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Cutscenes
Jinnigan
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I have been playing more RPGs lately, which of course leads to cutscenes. Specifically, the cutscenes in NWN2. Actually, also the cutscenes in KotOR2. And Fable.
The voice acting is fine, but the actual cuts, random shots of people standing around, it's... well, meh.
All I am saying is that I would enjoy cutscenes a lot more if someone with a more cinematic eye had directed them.
What do you think?
Also, because I don't own any consoles, feel free to bring up any games that you felt had awesome cutscenes.
The voice acting is fine, but the actual cuts, random shots of people standing around, it's... well, meh.
All I am saying is that I would enjoy cutscenes a lot more if someone with a more cinematic eye had directed them.
What do you think?
Also, because I don't own any consoles, feel free to bring up any games that you felt had awesome cutscenes.
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Much as I dislike a lot of what Square do, they, too, can usually... infuse a game with something of the cinematic which escapes many other developers. I just finished Dawn of Mana on import and though I understood barely a word of the story the visual flair in the cutscenes (while admittedly not way original or anything) had me captivated.
Read my book. (It has a robot in it.)
Final Fantasy games as well (seriously, FFVIII has some of the most stunning FMV moments ever, even to this day).
Twilight Princess has some awesome scenes, as do most Zeldas.
[spoiler:a6310d5014]Pulling out the Master Sword has never been so beautiful[/spoiler:a6310d5014].
And too many cut scenes ruin a game. Dirge of Cerberus is a prime example, spurts of aciton between cutscenes.
MGS2 has som pretty long cutscenes, but they were also well done. But they definately could have been better if they were a bit shorter. I remain playing it for the first time, and my parents called me for dinner, but I was all like "i'm waiting for a point to pause!"
my chicken was cold =\
But yeah, usually it's all the relevant characters standing in a circle doing the same "talk" animation while the camera slowly rotates in "for effect."
Most 3D JRPGs have above average cutscenes when compared to American RPG cutscenes. From my experience, anyway.
Read my book. (It has a robot in it.)
Also, those guys do amazing texture work. The same guys did the textures for FFXII, and it shows.
Films, tv and theatre and one could probably argue graphic novels do a pretty neat job of it.
I dunno, cutscenes can be a mixed bag.
Uh, there's a bit of a difference between watching people act things out, and/or having constantly changing pictures to accompany things and a pair of talking heads.
For some reason.
"Everyone who is capable of logical thought should be able to see why you shouldn't sell lifetime subscriptions to an MMO. Cell phone companies and drug dealers don't offer lifetime subscriptions either, guess why?" - Mugaaz
Yeah, it's called laziness and complacency.
Read my book. (It has a robot in it.)
Tch. Above and beyond that. :P
Dirge also made the huge mistake of letting the character do far more amazing things in cutscenes than he can ever do in-game.
猿も木から落ちる
No. No, seriously, there is nothing above and beyond that. Every god damned reason every single developer ever brings up boils down to laziness and complacency. Cutscenes do not, in and of themselves, preclude the story in a videogame being any good. The ways in which story has, up to this point, been integrated with gameplay could certainly be bettered. I'm not arguing against that. But none of them are an excuse for why the writing just fucking sucks.
And
Christ, knew I'd forgotten someone. I don't actually think their writing is that great, but even when it's not their cutscenes are always fun to watch.
And Oddworld Inhabitants'. Roll on the movie, I say - Munch was an average game at best but I do regret never finishing it, if only because it meant I didn't get to see all the CG sequences.
Read my book. (It has a robot in it.)
Despite your opinion of their content, the cutscenes in FFXII are a good example of cutscene direction. People move about realistically, make appropriate gestures and use different stances to convey attitude.
And also their composition suggests the director has at least a passing familiarity with how someone would put together such a scene using live actors and cameras in order for it to come across as visually interesting.
Whereas they still don't in an awful lot of other videogames, basically.
Read my book. (It has a robot in it.)
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire,
So there's an example of when well-done cutscenes don't necessarily equate a good story.
Eh, I still haven't finished FF XII, but what I've seen so far has been better by far than every other game in the franchise. Still, it is a fair point. I'm sure if I pick up Dawn of Mana in English I'll find out the story's some childish, embarrassing hokum I'll wish I'd never bothered to decipher, but even with that in mind it's hard to imagine not being wowed by the direction.
Oh, you just meant in-engine? :? Still, I would actually rate Blizzard's in-engine stuff pretty highly. Again, not great, but I thought Warcraft III (what I played of it) did a surprisingly good job with such primitive materials.
Read my book. (It has a robot in it.)
I think WarIII's were okay, especially given the tools available - but that's largely because they were there only to establish plot, not character development/whathaveyou.
On the other hand, a cutscene in the middle of running through this huge dungeon while you're all tensed up and ready for action just ruins things a bit. It's all a matter of knowing when to use one and when not to. Many games don't even need them at all, but some make really excellent use of them and they're a very potentially rewarding tool to use in gaming.
I don't think the cutscene as a design tool is anything like as dead as some developers like to make out, certainly. Until full 360 wraparound VR complete with all five senses is a reality you'll always have something hindering your suspension of disbelief and I think people rejecting cutscenes does quite often tie in to their worshipping of this ephemeral idea of "playing to videogames' unique strengths" and other such nonsense. Games shouldn't be movies shouldn't be books shouldn't be whatever - all I know is, I'm greatly enjoying the cutscenes in FF XII so far and I can't immediately think of any other way to communicate what they communicate with 100% effectiveness, so I'm prepared to cut Square some considerable slack and not instantly rant on about anachronism anachronism olololo etc., etc.
Read my book. (It has a robot in it.)
The cutscene towards the end where the whole crew parachutes from the airship at night (I think they were going for Hojo) remains one of my favorite in-game cutscenes ever.
When you start gimped as all hell, then of course you're going to end up with 99% horrible writing. "Okay, let's write something as epic as... say... Lord of the Rings. You have 20 different sprites, 5 faces per sprite and about 30 different poses. Oh, and everything else must be communicated via dialogue."
Whether the egg of shitty writing or the chicken of a shitty medium to write in came first is immaterial. Both are pretty damning factors. Of course they're overcomable. The Japanese Visual Novel scene is great proof of that, but those are far more immersed in the first person perspective where they are free to write it exactly as if it was a novel. There are many that aren't though, so I'll concede that point. For the stuff people are mostly complaining about though, it's 3rd person told almost completely through dialogue and some very VERY rudimentary puppetry. I expect about the same level of emotion and empathic display from that kind of medium as I do from, say, Muppets.
I have no clue what you're talking about. Since when were videogames ever limited to a couple of talking heads? And besides, nothing wrong with a couple of talking heads when it comes to a story. I've seen some damn good monologues in my time, and that's just one talking head.
Dead Rising perfected the cheesy awesomeness from the cutscenes in RE4.
A few of the cutscenes in Gears of War are really great. Especially the one right before you encounter the Beserker.
It's called lack of motivation. It's hard to see the need to hire quality writers when you're currently sunk up to your eyeballs in the cash from Final Fantasy 36 or Halo 4.
As long as games continue to sell with shit storylines and dialogue, game companies will keep making games with shit storylines and dialogue. Competition would be really, really good in this respect - like independent games studios could make and release well written but simply produced games for 1/10,000th the cost of big studio titles (ala Hollywood).
Also, Nintendo should keep the skipping mechanism for all their future games.
Oh, that was sort of included in my point. Sorry if that wasn't made clear. Laziness and complacency, as in "we keep raking in the money from x, y and z, why do we need to change anything?"
Aroduc - uh huh. I quite like you (or your board personality, anyway); I respect or am at least greatly interested in your opinion on a whole lot of things... but you don't half talk a good deal of nonsense on a great many others.
So sorry, that is not an excuse for terrible writing, dialogue, complete lack of anything but the most basic characterisation and everything else. Try again. Even if it were (and it's not), it's still no excuse for the observation every single line could have been done countless orders of magnitude better. Every bit of writing I saw in what I played of Xenogears was appalling and could have been substantially improved by just about anyone in my Creative Writing class - even if, as you seem to insist (for some... mysterious reason) they couldn't have told the story any differently with the materials they had at the time.
A bad workman blames his tools... there's a great deal of truth in that, like so many cliched aphorisms. "Shitty medium to write in"... don't even start.
Read my book. (It has a robot in it.)