Games and movies : A marriage made in hell?

[Ady]

Yeah, you know where this is going.

It's all the talk at the moment. Bombastic, CGI sequences in games that are more about cutscenes and 'plot' than skill and visceral immediacy, the steady march of licenses and so forth.

Of course in a medium as diverse of gaming, cinematic epics can quite happily sit along more fun, skill-based games but The Industry seems to be taking things in a different direction.

Obviously technology-obsessed developers and avaricious publishers don't see skill-based games as being economically viable, the gaming media screams about how 'games are becoming more like movies', and the public, high on licenses now expects this all the more.

In this month's Equip, Peter Molyneux 'prediccts' gaming will one day require script writers, virtual camera men, style artists and other trappings usually associated with movie making. This alone gives some idea as to where some developers are heading. And it's not jsut western coders either as any fan of modern day Square games or the Metal Gear franchise should know.

So where do you think it's all going, and -crucially- where do you think it :hould:: go? I personally don't like the thought of all future games being superficial, licensed interactive movies that prize perseverance and 'plot' over skill. As much as I equally appreciaate story-driven games, I think there should be a balance.

I also predict that the bombast will happen (sadly), but will result in a backlash similar to when the raw, back-to-basics sound of Punk smashed the showy, self-indulgence of Prog.

So, what's your take? What do you see happening? and what would you like to happen?

Thoughts please.

[Manta Ray vs Guitar]

Kill Peter Molyneux.

[Inertia_]

In the end, everything adheres to the odorous rules of marketing. While this means that the mainstream will surely chase the dollar (or pound) down cinema lane, you can guarantee that the good ol' hardcore gaming dollar will be catered for as well.

They may be insidious, loathsome creeps, but at least marketing people hunger the wallets of people like us just as badly as everyone else's. For every Christina Aguilera there's a Goldfrapp, for every Armageddon there's an Ed Wood, and so it goes for video games...

[Concept]

I also predict that the bombast will happen (sadly), but will result in a backlash similar to when the raw, back-to-basics sound of Punk smashed the showy, self-indulgence of Prog.

The backlash to heavily cinematic-based narrative games has already begun to happen, in my opinion. Metal Gear Solid 2 was an important title when it came to inspiring people kicking up a fuss.

[RLench]

When done right elaborate cinematics are an almost essential element of gaming IMO. But some games rely on them way too much now, and I can only see it getting worse.

I thought to myself a few days ago, why do we still need FMV? In-game graphics are more than sufficient, and 9 times out of 10 it's impossible to tell the difference (apart from the long loading times and grainy image due to the compression )

[FelixofMars]

I was so dissaponted with Metal Gear Solid 2 after the fuss everyone made, walkdown a corridor... cutscene for half a bloody hour.. and repeat. I was acctually excited when I got to do some sneaking!

[makkuwata]

im quite happy to 'watch a game' like metal gear, as long as it's a decent story...which in the case of MGS2 (imo) it was not

[2097]

Ive always thought books were a better comparison to games rather than films because of the level of emmersion, the story-book quality of many titles, the old text adventures which were identical to those old "choose your own adventure type affairs" that now fill the nations charity shops and how comic book-like games generally work better than film-like games.. (eg. Beneath A Steel Sky = good, The Hulk = bad.)

Although instead of trying to follow other media games should just be.. games?

[badgerpie]

Extended cut scenes/FMV are severely annoying to me. It pretty much wrecked MGS2 for me, as when I think back I don't remember the good gameplay bits, I remember sitting through cutscene after cutscene.

The thing (to me at least) is games and movies are approached differently. Whilst a good cutscene can be used to great effect to drive plot or create atmosphere, the way I (and I assume others) approach the two mediums is totally different, and developers SHOULD take this into account.

When you watch a film, you have a reasonable idea of how long it will last. Most people when they start watching a film have taken the choice to dedicate two/ three hours out of their life to be entertained.

When you play a game (especially a story based game), you are aware that the whole game is going to probably take somewhere in the region of twenty to fourty hours and that you're going to be playing it over several sessions. So lets say (as happened a few times in MGS2) that I have two hours before I want to go to bed, or two hours before I want to watch something on TV. I start playing the game and then five minutes before I'm going to stop playing I hit a lengthy cut scene.
What am I going to do? Do I skip it allowing me to go to bed or watch the programme I want to, possibly missing out on some of the plot development that has occurred during the game. Or, do I stay up / miss the programme because I don't want to miss anything in the game.

The problem is because games at the moment don't warn you before a large cutscene, or let you go back and view a cutscene you may have missed then you either get bullied into playing for longer than you wanted, thus robbing some of the joy of the game, OR you miss out on some of the plot that's occurred.

Games often have a pause option for a reason, because people can (and do) get interrupted whilst playing, so developers should factor this in and if they deem lengthy cutscenes to be important they should include some option so you can watch something you may have missed.

Rant over