 does a great job of letting you experience the story from the standpoint of the protagonist, though. Most books are 3rd person omniscient, so you always know more than the characters in the story about what is going on. In HL2 it's almost like playing a single character's experience in a larger narrative and the only info you get is what you come in contact with either through eavesdropping, conversations, and direct or multimedia experience. In other words, you're experiencing the story in the way that someone living the event would, and I think that's pretty cool, not to mention fairly unique.
[QUOTE="tempertress"]
My least favourite thing about certain cutscenes isn't when they're long but when my protagonist starts doing all kinds of cool **** and fighting guys and I sit back wishing I was playing it instead of watching it.
[/QUOTE]
Definitely. Breakdown is a great example of how letting the player play these moments is just so much more satisfying. That game pretty much changed the way I look at cutscenes. Used to love them, now I think they're the crutch of lazy devs.
One example I always point to of cutscenese killing the moment is the original Tomb Raider. When you first meet the T-Rex. That has to be one of my favorite all-time gaming moments. I don't know how other people reacted, but I heard those thunderous footsteps and I just stopped in my tracks like "what's, that." Started walking forward real slowly with my guns drawn as the footsteps get faster, louder. Then, BAM, out of the darkness comes this huge polygonal mess. I just turned around, ran my ass off and climbed out of there. And i'm standing there on the cliffside just laughing, still excited by the moment. So then they do a remake this gen and they turn your encounter with the t-rex into a cutscene. Worst decision in gaming ever.
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- Jan 28, 2013 4:38 pm GMT
Yea, I'd say you mainly have Sony and maybe the Metal Gear and Final Fantasy franchises to thank for movies with a little gameplay.
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- Jan 28, 2013 5:50 pm GMTWords I think and things I say:@JessMcDonellIt feels like the game just wrangles control from you. It sucks.
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- Jan 28, 2013 7:51 pm GMT
Yeah man I hate when games try to tell a story and show interaction between characters and whatnot when I just want to mindlessly shoot stuff without interuption.- Please wait. Quick reply will be available shortly.
- Jan 28, 2013 7:57 pm GMT
Reading these comments make me think most of you never gamed on NES, let alone the SNES. The original Final Fantasy game had cutscenes all over even if you don't include dialog
Reading these comments make me think most of you never gamed on NES, let alone the SNES. The original Final Fantasy game had cutscenes all over even if you don't include dialog :P
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- Jan 28, 2013 8:03 pm GMTslimjimbadboy wrote:
Reading these comments make me think most of you never gamed on NES, let alone the SNES. The original Final Fantasy game had cutscenes all over even if you don't include dialog
I was deprived D=Words I think and things I say:@JessMcDonell[QUOTE="slimjimbadboy"]Reading these comments make me think most of you never gamed on NES, let alone the SNES. The original Final Fantasy game had cutscenes all over even if you don't include dialog :P
[/QUOTE] I was deprived D=- Please wait. Quick reply will be available shortly.
- Jan 28, 2013 8:05 pm GMT
Gaming PC - Xbox 360 250GB
[QUOTE="ZombieKiller7"]
If you make a game right, you don't need cutscene to tell the story.
Look for example Half-Life series, do you see a cutscene? Not 1 line of dialogue from Gordon Freeman but unfolds the whole story in gameplay.
[/QUOTE]
Yup. That's why Half-Life 2 will always be one of my favorite games.
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- Jan 28, 2013 8:11 pm GMTtempertress wrote:I was deprived D=slimjimbadboy wrote:
Reading these comments make me think most of you never gamed on NES, let alone the SNES. The original Final Fantasy game had cutscenes all over even if you don't include dialog
If I recall correctly, there were 4-5 cutscenes in Final Fantasy on the NES before the first major boss battle. The intro after crossing bridge, the boat you get from the pirate, the canal being blown out and meeting the vampire IIRC. I'm sure I missed a couple.
[QUOTE="tempertress"][QUOTE="slimjimbadboy"]
Reading these comments make me think most of you never gamed on NES, let alone the SNES. The original Final Fantasy game had cutscenes all over even if you don't include dialog :P
[/QUOTE] I was deprived D=[/QUOTE]
If I recall correctly, there were 4-5 cutscenes in Final Fantasy on the NES before the first major boss battle. The intro after crossing bridge, the boat you get from the pirate, the canal being blown out and meeting the vampire IIRC. I'm sure I missed a couple.
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- Jan 28, 2013 8:22 pm GMT
[QUOTE="Primordialous"]
[QUOTE="ZombieKiller7"]
If you make a game right, you don't need cutscene to tell the story.
Look for example Half-Life series, do you see a cutscene? Not 1 line of dialogue from Gordon Freeman but unfolds the whole story in gameplay.
[/QUOTE]
Yup. That's why Half-Life 2 will always be one of my favorite games.
[/QUOTE]
Too bad Half-Life 2 cut scenes are the worse I seen in any game.
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- Jan 28, 2013 8:24 pm GMT
Now playing : Batman Arkham City Goty ( PC), Battlefield 3 ( PC), Witcher 2 ( PC)
Don't have too many older examples but MGS 4 was rediculous... 3/4 of the game was a cutscene.
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- Jan 28, 2013 8:40 pm GMT
[QUOTE="wiouds"]
[QUOTE="Primordialous"]
[QUOTE="ZombieKiller7"]
If you make a game right, you don't need cutscene to tell the story.
Look for example Half-Life series, do you see a cutscene? Not 1 line of dialogue from Gordon Freeman but unfolds the whole story in gameplay.
[/QUOTE]
Yup. That's why Half-Life 2 will always be one of my favorite games.
[/QUOTE]
Too bad Half-Life 2 cut scenes are the worse I seen in any game.
[/QUOTE]
Never as bad as 20 mins of old man ass crawling through a vent. Oh wait, that was gameplay.
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- Jan 28, 2013 11:05 pm GMTProud non-owner of any and all Apple products.
I don't mind them. What I do mind is those cutscenes that occur right before a big boss fight or some other big moment, and if you die, you're forced to watch the entire scene over again. That is just an egregious error and developers who make that error should be kicked in the nuts. I'm all for cutscenes and I think they should be skippable as well, because when I'm playing through a game multiple times those same cutscenes that I enjoyed the FIRST time aren't as necessary the second, third, etc. time. They end up just killing the momentum when all I want to do is play.- Please wait. Quick reply will be available shortly.
- Jan 28, 2013 11:36 pm GMT
[QUOTE="Ish_basic"]One example I always point to of cutscenese killing the moment is the original Tomb Raider. When you first meet the T-Rex. That has to be one of my favorite all-time gaming moments. I don't know how other people reacted, but I heard those thunderous footsteps and I just stopped in my tracks like "what's, that." Started walking forward real slowly with my guns drawn as the footsteps get faster, louder. Then, BAM, out of the darkness comes this huge polygonal mess. I just turned around, ran my ass off and climbed out of there. And i'm standing there on the cliffside just laughing, still excited by the moment. So then they do a remake this gen and they turn your encounter with the t-rex into a cutscene. Worst decision in gaming ever.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, that was a great moment. I remember dreading it the first couple of times I went through there. The scale of it all was impressive for its time.
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- Jan 29, 2013 2:42 am GMT
I guess the question is "when did it become widely accepted" and there is no easy answer. I don't mind cut scenes, but those that substitute or interrupt gameplay are horrible
It's a combination of things I think, again. Part of the drive for cut scenes is the consumer. The casual audience who more frequently watches movies than plays games. Lots of movies (cut scenes) can bridge the gap and get that audience to come to the ballpark. This also means trying to create bits where an audience can watch games and not just see gameplay. Publishers want a game that the family can "enjoy"
Games like Uncharted 2 use heavy cut scenes to tell a story but do it superbly. It's often the implementation that is crucial and many developers forget that.Part of it also comes back to making sure the player sees something awesome. Which in turn leads back to the whole "push button for awesome" mechanic. Many developers these days seem to lack the skill to direct player vision and action so they decide for a non interactive cut scene.
Another reason, certainly the most cynical, is that it is a fairly easy way to pad out game length particularly if you are forced to rewatch cut scenes and have checkpoint loads. Now the issue with this is that it's more costly to produce a 5-10 minute cut scene than it is to produce 1 hour of gameplay. And of course that leads into the problem of game budgets which are getting ridiculous.
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- Jan 29, 2013 3:21 am GMT
I think there is a alot of ignorance on behalf of gamers on what is possible via "gameplay" to tell a story. A really easy way to demonstrate this by films or TV shows. They give you shots of looking at peoples faces, their reactions, or vista shots of armies marching in so you can see the vastness of it all. With games, such as an FPS, if you are stuck in the head a bit like Half Life 2, the story has extreme limits on what is possible, and even then still relies on taking away some interaction. If you are there being able to shoot a guy in the face but the bullets dont kill him, then it breaks the imersion ever more so; than not being able to fire at all.
The cutscenes allow for better control over the story telling, it lets them display things that gameplay simply could not. Final fantasy for example has some amazing pieces of CGI, you try doing that with the game engine and it will look terrible. I personally think, nice looking CGI tells a story better than game engine or gameplay ever could. Nobody looks at Blizzards gameplay and says "MAKE A FILM!!!!!" they see their CGI ah go "OH MAWH GAWDDDD MAKE DAT FILM!!!". So yeah, without wanting to offend anyone, I think alot of you seem to think that game engines can tell story just as well as well done CGI. I think certain parts of Gears of War would have been less awkward to watch if they used CGI to not make certain people look really bad.
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- Jan 29, 2013 5:22 am GMT
When they stopped being about "we've got some important story information / character development stuff we need to convey" and switched to "everybody else has tons of cutscenes so we better stick a bunch in too".
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