Cinematics and Tutorials in the gaming industry - A step too far?

[KaiRai]

So I've recently picked up The Order:1886. I have to say as a game, it's a bit....Hmmmm. But I'm only an hour or two in so I'll see how that pans out.

My main concern is, it was probably about 40 minutes or so before I could PLAY the game. There was a lengthy tutorial which was set aside by numerous unskippable cutscenes. I'd appreciate the story input of it, but we were never given a character name for the guy, nor any other information, about any of it really. Anyway, I'm waffling. I've noticed Need for Speed: Rivals did a similar thing (Pick your side! KIDDING. Play them both.)

The point I'm getting at here is, are cutscenes taking that little step too far? They no longer seem to be about supporting the storyline, and it not really making a difference if you just want to get on and play. They seem by and large compulsary, but is it getting out of hand? At least for me, they strip the fun away, because I'm sat there mashing buttons trying to get round these so I can actually play the game.

Thoughts?

 

[Guffe]

Depends a lot. I mean dialougue and stuff is cool, but some games, as you said, take too much time!

One game I liked the cinematics a lot in, even if they were almost 5 minutes at times, was Xenoblade Chronicles fight scenes. When playing some boss fights and first trying to figure out what I was supposed to do and then beating the shit out of him/her in 15 minutes until the health drops enough for the cinematic to start. And then the cinematic is almost as good as any fight in any good anime, then I don't mind the ending of the fight being a bit longer

Alos, Blizzard and cinematics, I could watch their games!

 

[L. Declis]

I play Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy. More story is never an issue for me.

That said, Tutorials. Nothing annoys me more than spending half an hour replaying a game and being told how to walk. No progression until you look up and down, left and right.

I like how Gears did it. Do you want to go down the tutorial way, or would you rather take the awesome fun way and skip the tutorial? Your choice.

 

[Aerosteam]

Allow me to summarise it for you: The Order: 1886 is a shitty game.

The ability to skip tutorials and cutscenes seems like a fucking godsend nowadays, it's always welcome.

 

[Evonisia]

I play Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy. More story is never an issue for me.

That said, Tutorials. Nothing annoys me more than spending half an hour replaying a game and being told how to walk. No progression until you look up and down, left and right.

I like how Gears did it. Do you want to go down the tutorial way, or would you rather take the awesome fun way and skip the tutorial? Your choice.

And all of the Gears games after the first one let you skip the radio chatting segments which are basically gameplay cutscenes. Press back and Marcus just abruptly shouts "enough!", and it's brilliant.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I like Beyond Good & Evil's idea of tutorials, which is: fuck them, here's a boss.

 

[sXeth]

I dunno, I'd rather a cutscene then some of the expositional junk games get into nowadays.

The ever-classic "Not a cutscene, you can walk and stuff, but we'll spout dialogue at you in the meanwhile (I believe this was pioneered by Half-Life, though it was better done in #1 then later on) where you end up teabagging the NPC and doing crab-dances while waiting for them to shut up.

The "Radar Investigation" - Assassins Creed, Batman, new Witcher, countless other titles seem to like this one. You of course, are givn complete control over your character. Simply so you can turn on whatever your magic vision is called, and linearly click on glowing items of interest to release exposition until complete.

The "Audiolog" - Exposition dumped into an audio format, presented externally. Bioshock is the leader here, though it at least let you move along while listening to the chatter. The written format tends to get worse, though most keep that for optional lore over critical info now.

I mean, I gave Half-life some flak at the start there, but at least it tended to get its exposition done without disrupting the flow of the game overmuch (after the start, anyways). Granted, you could also miss some of the background/side events if you weren't keeping your eye on the ball. Generally though, I'd rather just watch the cutscene then be put through some weird busy work, or given the false illusion of control just because my buttons work.

 

[G00N3R7883]

I think, as with most game mechanics, there is a right way and a wrong way to implement them. And much of it will depend on the player's personal preferences. Having never played The Order 1886, I can only talk about cutscenes in general.

The story is an important part of a game for me, so overall I do like cutscenes. I actually prefer having no gameplay input - or at the most, Mass Effect style dialogue choices - while the important story developments are happening. I've played lots of games where the story happens while you're playing, for example an NPC will give you important information (typically over some kind of radio or other long range communication device) while you're in the middle of combat, and I'm always like "STFU until I've secured the area. I can't concentrate on what you're telling me, because I'm busy trying to not die". In that kind of situation, ultimately I don't understand the story so I lose interest.

On the other hand, sometimes cutscenes can be too long, even for someone like me. The very start of the game can be tricky to find a good balance. The developers need to give alot of information to the player, but its true that sometimes you just want to get a feel for the game. Especially playing on PC, the first things I want to do are rebind my keys and tweak my graphics options, test those out, tweak some more until it feels good. I've played a couple of games (Resident Evil 6 comes to mind) where there was gameplay and/or cutscenes before you're even given access to the main menu. On the other end of the scale, some games (Transistor) drop you straight in without any idea what is happening, which can leave the player confused and uninterested.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

I do enjoy good cutscenes. I really started appreciating them around the time I would finish a faction of Warcraft 3, and the expansion, I thought the animation and modelling in them were fantastic, and a fitting reward for getting through that species or race. But I agree they can get out of hand.

Metal Gear Solid games were always a bit of a push for me, I really enjoyed playing them but found the cutscenes start to take away the gaming part. I mean, it was supplemented by a fantastic story, and I'd read the manga/watch the anime in a blink of an eye, but I'm here to play games, man, and this is getting beyond a joke. It took away from the 'playing' part itself when you feel like you're just doing your minor bit which is to get Snake over to the next part without getting detected or killed so the rest of the story can play out. The only parts which made me feel relevant were the boss fights.

Skippable cutscenes are crucial for replay(ings?) of games. I don't cry foul if it's my first time through. However I appreciate skippable dialogue though, if it seems characters are waffling a bit too much.

From what I've heard about the Order, is it's practically a prologue of a game in itself anyway, so taking up that limited time with lengthy cutscenes is pretty much a crime.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Tutorials are always important but yeah how they are handled is also key. Some games can get away with a lot of the game being a tutorial i.e Portal others cant i.e FFXIII its all about pace and the experience.

Not all tutorials need to be in the main game and can be sectioned off in other parts or simply just be a screen dump of info like a board game saying yup these are the rules get on with it but most require a bit more than that.

As for cutscenes I play for the experience if they add to that experience I have no problem even if it means the game is basically a film and in many cases I feel FMV cutscenes actually draw me in more rather than me just sitting there watching the character model in game spouting dialog without me being able to do anything. But that to is ok if what they are saying is interesting.

Some games I have actually been looking forward to the next cutscenes than I was the game parts even if I enjoyed the game. The only time I thought it went to far out of whack for me was with MGS3 mainly because I did not find the cutscenes or story that interesting. I didnt think they were awful but just not worthy of the time they were given but if I did like them I would have had no problem.

If the game leaves me satisfied I dont care how it did it whether it was mostly just reading text, watching cinematics, gameplay, a combination of all of them or some other way doesnt matter to me, just as long as I feel it was agood experience in relation to the amount I paid and time I spent.

 

[Halla Burrica]

I don't have a very strong opinion on cutscenes, they work well when they do, and can be annoying when they don't. But I do absolutely think tutorials are a positive thing that should always be included (though they should keep it simple and not drag on with them). A lot of this comes from when I played a digital version of Fallout 2, that didn't have any tutorial or even something telling me what the controls are. Which caused me to spend around half an hour mashing keys before I got a good grip on how the game was supposed to work.

 

[Lodgem]

I like the idea of tutorials that are completely separate from the main game. I haven't seen much of that lately. With a separate tutorial you could learn the controls once if you wish, but then just drop straight into the game when you reply. While designing an enjoyable tutorial can be hard, you have to do that anyway if you are going to add it to the beginning of the game. Much better to have a separate tutorial that doesn't directly relate to the plot so you can drop the player straight into the gameplay without worrying if they know what the controls are.

As far as cutscenes go, they can be very good but I think some games take them too far. A good cutscene will push the plot forward and will be enjoyable to watch. Too long, however, and I start thinking "This is supposed to be a game, not a movie".

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I haven't played a new campaign in some time now, but honestly I think tutorials are a necessary evil. I'm the kind of guy who would finish a game before learning that there's a dodge or counter mechanic.

Cinematics though? God,when I played Mass Effect 2, I had to sit through maybe an hour of cinematics and walking segments because my characters just looked too shit.

 

[CritialGaming]

It used to be, that a cinematic was a reward used to show off a cool story point or just cool stuff to reward players. For Example the cinematics in Final Fantasy 7 or when each character had a movie ending in something like the first 3 Tekken games.

Now cinematics have jumpped off the end of the sword to be more like mini movies, or used to show off how cool the graphics can get. Very few games used them as rewards and instead they are just expected pieces of the game. Because of the oversaturation of cinematics in games, they don't feel as cool as they used to.

But that's just me.

 

[Bellvedere]

Yeah. I like it when cinematics (and any dialogues) have subtitles and you can skip to the next line, so I can read and keep clicking to get through them in a reasonable amount of time rather than waiting forever to listen to an npc to finish or have no idea what's going on. I can appreciate a good story in my games but I also want to play at some point.

 

[DementedSheep]

Haven't played it but isn't The Order notorious for have very little actual game-play and relying on QTE's? It' certainly far more cut-scenes heavy than is usual.

It might just be the games I'm playing but I haven't had much issue with too many/ too long cut-scenes. The only game I can think of that I played recently where I thought there were too many cut-scenes was Tomb Raider. I am use to playing dialogue heavy rpgs though so my tolerance for this sort of thing is probably higher than a lot of other gamers.
I appreciate it when you have the option skip forward a line if you read faster than the dialogue is spoken and there is no excuse for making cut scenes unskipable. It is always annoying.

 

[Axelotus07]

I firmly believe that tutorials should be optional and cutscenes should be skippable. But, as stated by others already, proper integration is key.

Poorly executed tutorials can really make or break the experience for me. When they are too lengthy and forced, I get easily flustered, especially when I'm already seasoned at the game. I really like how Xenosaga: Episode I did it by giving you the option to skip the tutorial of game mechanics entirely. Also, the cutscenes could be paused and skipped, giving you a warning beforehand about how the cinematic contains clues vital to story progression. This feature is fantastic for those who are tempted to skip over things when they are unsure if it will be iimportant or not.

I feel like a lot of current games are taking the "forced" approach, which might explain why instruction manuals keep getting thinner.

 

[KaiRai]

A very mixed discussion indeed! I agree with most though, unskippable cutscenes are most definitely a sin!

 

[Mutant1988]

I can safely tell any developer that if they put a long unskippable tutorial in their game or have half the content in the game be an extended tutorial, then it's unlikely that I'll ever buy their game - Or if I did, I did not do so at full price and would likely never replay it.

As for cutscenes - If you make them unskippable, then you're a bad game designer. Again, because it hurts the replayability of the game. If I've already taken part of the plot once, I want it out of the way so that I can get on with the gameplay - Because that's why I play video games.

And often they seem to only be there to pad out the play time.

Yeah. I like it when cinematics (and any dialogues) have subtitles and you can skip to the next line, so I can read and keep clicking to get through them in a reasonable amount of time rather than waiting forever to listen to an npc to finish or have no idea what's going on. I can appreciate a good story in my games but I also want to play at some point.

That's one of the reasons why I really like text based dialogues, like those in many visual novels. If I read faster than the actors talk, I can move forward right away and enjoy more of the story and won't have to suffer minutes of bad acting and cinematography that's only there to look cool in trailers.