NPCs dying in cutscenes

[Baraka444]

I just bought Dead to Rights Retribution (I'm not proud I just need something to tide me over until Mortal Kombat comes out). I start playing through the first couple of levels and, preditably, my father is brutally murdered before my eyes. My problem? He died from a single gun shot wound to the chest. In the previous level we had just survived a siege situation for 3 minutes where me, my father and my dog survived multiple gunshot wounds.

I really hate this cutscene logic where an NPC is an indestructable bullet magnet in game, but the second it goes into a cutscene that doesn't apply anymore. The fleeing enemies fire a single shot that hits your partner/father/friend and in their dying breaths they give you a mission to follow for the next couple of levels. It's a lazy method of story telling which works in movies and books because they don't get shot until it is plot convenient, however in game NPCs get shot all the time, I get shot all the time, so why does the magic stop in a cutscene?

Perhaps the worst offenders are the JRPGs with a pheonix down or similar ressurection spells used during combat. What happens when the cutscene starts, do all the mages take a cigarette break?

I guess my argument is, please stop using this as a way of advancing the story. I understand that sometimes characters have to die to make the story more dramatic, like Nihlus in Mass Effect, but a single pistol bullet should not be enough for someone who can man up to a shotgun blast to the face.

Which ever company finds a solution, I will reward you with game sales.

 

[Eldarion]

Are you saying npcs should lose all their health in a cut-scene with no player input or that npcs should instagib a character that is supposed to die? Either that or, NPCs only die when they run out of health during gameplay. But then the writers have to come up with every possible way for them to die in every level in order to keep the story moving. All in all, instant cut scene death seems like the simplest solution. After all, games don't need to be realistic during gameplay do they?

 

[PlasmaFrog]

You forgot to mention Cut-Scene Dante.

That guy can easily take about ten scythes through every part of his body, yet die from a single love tap in Dante Must Die mode. Cut-scene Dante is significantly more powerful than game-play Dante due to the fact that it needs to justify his level of power, yet keep both realities on the same railing. I'd like to refer to it as a sub-real.

 

[loc978]

Honestly, I'm pretty well with the OP here. Striving for Hollywoodesque "gritty realism" in a game's storyline is pretty pointless when every character is a bullet sponge during gameplay. That sort of thing is pretty immersion-breaking for me, too.
I say choose one: either make it realistic to the point that you take wounds in gameplay the way a player did in the original Rainbow Six, or fill those cutscenes with gratuitous bullet-sponging before character death can be achieved. At least there would be a little fourth-wall-breaking comedy in it for the latter bit.

 

[razelas]

It's the difference between a cutscene and gameplay. Sorry, sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the sake of the game. It's a fact of gaming.

No, that's called lazy/sloppy design. When did consistency become something that could be "sacrificed"? And what exactly is it being sacrificed for?

 

[Freechoice]

It's the difference between a cutscene and gameplay. Sorry, sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the sake of the game. It's a fact of gaming.

No, that's called lazy/sloppy design. When did consistency become something that could be "sacrificed"? And what exactly is it being sacrificed for?

No, that's called practicality. If an NPC dies in the wrong place, it loses meaning. Imagine if you lost a squad member in Mass Effect every time they went down. Medi-gel certainly doesn't work if they get killed in the cutscenes and somehow, the deaths are still meaningful if nonsensical. Not everything can be Fire Emblem.

The purpose of a cutscene is to draw importance to a character or an action. Having things happen while the player is still in control of the camera reduces the impact.

 

[grumbel]

It's the classic clash between gameplay and cutscene. It happens not only when NPC die that it can be annoying, but also something simple as seeing a character jumping over a fence, when that same fence in gameplay would have been an unsurmountable wall due to a lack of a jump button.

The solutions are of course plentyfull. Having consistent world rules of course being by far the most important one. In a Sci-Fi setting the character could simply have a shield that protects him, that is then disabled in the cutscene before his death. In a fantasy setting the same could be done with a protection spell or the weapons against which you fight could simply not be deadly to begin with, which might of course require a change of setting (see Bully for example, no deadly weapons in that game).

Another more broader solution would simply be to write a story that doesn't depend on having the evil guy portrait his evilness by killing an NPC. I am pretty damn sick of it, as how often its used in movies, games and whatever. Either make it obvious by other means how evil he is or simply switch to something classic, Princess Peach never got murdered, but getting captured provided plenty of need to chase Bowser down. Or how about a story where you are not fighting a generic evil dude in the first place.

In essence to many games still try to shoehorn the storytelling they learned from movies into game mechanics that work completely different.

 

[k7avenger]

It's the difference between a cutscene and gameplay. Sorry, sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the sake of the game. It's a fact of gaming.

No, that's called lazy/sloppy design. When did consistency become something that could be "sacrificed"? And what exactly is it being sacrificed for?

No, that's called practicality. If an NPC dies in the wrong place, it loses meaning. Imagine if you lost a squad member in Mass Effect every time they went down. Medi-gel certainly doesn't work if they get killed in the cutscenes and somehow, the deaths are still meaningful if nonsensical. Not everything can be Fire Emblem.

The purpose of a cutscene is to draw importance to a character or an action. Having things happen while the player is still in control of the camera reduces the impact.

Close, but not quite. In Mass Effect, they LEFT THEIR COVER ON THEIR OWN to shoot an enemy who was busy shooting in their general direction. They'd get hit 3 times or so and start screaming "heal me!" Thats called retarded AI or sloppy design if you will.

If the cut scene had shown, for example, the cumulative effects of him being shot multiple times, that would be one thing, but alas, it's not so.

 

[Euhan01]

Could change the way in which there killed? IE something that would kill them in that doesn't in gameplay (posion or say falling miles or say having there head chopped of) rather than a 'pathethic' bullet.

 

[Freechoice]

It's the difference between a cutscene and gameplay. Sorry, sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the sake of the game. It's a fact of gaming.

No, that's called lazy/sloppy design. When did consistency become something that could be "sacrificed"? And what exactly is it being sacrificed for?

No, that's called practicality. If an NPC dies in the wrong place, it loses meaning. Imagine if you lost a squad member in Mass Effect every time they went down. Medi-gel certainly doesn't work if they get killed in the cutscenes and somehow, the deaths are still meaningful if nonsensical. Not everything can be Fire Emblem.

The purpose of a cutscene is to draw importance to a character or an action. Having things happen while the player is still in control of the camera reduces the impact.

Close, but not quite. In Mass Effect, they LEFT THEIR COVER ON THEIR OWN to shoot an enemy who was busy shooting in their general direction. They'd get hit 3 times or so and start screaming "heal me!" Thats called retarded AI or sloppy design if you will.

If the cut scene had shown, for example, the cumulative effects of him being shot multiple times, that would be one thing, but alas, it's not so.

AI will be retarded. That's not what's being addressed here. What I am addressing is practical solutions. Imagine if Bioware had to add in extra texture work and animation to EVERY model since anyone could lead the defensive team. It doesn't sound like much, but that kind of extra work takes more time and more money for an effect that no one really cares about.

Really, the OP (I can't believe I necro'd this thread, dammit) is just complaining about gameplay and story segregation that needs to be there or realism would fuck up everything. Uncharted works under the pretense that Drake's health is more a measurement of his luck than his health. From a narrative standpoint, the assumption is that friendly NPC's and the PC doesn't get shot or doesn't get shot a lot.

It's just an acceptable piece of fridge logic because you're not supposed to think about it too hard. Same goes for everything [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AcceptableBreaksFromReality] on the TV tropes page about this.