Xeorm said:
Jingle Fett said:
Great article! With both books and movies, the general rule of thumb is "Show, don't tell". With videogames though it's a little different because of their inherently interactive nature, so with games it's actually "do, don't show".
One of the most frustrating and disappointing things you can see in a game is seeing the player character do something awesome in a cutscene...and then not being able to do it yourself.
I disagree. There are some games that are made almost entirely out of being a story where the gameplay is relatively light and does little more than involve you in the game while the story plays out. The quintessential JRPG is practically made of that format. It works just fine as long as the pacing is good and the story is entertaining, and I find it much better than watching a comparable movie. The format is especially good for the longer stories. I would not want to watch FFVII in movie form for sure, but I can get behind having some interactive points in-between to keep my interest high.
What I think mars these examples the most is that they're confusing the genres and using the wrong tools. Hitman's a good example, since it does so much wrong. The gameplay itself trumpets plenty of choice in how you execute the mission, but then the story gets in the way by changing everything. Even worse, the story itself treats you as some master assassin, but the cinematics don't reinforce that either, so it feels even more disjointing. And so the game itself is so conflicted in tone and presentation that it doesn't perform all that well compared to how it could, which is unfortunate.
You say you disagree but most of what you say is in line with what I said. It seems you're confusing "Do, don't show" with "don't show/tell anything at all". It's perfectly fine to have stories and cutscenes. In books and movies, "Show, don't tell" doesn't mean to literally never do it--some of the best movies have exposition dumps where it tells you stuff at the beginning (Star Wars, Blade Runner, etc) and that's ok. Some things are too boring to show or there's no way to fit it in without messing up the flow of the story.
For example, you admit that you wouldn't want to watch FFVII in movie form (which would be all show and no do), as opposed to having some interactive points (some doing, in addition to the showing). Meaning getting to do stuff is desirable. In fact, the good JRPGs (and japanese games in general) like the older Final Fantasy games, Chrono Trigger, Pokemon, Zelda, etc. all understand the rule of "Do, don't show" very well because they often do not show the player something they can't do. The Zelda games in fact are what I'd consider to be a crowning example of "do, don't show" while still telling a great story--It's not very often Link does something in a cutscene you couldn't do in-game.
Otherwise, we basically get what gamers regularly complain about -- QTE fests, endless cutscenes, "streamlined gameplay" etc. Where a game gave you choice before, now it takes it away. Showing the player something that looks fun in a cutscene and then not letting them do it. @sageoftruth mentioned something very important, which is that most of the games on this list were games that used to have more mechanics and which sacrificed them for the sake of showing stuff (which ended up being disappointing).
"Do, don't show" is basically short hand for saying that adding functionality is generally desirable, while taking it away is not.