Cutscenes Stole My Thief Game

[rofltehcat]

I'm surprised more people aren't disappointed most of the game is stealing from poor people in dumpy apartments.

I'd certainly enjoy more side missions about robbing rich people but the robbing of the poor isn't really worth it anyways. At least for me, when a rope arrow costs 75 G (or 56 or so with the bond?) and an apartment contains maybe 25-45 G in loot, it is more about the challenge and less about the gain.

 

[Rad Party God]

I'm enjoying the game so far, but yeah... 100% agreed with how horribly presented are the cutscenes.

I don't mind the (massive) changes in the story, it more or less follows the basics, but yeah... I almost completely forgot it had it's much touted "cutting edge" mo-cap, because it definitely isn't even noticable.

 

[Fifty-One]

I'm surprised more people aren't disappointed most of the game is stealing from poor people in dumpy apartments.

What really gets on my tits is the 5-second QTE "tap E to open the window" every single time you want to enter those apartments.

Finding that there's only 4 gold worth of stuff in there is just the icing on the cake.

For me it's realizing I just spent 5 seconds mashing 'X' to get into an apartment, just to realize I'm in the wrong one.

As for story ...

The whole intro thing with Erin is ridiculous. Why should I care that the psychotic kleptomaniac falls? From everything I saw in the intro she's a horrible human being that should've received a crossbow volley the second she hit the floor.

Other than that, I enjoy the gameplay, though I wish you could carry more rope arrows.

 

[Keava]

Stopped reading when you said the hackneyed, soap opera-level story of the new Thief was better written than the subtle and atmospheric tale of the first few Thief games.

That being said, I agree with your general premise. I still don't understand why games resort to lengthy cutscenes to tell a story.

I'll tell you why, and it's same reason certain types of games sell so well. The reason is the shape that so called general audience has taken. The shorter attention span, the fact they grew up on all those hollywood movies, the fact that they don't want to go and find out stuff on their own, they want all the bits handed to them.

People, in general, want things that are familiar to them, and this style of storytelling where there is over abundance of exposition is pretty much what we've been seeing for a while now in many commercially successfully works. The media "raised" that type of viewer, the type that is unable to read between the lines, draw their own conclusion and connect the dots. Entertainment got simplified by a lot in last decade and that's just the consequence of it, TV is probably the best example of that.

It's the sad reality of modern era, and while every now and then you can find some nice bits hidden for those with keen eyes, they often feel as if smuggled against some company policies. I just hope something will change because if not, today's consumers will become producers in near future, and as they grow up without the requirement of abstract thinking, the plots and their presentation may become even more bludgeoned to make sure absolutely everyone understand what's going on.

Enjoy the future.
/get_off_my_lawn
/rant

 

[ImSkeletor]

Stopped reading when you said the hackneyed, soap opera-level story of the new Thief was better written than the subtle and atmospheric tale of the first few Thief games.

That being said, I agree with your general premise. I still don't understand why games resort to lengthy cutscenes to tell a story.

I'll tell you why, and it's same reason certain types of games sell so well. The reason is the shape that so called general audience has taken. The shorter attention span, the fact they grew up on all those hollywood movies, the fact that they don't want to go and find out stuff on their own, they want all the bits handed to them.

People, in general, want things that are familiar to them, and this style of storytelling where there is over abundance of exposition is pretty much what we've been seeing for a while now in many commercially successfully works. The media "raised" that type of viewer, the type that is unable to read between the lines, draw their own conclusion and connect the dots. Entertainment got simplified by a lot in last decade and that's just the consequence of it, TV is probably the best example of that.

It's the sad reality of modern era, and while every now and then you can find some nice bits hidden for those with keen eyes, they often feel as if smuggled against some company policies. I just hope something will change because if not, today's consumers will become producers in near future, and as they grow up without the requirement of abstract thinking, the plots and their presentation may become even more bludgeoned to make sure absolutely everyone understand what's going on.

Enjoy the future.
/get_off_my_lawn
/rant

I really hope you don't actually believe any of that insane speech. Firstly it's widely agreed that the last 5-10 years have been just about the best scripted television has EVER been. Justified, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Hannibal, The SHIELD, Rectify ECT. (I could go on for days). The massive burst in weird and abstract indie games of the last two-years also contradict you. Rising technologies have just caused some confusion in the AAA gaming world. The industry is going through some growing pains and is working out what works for where. Über expensive motion capture tech was probably not necessary or appropriate for a thief game. All the over budgeted failures will teach a hard lesson to game companies. The future is bright.

 

[RJ Dalton]

Also, please stop trying to be Hollywood because Hollywood sucks.

I think you may be right, though. What made The original Thief games work was that it suggested a story and let you fill in the gaps if you wanted by exploring the world and reading the filched diaries and documents. It found a solid way to let your imagination do the work and what you can imagine will always be better than what you can achieve.

 

[Otaku World Order]

It also probably doesn't help that the new Thief came out so soon after Dishonored, which I think had a lot more going for it then this one.

i can honestly imagine the scene

ubisoft executive "motion capture technology is the future of games!"
me "so just like fmv was back in the day?"
UE "no of course not! its motion capture not FMV"

it feels like the fmv fad all over again. and why i didnt mind that it had some painful moments.

Some days I feel like I'm living through the 90'S FMV era all over again, especially when we get games like Beyond: Two Souls that try so hard to be like movies.

Maybe we can get Christopher Walken to be in a David Cage game next. Dat' guy.... he is un-F&#KING believable!

 

[Darkness665]

Many decades ago, possibly before you were born Shamus, I bought a laser disc with the latest computer animation examples. It was really good, excellent ray tracing, cutting edge for the time, some section were done on Evan and Sutherland equipment while many used state of the art computer workstations. My best friend was a CS guy and we were both heavily into computer animation. We were fascinated with the right way to do animations, the various styles, myriad solutions but the piece that captivated us was a woman in motion. It was used in the trailer and was a significant factor on my decision to buy the LD in the first place.

Imagine our horror when we realized that the very excellent animation was only some motion capture of a lovely model. The woman was clad in some tights (maybe a body stocking type of thing, we didn't care) and now I think the was most likely a dancer. Her moves were fluid while elegant and were quite mesmerizing.

These were not, nor can they ever be computer animations. It is merely motion capture. There is nothing magic about it. It is simply cheap digital movie making with an expensive final processing step that is wasteful, slow and requires little computer animation skills.

Motion capture doesn't belong in most games that currently use it, IMHO. While I would defer to your thoughts on those it might benefit I don't buy them. It is a hack solution to not knowing how to do proper computer animation. The studios are a huge expense, the actors are as well and I would be amazed if the motion capture doesn't double the price of the game. At the least it triples the cost of the cut-scenes (which mostly I dislike).

Thanks to your column, I will never own the current Thief. I appreciate that.