What do you count as "a cutscene"?

[GrizzlerBorno]

I was having this lengthy discussion with a dude on Youtube (that char limit does not make things easy, lemme tell ya) about how Gameplay in a game itself can invoke emotion, without relying on cutscenes. Eventually we got to a tangent of discussing what a cutscene is, anyway... So allow me to bring up three separate sets of scenarios from three separate (sets of games) and then ask a question.

1) We've all come across segments, in games....where you have to press [forward]. aaaand that's it......just forward. why? because you're just progressing through an area (by pressing [forward]) and are expected to check the area without actually "doing" anything. Stand outs include the "Trip down Crime Alley" segment from Batman Arkham Asylum; The Opening sequence from Mass Effect 2; The "Microwave room" from MGS4 (which I haven't played; but i have seen videos of this section).

2) Many cutscenes are just people talking. GTA, Halo.etc. Similarly in Mass Effect (Someday I'll stop talking about this game.......maybe) there are a ton of segments where people just talk, while being framed in a very cinematic camera angle, with film like movements.etc.....BUT WAIT! What is this being round thing that is helping You, the player, interact with this cinematic screen? They don't have that in the movies?

3) Okay I'm getting tired of being dramatic, and this OP is getting really long so..... the On-Rail Segments in Black Ops (and other games I don't know about) where you can't control your movement (being...you know..on rails) BUT can control where you are looking.

So my question is this: Which of these do you consider "cutscenes"? What exactly IS a "cutscene" to you? And which kinds of cutscenes do you like?

 

[Vault101]

Bioware games tned to blur the lines here since somthing as simple as talking is shown in a cinematic way...now THATS how you do it

a true cutscene is somthing that you eather watch or skip, if theres some degree of interactivity its still a cutscene but its important

 

[Anarchemitis]

Any time in which control is taken away from the player, rendering him or her unable to do anything except watch.

 

[Monkfish Acc.]

Generally a cutscene is a cinematic the cuts into gameplay.
Hence "cutscene".

If you are still moving the character around and progressing through the game, just doing very little (such as the Mass Effect example you used), that's not really a cutscene. That's a dramatic scenery moment. If you are moving around but can't actually do anything other than sit there and listen to the dialogue (like, say, the first Assassin's Creed), that's a cutscene.

Or at least as is my definition.

 

[gl1koz3]

Any sequence that I have no control over. And this can get on my nerves. Especially when they add dumb animations in places where it should have been fluent.

 

[TheTaco007]

Sections where you can't control your character at all (or as much as you usually can) so that a scripted event can take place.

 

[Daveeo]

A pre rendered scene in which cannot control my character, and i do only have the choice to skip or watch it.

 

[lowkey_jotunn]

To me, a cut scene is simply whenever you don't have control.

Even if you're "just pressing forward" a good game can make that little bit of gameplay interesting and important. You mentioned the opening of ME2, where you basically run from one end of the ship to the other. Sure, there's not a lot of action there, but gives you a chance to get reacquainted with the character and controls, and also lets the game show off the new hud and displays a bit of physics to give the world a very real and material feel. Tell me you didn't bounce off the chairs a few times, just for giggles.

That's a lot to be gained, from a gameplay perspective, even if you're just running forward.

 

[Burnswell]

Yeah, either a movieclip inserted or a scene played out with the players control taken away. I'd count a scene which was completly linear and not being able to act with anything other than what the game wants you to borderlining on being a cutscene or perhaps its just very heavy railroading, its hard to define.

 

[Chamale]

I consider it effectively the same as a cutscene when I can only control the camera. It's a pre-rendered animated scene over which I have no control, and all other distinctions are mere semantics.

 

[onewheeled]

Any time in which control is taken away from the player, rendering him or her unable to do anything except watch.

This. If you can move and interact with the environment in some way, such as in the beginning scenes of Half-Life 2, then I don't count it as a cutscene.

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

Sections where you can't control your character at all (or as much as you usually can) so that a scripted event can take place.

Any time in which control is taken away from the player, rendering him or her unable to do anything except watch.

So, say, there was a scene, where all the characters are talking, and you can't move or attack or do any of the normal things...

...but if you press B button, you're character Burps....... just, like one burp, and everyone gives him a blank stare for a second, and then goes back to talking, like in a normal cutscene....

....then is THAT a cutscene? I mean, It looks like a duck and quakes like a duck? But just because it has a little arbitrary option to lets you burp (for no plot reason....just cause) it's suddenly NOT a duck?

Assassin's creed had MANY cutscenes like these, with skippable QTEs essentially.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

Any time in which control is taken away from the player, rendering him or her unable to do anything except watch.

Bingo. I would like to point out that, by this definition, the Half Life series contains plenty of cutscenes. Just saying. That's been bugging me for a while.

 

[sylekage]

A cutscene is a short scene where you get character development, it shows something huge coming at you, or it's just a short skippable clip that involves the story. Now MGS4? Not cutscenes. Those are movies.

 

[migo]

Any time in which control is taken away from the player, rendering him or her unable to do anything except watch.

Bingo. I would like to point out that, by this definition, the Half Life series contains plenty of cutscenes. Just saying. That's been bugging me for a while.

I suppose you could hack the guy who's going to open the door for you, but then you'd have to reload.

 

[Zyphonee]

A cutscene is in my opinion an aging concept, one that a good developer doesn't actually need all the time in order to tell a story. The idea of a cutscene is any given event that puts the gameplay to a halt in order to be able to explain the story. Back in the era in which games would have extreme limitations due to lack of space, cutscenes alongside with text screens would be the only way to narrate a story.

Right now, the possibility of navigating a 3D enviroment allows for the story to be told without having to stop the gameplay completely, as seen in games like Half Life 2 and Bioshock, but rather make the chunks of information that the developer wishes to condense fit within the gameplay, although doin this normally means having to make very specific scenarios with both the writing and the flow of the gameplay in order for the story and gameplay to work together, so if a game isn't actually made by a capable developer, both creatively and intellectually, it ends up needing to use cutscenes to explain what is going on (See: Metro 2033). On the other hand, there's situations in which the story becomes so complex and intricate that the only way to develop on it is by having the player look at a cutscene (e.g. Mass Effect)

 

[moretimethansense]

Generally a cutscene is a cinematic the cuts into gameplay.
Hence "cutscene".

If you are still moving the character around and progressing through the game, just doing very little (such as the Mass Effect example you used), that's not really a cutscene. That's a dramatic scenery moment. If you are moving around but can't actually do anything other than sit there and listen to the dialogue (like, say, the first Assassin's Creed), that's a cutscene.

Or at least as is my definition.

Basically this, If your input doesn't do anything, it's a cutscene, Though I count scnes where you can only follow people that talk as gameplay(sorta) cause if you just stnd there they'll stop and wait for you to catch up or they'll go on without you (depending on the game).

 

[TheTaco007]

Sections where you can't control your character at all (or as much as you usually can) so that a scripted event can take place.

Any time in which control is taken away from the player, rendering him or her unable to do anything except watch.

So, say, there was a scene, where all the characters are talking, and you can't move or attack or do any of the normal things...

...but if you press B button, you're character Burps....... just, like one burp, and everyone gives him a blank stare for a second, and then goes back to talking, like in a normal cutscene....

....then is THAT a cutscene? I mean, It looks like a duck and quakes like a duck? But just because it has a little arbitrary option to lets you burp (for no plot reason....just cause) it's suddenly NOT a duck?

Assassin's creed had MANY cutscenes like these, with skippable QTEs essentially.

That's still a cutscene. That's why I said "not as much as you usually can."

 

[Mister Benoit]

Just about everything that stops me from being active in a game is a cut-scene.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Bioware games tned to blur the lines here since somthing as simple as talking is shown in a cinematic way...now THATS how you do it

It's true, BioWare get's pretty close to perfect, and they could make it infinitely better with smooth transitions.
They still do it as all others by flipping from gameplay into scripted events, why the heck not slide from the gameplay camera angle into the scripted stuff and make people actually walk to their positions, fluidity is what makes the world feel genuine, that jumpy loady stuff just pulls you out again.

OT: Anything that pulls you out of regular gameplay is a cutscene, and should always be skippable, even HL2 needs to learn some of this (you just need to give us a way to move things along, the 10th time I'm replaying it gets really tedious).