"Is someone going to isolate (or whatever you call that) the "Goodbye" section of the Final LEOG?"
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A Cutscene isn't a four-letter word!
Alright, I concede a point. Cutscenes are sometimes used too frequently. A staggering amount of the Metal Gear Solid
quadrilogy consists of overly dramatic short films making one wonder if Hideo Kojima actually wanted to be a Spielberg instead of a Miyamoto. Recently, however, there has been a trend of bashing games with cutscenes in the video game industry, even to the point of calling cutscenes as a total crutch for a video game. Simply put, many practitioners in playing games have decried any usage of cutscenes.
Take a game like Portal where you play a silent protagonist (one of my major peeves, but more on that on another article) trapped inside a scientific research center with a psychopathic artificial intelligence. Portal contains no cutscenes since most of the information is conveyed through the audio with the artificial intelligence narrating with pitch-perfect hilarious dialogue. Sure, additional information such as ruined security phones and abandoned slide shows hint at more of the story, but it’s not necessary to the mainstay of the plot. You do not need a cutscene within this game since the necessary information needed to enjoy the game is given through the audio. Now, let’s look at a game that uses cutscenes frequently: Enslaved: Odyssey to the West (a great game, by the way). In Enslaved, you play as Monkey who must deliver fellow companion, Trip, back to her home safely. In the story, the majority of the game centers on the development of these two characters. Even though a large part of the characters’ dialogue is in-game, the game often engages in cutscenes. These are used to highlight emotions, build tension, or reveal information.
Cutscenes are a movie-inspired way of telling information effectively that total control wouldn’t allow. Conversely, movies incorporate things such as text to help story such as stating “six months later” (When Harry Met Sally) or giving a prologue that allows the audience quick and succinct information to understand the back-story (such as in the Star Wars films). Using another medium’s method of conveying information isn’t a crutch; it’s merely giving the audience a more focused method of conveying story information. If a moment in the narrative relied on a facial movement from a character or a shot of a book of matches on the table, its impact would be dramatically stripped away if a player were too busy focusing the camera on the rack of a busty waitress. In short, you can’t always trust the player with looking at the important set pieces – cutscenes allow focus.
And what exactly does the term ‘cutscene’ cover? What about the dialogue system in the Mass Effect series? Do the interactive quick-time events in Heavy Rain count, as well? By some, those mentioned games have been labeled as proprietors of ‘cutscene misuse.’ It seems like the word is just thrown about carelessly in parts where players can’t control as much as they’re used to in earlier parts of the game – and that, to this writer, seems like a backwards way of thinking. While some games rely too much on cutscenes to relay information (aforementioned Metal Gear Solid franchise) or place the most unobtainable awesome parts of the experience in cutscene form (Devil May Cry 3, recent Final Fantasy games, and, hell, let’s say it, a lot of Japanese games, etc.), cutscenes can allow a variety of abilities including, perhaps most importantly of all, focused narrative direction.
So, fellow video game enthusiasts, just remember, when you have control taken away from you for just a moment, it’s not always a bad thing.
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Comment
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Comment by Chilly on April 5, 2011 at 5:04am -
Cutscenes have never really bothered me, I guess the only time they step over the line is when their too long or are portraying something i'd like to do, although that does depend on the game, a turn based strategy game which has a cutscene showing frantic real time combat may be out of place but it is none the less unplayable but in a real time game where what is played out in cutscenes could more or less be made interactive and I don't mean QTE's, feels like a wasted oppertunity.
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Comment by Stach on April 4, 2011 at 7:54pm -
@Jason Straub - Dude, Gordon Freeman pretty much single-handedly broke the Combine stranglehold on earth. He ain't no pushover! In seriousness, you do bring up a good point, just being told what to do and doing it. That plays a key role in Bioshock. It works (for me) in Half-life 2 because everything you do is to save humanity and defeat the Combine, and you can't argue with that. And I think Half-life 2 still does a good job of giving you just enough story. You don't get everything explained to you, and that kept my interest in the story piqued. And it's kind of cool/bad-ass that no one sits you down and tells you everything that happened, because its like "I don't care what happened, I'm just here to make things right." Keeping Gordon Freeman silent made Half-life 2 more memorable for me.
Isaac Clark from Dead Space is an interesting example, because he was silent the first game, and then he spoke a lot in the second game. I had a little trouble with it because they made some missteps with how they characterized him. Like when you have to go into this one place (that I won't spoil); it was scary for me the player, and I would imagine Isaac would be really scared and apprehensive about going into the area, but he's all cool and gung-ho about, which breaks the atmosphere and the immersion.
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Comment by Jason Straub on April 4, 2011 at 6:17pm -
@ We Have To Go Back - It may well be that the cutscenes in MGS4 were well done, but I still felt like I spend more of the game watching than playing. Take that and compare it to MGS or MGS3, which also had amazing cutscenes and much more gameplay and I'll always prefer that.
@Chicago Typewriter - Voice overs in film are good when they add something to the scene that may not be able to be conveyed using visuals and dialogue alone. Fight Club did a great job using narration well. On the other hand, Woody Allen's Vicky Christina Barcelona is an example of voice overs being used badly because it's just Woody Allen having to put himself in the movie somehow so he just narrates actions that the characters are doing onscreen as they're doing them.
I also have to disagree with Gordon Freeman being an effective silent protagonist because it makes him feel like he's a pushover. People just tell you what to do and you do it. No questions asked, no requests for clarification, no asking what's been going on since you've been away after the original Half-Life, nothing. The silent protagonist works in Portal because for 95% of the game you aren't interacting with anyone. Glados is just a voice coming over some speakers and you have no way of talking back. It works because it's realistic.
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Comment by Stach on April 3, 2011 at 7:56pm
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Also, I'm interested to hear your thoughts on silent protagonists, because I think Gordon Freeman is really effective, and the argument about having a silent protagonist or a fully characterized one are very interesting.
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Comment by Stach on April 3, 2011 at 7:50pm
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I also see a correlation between cutscenes in video games, and voice-over narration in movies. A lot of people have a tendency to dislike voice-overs in film, because it can seem overbearing, trying to force-feed you information; like you said, people see as a crutch, a lazy way of giving plot and information, and begs the question, why couldn't you work this information more naturally into the movie?
I see cutscenes as more of a reality of video games than a nuisance. But if they're used too much, than they make you say, "I wanted to play a video game, not watch a movie." The player is there for the gameplay.
I think the bottom line for me is that cutscenes are fine for the sake of story when they're not overused, but if you can effectively integrate story into the game without cutscene, that's more impressive.
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Comment by We Have To Go Back on April 3, 2011 at 5:37pm -
I actually love the cutscenes in the Metal Gear Solid series, especially 4. To me, they are some of the most impressive cinematics in any videogame, given that they do such an excellent job of giving substance to the gameplay. Granted, the story can get convoluted, but they're still well done. The best example would be the "crawling" scene that integrates the cinematic feel with minimal gameplay (avoiding details to keep away from spoilers).
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