Cutscenes that made games worse for you.

[Zrahni]

I actually think warcraft 3 takes the cake. All of the big fights (thrall and gromm v mannoroth for one, arthas vs iliadan for another) are short and not very spectacular, like one blocked blow then a big boom

Personally i found these extremly exciting.

 

[CTU_Agent24]

Here comes yet another mention of Metal Gear Solid...

The MGS series has some of the worst storytelling in gaming history, and that's saying something. Sure, Resident Evil games have awful dialogue and plots that actually feel like they're written by a brainless zombie, but at least RE keeps it brief.

Metal Gear cutscenes are painful. I'm not going to go into detail because, like 75% of the "plot" in these games, it's unnecessary. The best example I can give is the cutscenes and codec calls that precede the final boss fight. Altogether they're well over 20 minutes long. That's ridiculous. It's one thing to have a cutscene last so long that the gamer decides to set the controller down for a few minutes, it's another when the gamer can cook dinner during a cutscene.

Lol, personal opinion.
Seeing as how it is one of the Play Stations most successful you couldn't say everyone agrees with you

Success doesn't mean it has a good or even well told story, look up the Twilight novels if you need proof of that. The gameplay in the Metal Gear series is still great (I've bought nine of the games) I'm just saying it's horribly written. It ignores many of the rules of good story telling, rules that most writers should learn before they've gotten as for as Kojima has. How is that just my personal opinion?

Pick a random fanfic from fanfiction.net, make sure it's one of those horribly written and badly spelled fics (seriously, you have a 50/50 chance of pulling one randomly). While you'll find reviewers on the site who actually liked the author's work, that doesn't mean it was good or well written. Would you consider that a difference of personal opinion?

It's personal opinion because it's YOUR belief that MGS is not good at story telling.
MGS does not follow YOUR rules of what good story telling should be, not everyone agrees with you.
I like MGS story telling, their long cut scenes; correct, but I don't mind that. In my opinion MGS has a great story and is presented in a superb fassion.
Just because you do not like the method of story telling, you can not parade that everyone must be in agreement with you, and games MUST follow a certin method of story telling.

I've never played Half Life 2, but apparently their are no cutscenes and the player has to actively seek out the story, that is an entirely different method of story telling no used in games before. Would you say that that is bad story telling just because it is different?

Your example confirms my point. If i read a review that is filled with spelling mistakes, no you can not say that it is well written, but that is not opinion, it is fact and no one would disagree. I could still think the review's context and meaning were great minus the spelling, that fine, that is opinion. But the actually grammer and spelling, no one would dispute that it is bad.

When you compare this to MGS story telling that is YOUR opinion that you do not enjoy it as it does not follow your model of good story telling, other people do. You can not impose your opinion on others who disagree. That is a difference of opinion.
(my bad, that was kinda longer then i wanted)

 

[CTU_Agent24]

*snip*

No no no, MGS is bad because it doesn't follow certain conventions of good storytelling. Not my conventions, basic writing conventions. I know it goes against several things I learned in English and creative writing classes. Writing isn't just about spelling and grammar, there are other rules about the structure of a story and Hideo Kojima seems hell-bent on defying every last one of them. Who came up with these rules? I don't know, but the majority of successful writers follow them, and who are we to argue with them?

Also, Half-Life 2 does have cutscenes, they just let you control the protagonist in a confined room while they play. Why Valve fans call this revolutionary, I'll never know. HL2 doesn't have bad story telling. The dialog is brief, it gets the point across and there aren't lengthy exposition scenes that take anywhere from 10-20 minutes.

Cutscenes are a fine way to add story and depth to a game, what they don't add is immersion. The longer you sit still and watch a cutscene, the more you're taken out of the experience. The most a cutscene should last is five minutes (yes that's my opinion, shut up), any longer and the main focus of the game isn't on the gameplay, it's on the story.

And when did I ever say that everyone "must be in agreement" with me? I know full well the Metal Gear fanboys are still going to hold up the series as one of the best written things of all time - I know they're wrong, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

This is going to be my final word on the subject as I can kind of tell from your last post I'm not going to convince you of anything and this thread has seen enough of this argument. But if you want to continue this, send me a PM. One thing though, if you're going to continue this discussion you have to open with a very good reason why a ninja from NASA isn't poor writing. Alternately, if you want to get back at me for hating on your favorite piece of video game storytelling and want to crucify mine, I particularly like the Silent Hill series.

Ok, clearly we need a 3rd party here.
Can someone else way into this debate with their opinion please?
(It's regard the above two posts)