Hellboy Director Hates Game Cutscenes

[Hitman Dread]

Could someone explain all the cutscene hatred around here?

A few of us have already explained the theory in full from several different view points. Just browse through the thread and you'll get the gist of it.

 

[st0pnsw0p]

Storytelling through gameplay is still rather new.
You have to give developers a chance to mess it up before you decide which one is better.

 

[Negatempest]

Well, most NES games in the past hardly used cut-scenes and the point got across quickly and easily. "I'm sorry, but the princess is in another castle." Oh! I'm saving a princess...did not know that.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Some storytelling elements are better modeled through gameplay, others are better rendered through cutscenes. Depending on what story the game's telling, a cutscene may be, in places, the way to go. The argument that "games are interactive, therefore every element of a game must be interactive" is one I think is flawed. That way lies madness and QTEs.

(Also, are we considering dialogue in RPGs to be cutscenes, or gameplay?)

 

[TWEWER]

This Guillermo guy sounds like he's knows what's up.

 

[Frostbite3789]

That is the best scene in FFXIII, also I don't know about you guys but I liked cut scenes but games like MGS4...push it to far

To a MGS fan they don't. If you're buying the fourth game in a series, and it's promising to tie up the loose ends from previous games, you should be expecting a fairly cut-scene heavy game. It has to do with perspective.

 

[Solid Reece]

snip

That is the best scene in FFXIII, also I don't know about you guys but I liked cut scenes but games like MGS4...push it to far

I liked the cut scence for MGS4. If you could not pause or skip would be the problem. Almost late for work one day for watching the ending.

 

[Vigormortis]

Thank God. Someone in the film industry that gets it. Video games are not film and films are not games. They are two wholly different forms of media entertainment. They tell stories in different ways.

Films tell their narratives in a very strict, linear, directed fashion. You're being shown someone's vision of a story and the characters therein.

A video game tells it's story with far less linearity. (even if the game narrative is just that) It's more about the immersion and interactiveness of the player. Video game story telling is at it's finest when it's telling the story through the players point of view and presenting events to the player to experience and react to.

This is not to say that cut-scenes can't work in a game. Sometimes they work beautifully to accentuate what's just happened or is about to happen. But lengthy or frequent cut-scenes are unnecessary and more often then not create awkward pacing and diminish the immersive nature of the experience.

On a side note, I'm not sure how "enthused" I am to see Del Toro's game. I enjoy some of his films, and he most certainly has a unique vision, but I'm not entirely sure it'll translate well to a game setting. Time will tell. I hope to be wrong.

Honestly, I think the problem is that it's people in the GAME industry that don't understand this, people like Hideo Kojima who put movie length cutscene into games, and the guys who made Black Ops, which had tedious gameplay and whiny annoying characters, and had horrible pacing (or maybe not, seeing as it was bad all around).

I actually fully agree. But the issue I was pointing out was that quite a few people, especially in the film industry, just pass video games off as some mediocre media format because, as they claim, it can't be used to tell a compelling story. These same people often refer to a plethora of classic films as examples of how good film is at telling a narrative and then refer to the most popular game titles of the day (COD, GTA, what have you) as an example of how poor video games are at doing the same.

Truth is, film making, when it first started, was less than compelling. It took decades for it to come into it's own and become what we know of it today. The good and the bad. Why would video game making be any different?

 

[BoredRolePlayer]

That is the best scene in FFXIII, also I don't know about you guys but I liked cut scenes but games like MGS4...push it to far

To a MGS fan they don't. If you're buying the fourth game in a series, and it's promising to tie up the loose ends from previous games, you should be expecting a fairly cut-scene heavy game. It has to do with perspective.

yeah but they could have found a way to break up the cut scenes, cause sometimes I end up forgetting what was going on before a cut scene cause i have poor memory

EDIT:I didn't hate the cutscenes, I love them to be honest. And I'll play that game again once I beat all the games on the HD collections, so I can give Colonial the scissors he needs.

 

[Fasckira]

Ironically when watching a Del Toro film Im thinking, "Give me something to watch!"


I view most cut scenes as a reward of sorts for hard gameplay. You've battled through the level, now its time to take a quick timeout and see something happen that will help progress the story where gameplay couldn't.
The only time I dislike cutscenes is where they come unexpectedly, steal the controls away from me and force me into an obvious trap (Deus Ex, Im looking at you here buddy).

 

[Madara XIII]

Colour me intrigued. I don't share Del Toro's hatred of cutscenes (they have their place if done right), but I am fascinated to see his unique style brought into the game world.

Let's just hope his Mountains of Madness gets off the ground at some point too...

that thing got scuttled, don't expect to see any original horror anytime soon, its all remakes and sequels in tinsel town.

....*Cries softly while holding my Necronomicon*

Why must you remind me of that tragedy!?
Forgive us all Lovecraft for we do not appreciate well written horror like we should.
We are mere peons in your shadow and Hollywood is the blasphemous lecher that dares to diminish that overbearing shadow of prestigious fear and excellence.

DAMN YOU HOLLYWOOD!!

*End scene*

 

[Madara XIII]

You know what? I like cutscenes. They're informative, they let the designers do stuff that's not doable inside the game engine and often they're quite pretty. They give my hands a rest. They often offer different perspectives on the story.

So screw you Del Toro, don't you swear and act like you're better because you choose to play games a different way.

Also, I thought Hellboy was a bad film.

While I agree with you on the fact that cutscenes are great and necessary at times, I don't agree that Hellboy 1 was bad.
Sadly though, considering he was willing to give up At The Mountains of Madness without a fight made me lose a bit of respect for him.

 

[Madara XIII]

It's good to know Del Toro isn't big on cutscenes either, as I've grown to hate them because of how much they get thrown at us lately, especially by fucking Square-Enix. Seems fitting he's talking to Ken Levine, who prefers the style of active scenes, much like Valve does, where you rarely lose control of what you're looking at or doing.

Also, edit that post, nobody cares about Casavin's work at Gamespot, point to his recent work on the gem that is Bastion.

However there are games like Kingdom Hearts that need Cutscenes. And when I say cutscenes, I mean cutscenes that aren't too long and give one hell of a climactic finish that tears at your heart strings.
Cutscenes like Devil May Cry or Sonic Generations are needed, because despite the fact that you were engaged as that character, you have to stop and realize that they are established characters who you may not always be immersed with in their cutscenes, because their persona has been mapped out already. YOU ARE NOT THEM! Thus no need for such an extreme method of show not tell.
STORY COUNTS TOO!
Jesus Moses Christ people! It's like a bandwagon for the hate of cutscenes just formed right when Del Toro made that statement. Almost as bad as Movie Bob or Yahtzee Extremist fans.

I personally like cutscenes because they give an explanation depending on the content or the quality of the game.
Plus in a game like Ninja Gaiden or Devil May Cry where your thumbs will be aching like a *****.
A Cutscene is very welcome every now and then.

[HEADING=2]In Short:

Del Toro is raging a bit too harshly on cutscenes[/HEADING]

 

[Madara XIII]

It's fitting that people have brought up Bastion, because I hated the way narration was handled in that game. Barring some general exposition moments like the training grounds or one of the dream sequences, it was like having someone read the novelization of the game at me over my shoulder while I played, simultaneously distracting me and implying that my actions were meaningless (after all, they already happened). And yet people praise it for "blending story into gameplay," which I totally don't get.

It really sucks, because I had to finish the game once and reflect on it before I realized that the story was actually pretty good. As was exactly one of the characters.

The thing that gets me about in game cutscenes is that you are suddenly forced out of second person perspective (from a narrative standpoint rather than a camera angle) and into third person. You go from being directly involved to being a spectator. As a player, I find that kind of insulting - particularly when the developer renders all the most important and awesome moments of a character through a cutscene.

And thank you for making me suddenly realize why I disagree so strongly with del Toro, because I don't go from being a participant to a spectator. Barring something like maybe MGS4 (never played it, but it seems the go-to negative comparison for length), I am the character(s) regardless of the level of control I have over them at a given moment. If I find the story worth my while in any way, I'm having fun at any given moment paying attention to it.

HOLY CHRIST CRACKERS!! Someone who's not an extremist
*Tears up with Joy*
Secondly I can agree that MGS4 cutscenes were necessary to anyone who wanted to know the story.
Let's be honest.
There'd be no way in hell that you could compress all that story into interactive cutscenes.
I prefer to see the character I was previously controlling act upon himself and remind me that he's a FULL BLOWN FLESHED OUT CHARACTER!

 

[Truly-A-Lie]

Truly-a-lie proposed an interesting thing in that taking away control from the player can be a powerful element, but the fact is that cutscenes aren't used to illustrate a lack of control for the character, but instead are scenes that take away power from the player, creating a disconnect between player and character. That would be fine it was the point, though it isn't outside of Ghost Trick.

Admittedly, the example I was thinking of was Raiden surrendering after the Metal Gear RAY boss fight in MGS2, which is also designed for player/character disconnect, so you may have a point.
But surely there isn't much difference between a cutscene and removing all player control in-engine, taking control and taking power are surely connected?

I just think that if a film, the key characteristic of film being moving image, can still be considered a film with periods of blank screen, a game can be considered a game with periods of no gameplay.

 

[Seventh Actuality]

I'm kind of happy to see that a lot of people have already pointed out how this unconditional backlash against cutscenes is retarded. The sentiment is a good one (if it can be interactive, it should be) taken too far. Refusing to use a perfectly serviceable method of delivering the story out of a misplaced sense of pride in the medium never has and never will help a game...especially not Half Life 2.

That said, if a cutscene shows the characters doing something the player could be, there's no excuse.

 

[NeutralDrow]

And thank you for making me suddenly realize why I disagree so strongly with del Toro, because I don't go from being a participant to a spectator. Barring something like maybe MGS4 (never played it, but it seems the go-to negative comparison for length), I am the character(s) regardless of the level of control I have over them at a given moment. If I find the story worth my while in any way, I'm having fun at any given moment paying attention to it.

HOLY CHRIST CRACKERS!! Someone who's not an extremist
*Tears up with Joy*
...

I prefer to see the character I was previously controlling act upon himself and remind me that he's a FULL BLOWN FLESHED OUT CHARACTER!

Oh, absolutely. They're a connection to the story, and seeing them act in that context (especially if I haven't had time yet to get in their heads). It's kind of a chain, the characters are the medium through which I experience the story, and non-interactive portions are a way I can understand the character better. Interaction can certainly help...but I also have odd standards of "interaction" (visual novels, I consider interactive, but I have no illusions about the majority opinion).

It's one of the things I'm ambivalent about in games involving character creation. I love them from a gameplay perspective, but I often find it harder to get into a story without some kind of anchor character, which "blank slates" really don't do (barring MMOs, which seem to encourage building character personality based on the player, and have the length to support it). Probably explains why I've been reusing a small set of specific character names and traits in RPGs since I was young. I totally did not think of that before now.

 

[Amnestic]

You still lack a very fundamental understanding of what anyone is actually talking about.

No, I understand it fine. What I'm doing is disagreeing with you.

What you are talking about is breaking immersion.

What I am talking about is that a cut scene used for non-control based reasons is disconnecting you from the game. It is unplugging your controller and asking you to now be and engage in a passive activity for a NON passive moment.

...so? I like that. Sometimes a bit of being passive is good. You consume games for far longer than you do films.

Also quick time events are still cutscenes, just the butchered attempt to "fix" the cut scene problem.

"You can selectively take control away from the gamer for a few seconds but don't render him inactive."

Del Toro's own words. QTEs keep control with the player, it maintains the active connection which you're banging on about so much. Thus, because QTEs are ACTIVE and not PASSIVE, they aren't cutscenes by your own admission.

Also, there is no cutscene 'problem' for me.

First off, most of that trouble lies in the trouble of Blazblue's story being half convulted and mashed together bits of bullshit.

Sorry, no, that's not a problem. Telling a complex story in a game should never be a 'problem'.

The same can be said of MvC3, where great detail was put into getting the characters put across in gameplay. When you play Wolverine right, he feels like a dirty fucking animal, sliding on the floor, dive kicking over and over, berserker slashing through everything. Nova feels heavy buy mobile, like flying through space. While Hulk is a straight forward brusier, She-Hulk is a thinking man's grappler.

Blazblue also does this, to a smaller extent. Best example by far is V-13 x Ragna. I really miss their in game chatter about how V-13 loves Ragna, and can't understand why he doesn't see her killing him and aborbing his power as a beautiful thing. I understood their relation, as well as several other charecters, long before I played the game.

Transferring these techniques into a linear narrative wouldn't be that hard, just take a bit of work and imagination, and probably going back to the genre's work of side scrolling beat em up fused into the single player mode.

You don't think BlazBlue's characters play as a reference to their characters? You can't feel the smug superiority of Rachel? The boiling rage of Ragna? The "animal at play" as Tao? I thought they got that across quite clearly.

So your ingenious solution to getting rid of cutscenes is to go back to a superfluous and frankly unnecessary mode where players are more likely to be focusing on shit that's hitting the fan around them rather than the actual story, a mode which would break the narrative (since, hey, you need to find a bunch of enemies for them to kill for non-contrived reasons) every time you want to get across any sort of exposition.

I knew your answer wouldn't be anything special, but that? That's funny. In a sad way.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I love this. Imagine if a film, in order to tell part of the story, suddenly directed people to read an accompanying pamphlet that was handed out with the tickets. People would think they'd gone insane. Why is his distaste for having what literally defines the medium (interactivity) stripped away from him at arbitrary points a sign of a lack of attention span?

The thing that gets me about in game cutscenes is that you are suddenly forced out of second person perspective (from a narrative standpoint rather than a camera angle) and into third person. You go from being directly involved to being a spectator. As a player, I find that kind of insulting - particularly when the developer renders all the most important and awesome moments of a character through a cutscene. It's like you're just some clutz who gets to sit in on the mundane moments and the game punishes you for being beaten with the usual bloodstains, game over screens etc - but as soon as anything really fantastic happens they switch to a cutscene. This isn't true of all games, certainly. But I can definitely see where Del Toro is coming from.

Immersion is subjective, you have games like Final Fantasy, which take place in a sort of 3rd person/isometric point, the cutscenes really don't break immersion. With the earlier yeah maybe, but that's just graphical firepower.

Ol' D.T wasn't specific about the cutscenes he hates; Is it just the immersion breakers or all scenes in general.

 

[Roserari]

The reason why Half Life 2 failed on all boards is because it lacked ... fun. How about a quick first person cutscene where Gordon races through the streets like it was Mirror's Edge? That at least would be better than the two second chase scene in the beginning.

Or how about the cutscenes in Uncharted? They're extremely well made, fun to watch and add a whole lot to the experience.

I respect his opinion, but that kind of thinking could lead to some very unpleasant results in games. Like ..., well, the episodes of Half Life 2, that are so boring it hurt me.