Bodycount Dev: Bulletstorm Proves There Is a Market Outside of Call of Duty

[Phantom Echo]

A combination of good ingame story telling and cutscenes is the best way to tell a story in a game.

No it certainly is not. It's a method for driving the story forward certainly, but interactive storytelling is far and away the best method, after all games are an interactive medium. Endless, unskippable cutscenes with or without QTEs are the lazy way of telling game stories Hollywood style. Telling the story without taking control away from the player is more immersive and more effective and makes the player part of the action, not a bystander to it.

*MAJOR SPOILERS - MAJOR SPOILERS*
Dialogue over FMV any day of the week. The last battle in Oblivion was masterful in this regard, allowing the player to roam freely while the commander gave his rallying speech with the great gate behind him. In Fallout 3 when the Wanderer's father/Liam Neeson dies while I'm running, screaming and hitting every button to open the damned door and powerless to do so, was a thousand times more effective than any cutscene could've been. Mass Effect when facing Saren, meeting the Prothean hologram or the Reaper vanguard hologram, controlling the coversation made ME a part of it.

As Somewhere said, if I want to watch a movie, I'll go and watch a movie.

But neither statement is inherently true.

Your definition of superior and Abandon's are both inherently flawed... in that you assume the best solution for every game is the SAME thing. Each game must find it's own balance of story-telling methods. Cut-scenes, FMV, Interactive-Events... all of these are but a means to an end. Even quick-time events, which I largely dislike, have a place... so long as they can somehow -contribute- to the experience of the game rather than taking the player out of it.

Often times, however, these methods are used to cover up for some lacking capability of the game itself. Often-times cut-scenes are used because mechanically, the actors in the game's engine are incapable of behaving in the way required for the story to make sense. Without using these methods... the game would likely feel diminished... and the effect the designers were aiming for might be missed.

Story is something that each game struggles with, in its own way. The right balance for one game isn't enough for another... and for others still, it's -far- too much.

One solution doesn't fit every circumstance. And so to claim any of them superior to another is a flawed argument by design.

 

[Phantom Echo]

And as I said, a combination of both in game and cutscene is preferable.

MOAR CUTSCENES was meant to be a little tongue in cheek. But even then. I still stand by it. A lot of games do lack cut-scenes that they could really have done with having.

You're just underestimating their worth.

To you, perhaps... but you are but a single individual.


The truth is, the only 'preference' that really matters is that of the game's developer. No matter how much we all like to believe that as the customer, our enjoyment is the ultimate goal... for the individuals whom have the task of creating the game... the only thing that really matters is that the vision of the game is carried out in the way that they most fully enjoy.

The problem comes in the form of designers NOT carrying out the development process in ways that they would actually enjoy. The reasons for this can be many. Perhaps they are receiving instructions to make the game -feel- a certain way that doesn't mesh with their vision. Perhaps they are just trying to create a dynamic that they think will 'sell'... or what is more often the case... they borrow the already-barely innovative methods of storytelling used by more popular games and cannibalize them for their own purposes.

What you end up with, in the end, are games which rely too heavily on Cut-scenes to tell the story that their gameplay can't otherwise convey.

This isn't good storytelling... this is thinly covering up for the flaws of your game's design or mechanics... and that's hardly a good thing.

Cut-scenes should only be used in games where they can properly ADD to the feeling of the game. There are many other ways to convey critical pieces of information, WITHOUT resorting to them. Cut-scenes, if present... should be used sparingly... and with a great deal of forethought.

For me, there are exceptions to this rule. Some games are incredibly cinematic... and utilize cut-scenes in such a way that greatly enhances the story-telling elements. Often-times these scenes will actually use IN-GAME assets to further keep the player enthralled in the events of the game.

A favorite, for me, were the Cut-Scenes in Halo: Reach.

Many of these occurred in FIRST-PERSON... using assets just -slightly- above game-quality... and then immediately threw you back into the fray. If the character fired off a few rounds during the scene, then the player started with a few rounds missing from the clip.

This kind of storytelling is excellent. It integrates the game and the cut-scene quite nicely. If more games focused on finding ways to integrate their cut-scenes into the gameplay surrounding them... I have a feeling it would go a long way towards finding even more interesting solutions to the story-telling problem faced by all game designers.

Telling a story is hard. Even just with words.

When you have to find ways to make an artificial world somehow have a meaningful story to which the player can connect in some way, without it just becoming a forgotten backdrop... that's a task which requires more thought than:

"Both cut-scenes and in-game methods are preferable."

At the end of the day, that's not a statement of fact... it's just an opinion. The factual statement is: "An entertaining, enthralling story is preferable."

Anything else is just us arguing over our opinions on the matter.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

Wow, I must be one of the few people that really enjoyed Bulletstorm, and I'm someone who HATES the current shooter trends.

I liked it. Especially being able to dish out the mighty boot of death. It did drag on a touch too long but it was a fun distraction, much in the same way Black was.

 

[bob1052]

It turns out that you don't have to be a brown and grey military shooter to sell well.

Apparently being a brown and grey hallway shooter that isn't military is a huge leap.

Edit: whoa quoting that line of a news post gets the image, weird.