Over at RPG Codex, there is a very good article by Role-Player on how the increasing use of cutscenes is ruining gameplay experience.
He maintains that cutscenes interfere with the flow of the game, often make nonsense of player choices and actions, and turn the player into more of a passive observer than an active participant in the story.
He cites several games to prove his points, although he doesn’t mention one of the worst, namely Neverwinter Nights 2. This game is so overloaded with cutscenes, almost the only real player action is heading into the next combat.
A friend of mine, who ordinarily plays a CRPG through several times, did this one only once. She said she wanted “to play a game, not watch a movie”. That about sums it up; NWN2 is more a movie than a game.
However, there was one “feature” that Role-Player didn’t mention: the cutscene that shows “what’s happening elsewhere”. Why are such scenes being shown to the player?
In NWN2, we look in on conversations or activities being conducted by various hostile factions. The player is not present, spying on enemies. Therefore, the player should not be seeing or hearing these things.
This technique is common in movies, but there we are just passively watching a story unfold. It has no place in a game, unless the player has some magical means of spying on enemies.
There is a lot of blather about “immersion” in games, but walking out the town gate and suddenly being treated to a conversation between Black Garius and his underlings destroys any feeling of immersion.
Of course, NWN2 didn’t have much of an “immersion factor” to begin with. And any it may have had disappears early under the weight of excessive scripting.
Much the same can be said for Hordes Of The Underdark, which also suffered from overuse of cutscenes, including “what’s happening elsewhere”. It makes you wonder if the story is about the player-character, or if the player-character is being treated more like an NPC observer.
That doesn’t mean cutscenes have no place in a game. They can be useful as introductory sequences. And certainly, at the end, a cutscene of Foozle’s death throes can be very satisfying.
Between those two points, however, cutscenes need to be used with a very sparing hand. There are two main reasons for this: (a) a game is not a movie, nor should it be; (b) excessive cutscenes reduce the replayability of a game.
I agree with Role-Player: designers are losing sight of gameplay and fun in their eagerness to “tell a story”, which too often turns out to be a story that hardly needs a player-character, or any real interaction beyond fighting. We can only hope that developers will reign in the “virtuoso coding” and remember that games are meant to be played, not watched.
After Presto mentioned this article and I read it yesterday, the very same thing struck me, Scorpia. Cutscenes that show things the PC couldn’t (and shouldn’t) know really break immersion and the role-play.
Good article overall, though long. It would be better if it focused on the main topic instead of going scattershot after all the other things the author didn’t like about CRPGs (sandbox vs “on rails”, etc.). But it’s certainly worth reading.
Scorpia,
I disagree with you to a point.
In our old friend, Diablo 2, cutscenes were used to show a journey from one act to the next. And you could hit Esc to not see these cutscenes at all. This is the way that cutscenes should be used.
Presto, an admirable use of “sparing hand” cutscenes. And of course, the intelligent option to hit esc and bypass them.
Coyote, yeah, he does wander a bit, and I think the article could have been edited better so the paragraphs aren’t quite so long. But definitely worth ready…especially by developers!
I guess I am in the opposite camp. If done right, cutscenes can add a lot to the story. I remember in Wing Commander or Crusader No Remorse/No Regret wanting to get through the level just to see the next cutscene to find out how the story progressed. I just started playing the new Command and Conquer 3 on Thursday and enjoy how they progress the story with the way they do the cutscenes such as breaking news reports and mission briefings. C&C3 is supposed to have 90 minutes of live video cutscenes.
On the other hand, I gave up after a day on Final Fantasy X. I felt like I was playing a movie, not a game. The worst part was they were not skippable so you had no choice but to sit through them.
I don’t think we’re in disagreement, Xian. It’s all in how the cutscenes are used.
For example, let’s say your character has arrived at the big city where the Emperor is parading down the main street. A cutscene here might handle it two ways.
Good: the cutscene shows the pageant passing, crowds cheering, and then as the Emperor gets near to your character’s location everyone starts bowing. The Emperor looks towards you, the cutscene ends, and you’re given a chance to bow with the others, run away (for whatever reason), stand with defiance, etc.
Bad: Same thing except the cutscene goes on after the Emperor looks at you, it shows that you do not bow, and the Emperor has guards arrest you.
The first can enhance the immersion. The second takes role-play out of the player’s hands entirely. NWN2 does a lot of the second type, though not often so blatantly.
Scorpia,
I thought we all play games to PLAY games. Not to watch movies/cutscenes.
Can you imagine a strategy game or the Sims where you just WATCH the action and can’t do anything???
Some fun.
Can you spell b-o-r-i-n-g????
I enjoy cutscenes when they are intelligently used to enhance game experience (such as a cutscene of a speech someone’s giving, or an event occurring which you can see – or which you’re reading about, etc).
I think the ones in NWN2 were put there because otherwise a lot of the things that happened simply wouldn’t make sense. Of course, if the game was designed better there wouldn’t be the need for that much clarification, especially of the ESP type that NWN2 had. How could we know what Garius and his minions were talking about? We couldn’t.
If done well, cinematic touches like cut scenes can add to a game’s enjoyment, but all too often they’re simply a shortcut to force things to happen. Ick.
If I want to watch a movie, I would rent/buy Mary Poppins or The Ten Commandments or Scorpia Goes to Washington.
I really don’t care for cutscenes because they interrupt gameflow.
Since I’m really not into the “immersion” thing, the cutscenes don’t really bother me in that way.
I play a game because it is game, not because I want to feel like I’m there.
Mark
Hey Loki V. T.
You meam you don’t play RPGs in order to roleplay??
That’s the whole point of RPGs: To play a role and feel like you’re there (ie TOTAL IMMERSION).
To me a story in a game is important. Without a story, there is no purpose other than to complete a level, so I might as well be playing a twitch game. I play a game to be entertained, and part of that entertainment isn’t always the gameplay itself.
I guess it comes down to the question of how do you best progress the story in a game? Cutscenes are only one method. Interaction with NPCs would probably be the best method in my opinion, but that’s not always possible. For instance, I really liked the way the story played out in System Shock, where the audio message logs added to the rising level of suspense, a sort of non-visual cut scene. In that case there weren’t any NPCs to interact with since the entire space station was dead.
My take is the fewer the better when it comes to cut scenes. I don’t mind a opening cut scene or an endgame cutscene, I hate all others. Wing Commander 4, 5, & 6 broke me forever of wanting to see cut scenes. I watch them once and don’t ever watch them again. But I also have an uncanny recall ability with books and movies that makes it hard to read or watch movie more than once without being bored – even if I haven’t seen the movie in 10 years.
Presto
As I’ve posted before, I do not see myself as an actor playing the main protaganist in an CRPG, but as the director of the character.
I play a CRPG for what it is – a game. I’ve never played for immersion. Get me a holodeck and we’ll see.
For what it’s worth, I’ve been playing CRPGs since the early ’80s and have played lots of them – from the outside looking in.
Mark