Hellboy Director Hates Game Cutscenes
- Thread starter vansau
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Cutscenes are going to stay a part of games. That's a fact. And they aren't ALL bad. There are times when it is very appropriate to use a cutscene over something else. It can reinforce the notion that you are not always in control of what's going on. You can't stop or even react to everything. Why would you try to limit the tools you can use in something? It's like saying we'll never use brick again for anything when making buildings.
Mew thinks him is over simplifying things.... you use cut scenes like events in a film that are A not action IE dailog is going on or B doing big effects. For big effects there's rarely a real need to do it as a non player controle4d event.
A good cut-scene, used judiciously, can actually enhance some of the story-telling in the game, and, as one commenter mentioned, it can be used to give the gamer a chance to rest hands and nerves after a particularly arduous period of gameplay. The problem comes with "too many" and "too long", while providing insufficient advancement of the story or plot. They're just there to show off the new render farm(I loved FFXIII, particularly because I loved the story pitting the dictate of providence against free-will, but even I have to admit the game could have done with some significant editing to trim it up a bit).
I make it a point not to skip cutscenes the first time I play a game (only exception being MGS4, naturally). But then again, if you make your cutscenes unskippable *glares at God of War 3* then I can see how it can be a problem. It's like "Yeah yeah, I know all this shit already, can I play now?"
I dunno, some games ARE known for having great cutscenes, like Final Fantasy. I suppose it has to do with the story too; if you have some game like Uncharted, FF, or Assassin's Creed could not work without cutscenes that would explain AND show the story in a movie-esque way.
Some games abuse of this and they don't really need it, but some do need it. And honestly, in the most respectful way, if you hate those games that have long cutscenes, skip them. Skip the cutscene or skip the game overall.
Some games abuse of this and they don't really need it, but some do need it. And honestly, in the most respectful way, if you hate those games that have long cutscenes, skip them. Skip the cutscene or skip the game overall.
Well if you only play like generic brown shit colored fps ofc the cutscenes are rubbish. But if you played something that is not like it's essential.
Trick with a cutscene is that it has to have some suspense or interresting in it that relates to the character. Too much random crap that doesn't matter in them or the characters are like generic Stupid space marines then ofc that stuff is just going to suck the entertainment like a vacuum. But like if there is actually a story behind the game then its really really awesome. Pretty much any non us rpg excel at that hah ha ha. Probably because they don't think "durr must be like cliché Holywood action movie" for every single plotdevice.
Trick with a cutscene is that it has to have some suspense or interresting in it that relates to the character. Too much random crap that doesn't matter in them or the characters are like generic Stupid space marines then ofc that stuff is just going to suck the entertainment like a vacuum. But like if there is actually a story behind the game then its really really awesome. Pretty much any non us rpg excel at that hah ha ha. Probably because they don't think "durr must be like cliché Holywood action movie" for every single plotdevice.
No you really don't. The fact that you keep talking about what you like in a discussion of theory shows that you do not. Sense you clearly don't understand critique, there is really no reason for this conversation to continue.Amnestic said:
I agree with GDT about every cutscene starring or involving the player. If the player is in it, they should be playing through it, not watching the developers play their character for them. I am minded of a recent game where my char had just beaten up a bunch of bad guys and saved someone, then was forced to stand idly and watch as a couple of mooks ran behind the NPC he was cutscened with and burned down a building she owned.
WTH. There are like 5 ways he could have stomped those mooks before they got halfway to their target, with "blazing inferno of way more damage than you mooks have hitpoints" being #1 on the list. Even if the player couldn't defend the building, the idea was to force the NPC to stay on her property. So how hard is it to change the NPC's response from "I have to stay or they'll burn more of my farm" to "I have to stay or they'll succeed in burning some of my farm" depending on whether the player succeeded in defending the building?
Either way, the plot progresses as intended, but the player is not forced to witness his character behaving like a total moron immediately after beating up multitudes of identical mooks. Oh, and the conversational options for my char while he watched this amounted to "1. Duh. 2. Derp.".
So yeah. Cutscenes should only be for exposition that the player is NOT directly involved in. If the player character is there, it needs to be a playthrough.
WTH. There are like 5 ways he could have stomped those mooks before they got halfway to their target, with "blazing inferno of way more damage than you mooks have hitpoints" being #1 on the list. Even if the player couldn't defend the building, the idea was to force the NPC to stay on her property. So how hard is it to change the NPC's response from "I have to stay or they'll burn more of my farm" to "I have to stay or they'll succeed in burning some of my farm" depending on whether the player succeeded in defending the building?
Either way, the plot progresses as intended, but the player is not forced to witness his character behaving like a total moron immediately after beating up multitudes of identical mooks. Oh, and the conversational options for my char while he watched this amounted to "1. Duh. 2. Derp.".
So yeah. Cutscenes should only be for exposition that the player is NOT directly involved in. If the player character is there, it needs to be a playthrough.
Too often the playing and the story are segregated into a game/cutscene dichotomy. Cutscenes can be effective. I like the use of cutscenes in the old Black Isle RPGs where you might get a 2-minute cutscene every 5 hours. The problem with most cutscenes is that they do not involve the player. And yes, not using the medium?s unique qualities is a problem. For example, Andy Warhol?s ?films? ? static shots that last many hours ? are mere photographs in film form; just like how many game stories are films in game form.
Playing gmaes is more like reading books than watching movies in an important way: the beholder cannot be a passive observer. Sure you can cheat and breeze through the whole thing, but you will miss a lot of content. Or you can read slowly and hang on each word like a completionist. Whenever you need a break, you can put down the novel or pause the game. In this way, good gamers need to engage with the game at all times. Cutscenes are controversial because they enable a videogame's unique ability to suddenly flip between active and passive forms of artentainment.
Max Payne 2: There?s a moment where the player character finds recordings of a bug that taped his telephone conversations. If you play them, you can hear yourself calling a sex hotline and totally creeping out the girl on the other end (??killing them all only made things worse.?) A revelatory scene more effective than all the game?s cartoon cutscenes put together.
Hitman: You find a doctor that claims to be your ?father? and can back it up. After the briefest of formalities, he lunges at you. You have about a second to kill him; otherwise, he kills you. In retrospect, this is a ?quicktime event? that is never presented as such; the controls don?t change from the ones you use for everything else, and so the storytelling element of the quicktime is enhanced since you made a conscious snap decision rather than proving your reflexes.
As the above two examples show, developers can manipulate environments, mechanics, and controls to funnel players into commiting specific acts and role-playing certain characters, without disempowering gamers via cutscenes. You can then take it a step further?
Xcom games do not tell you the story. The story comes from context (how you play IS the story) and from research reports (which also give you access to new technology and explain game mechanics.) Whenever story is incorporated into the gameplay, it?s a big plus. One approach is ?here?s what you have to do, now go figure out how to do it? where you have to understand the story to solve the game, and it is common in adventure games. Of course this can misfire if the developer is exceptionally clumsy, like in DOOM3 and its password-containing PDAs. If a game has a horrid story, it has to require as little time and effort from the player.
Playing gmaes is more like reading books than watching movies in an important way: the beholder cannot be a passive observer. Sure you can cheat and breeze through the whole thing, but you will miss a lot of content. Or you can read slowly and hang on each word like a completionist. Whenever you need a break, you can put down the novel or pause the game. In this way, good gamers need to engage with the game at all times. Cutscenes are controversial because they enable a videogame's unique ability to suddenly flip between active and passive forms of artentainment.
To be sure, uniquely videogame-ish storytelling is in its infancy and requires great creativity, but it?s far from new. Nor should developers force superficially interactive quicktime events. Here are some great examples to be emulated:NeutralDrow said:
Max Payne 2: There?s a moment where the player character finds recordings of a bug that taped his telephone conversations. If you play them, you can hear yourself calling a sex hotline and totally creeping out the girl on the other end (??killing them all only made things worse.?) A revelatory scene more effective than all the game?s cartoon cutscenes put together.
Hitman: You find a doctor that claims to be your ?father? and can back it up. After the briefest of formalities, he lunges at you. You have about a second to kill him; otherwise, he kills you. In retrospect, this is a ?quicktime event? that is never presented as such; the controls don?t change from the ones you use for everything else, and so the storytelling element of the quicktime is enhanced since you made a conscious snap decision rather than proving your reflexes.
As the above two examples show, developers can manipulate environments, mechanics, and controls to funnel players into commiting specific acts and role-playing certain characters, without disempowering gamers via cutscenes. You can then take it a step further?
Xcom games do not tell you the story. The story comes from context (how you play IS the story) and from research reports (which also give you access to new technology and explain game mechanics.) Whenever story is incorporated into the gameplay, it?s a big plus. One approach is ?here?s what you have to do, now go figure out how to do it? where you have to understand the story to solve the game, and it is common in adventure games. Of course this can misfire if the developer is exceptionally clumsy, like in DOOM3 and its password-containing PDAs. If a game has a horrid story, it has to require as little time and effort from the player.