cut scenes: is it ever worth it?

they tend to be a lot less annoying when they're rendered in the gameplay engine. I mean if you're going to take away control for a while and force me to endure some story and dialogue and shit don't RUB BETTER GRAPHICS THAN THE ACTUAL REST OF THE GAME in my face while you're doing it. I mean wtf my dude hasn't even worn that outfit since the second boss fight

ya or when it has your character do shit you can never pull off in the game.

oh yeah exactly, when all of a sudden your dude goes super saiyin on some boss? FUCK THAT. "you're not allowed to win on your own! that would be satisfying! but since you managed to simply STAY ALIVE for x number of seconds or turns in this battle we will now PLAY THE VICTORY COMBAT SEQUENCE FOR YOU while you just sit there and instantly lose all fucking interest in the game"

^^^^ #1 reason to hate on JRPGs no matter what anyone says about cutesy twee crypto-gnostic tropes or jailbait androgyne protagonists

sometimes a break is nice

FFVII ruled for these

what bugs me is when there's a long cutscene, then you have to walk across a room or down a halway & then there's another long cutscene (Lost Odyssey I'm looking at you) just like ten seconds later

Katamari Damacy does it right.

They work when the story or cutscenes are compelling enough to be rewards for gameplay. Granted, this was a better reward back when cutscenes were new and shiny. But hell, all the Metal Gear games use cutscenes are your motivator, and provide nice breaks between gameplay sections.

Also, it was worked extremely well for most PC adventure games that came out from LucasArts or Sierra during the 90s. Also that fantastic Blade Runner game.

cutscenes are okay but having more than say 10-30 seconds of them in the first couple of hours of a game makes me want to never play it again

yeah metal gear had great in-engine story-motivated/motivating cutscenes. good shit.

i skipped every katamari cutscene, in both versions, ditto for parappa and umjammer lammy

the mgs cutscenes are great because you can zoom in + switch to first person whenever you want, leading to some faintly amusing "editing" moments

Yeah like when you switch to first person during a cutscene where a female character is addressing Snake and find that he's staring at her ass the whole time!

these are killing Mass Effect for me right now.

well, that, the poor voice acting, and the general bad mid-'90's syndicated tv show feeling, but I guess that's a different thread.

but yeah: FFVII's cutscenes ruled, whereas most games influenced by those cutscenes absolutely do not.

FFVII, especially the rendered graphics scenes. i'd have starved to death without em.

The story-driven cutscenes in FFVII were great. The special-move cut scenes were a pile of dick, espeically that one that went on for a bazillion years where you summon power from across the galaxy to rain 500 pts of damage on a lizard or whatever it was you were fighting.

Also, Cat Saith must die.

ok, yeah- the move cut scenes sucked. and never more so than in ffviii.

The worst part about Resident Evil 4 was how you had to watch the terrible (okay, they were kinda b-movie funny) cut-scenes because in the middle they would pull the "hey, don't zone out, press a button NOW or else you die!" shit.

^^TROOF, many times went to get a soda during boring cut scene and got killed.

FFX was horrible with these mainly b/c you couldn't skip past them.

I've never come close to finishing a post-FFVII FF, due to this shit. That one about water polo was the worst when it came to endless cutscenes.

the break thing is a good argument for cut scenes... in moderation.

i always skipped the katamari ones too, that shit was funny the first time but once the hilarity wore off it became the most obnoxious thing in the world

water polo...?

WTF FF

srsly fuck that series in the eye

i always skipped the katamari ones too, that shit was funny the first time but once the hilarity wore off it became the most obnoxious thing in the world

Luckily, they're pretty skippable.

man i played so much blitzbal and relatively so little actual ffx, but as far as ff games that oen was pretty tolerable, no? then again i also liked viii and xii...

far, far too many in Vice City Stories

^^ yes, and they blow!

i have daydreams about rewriting all the cutscenes in the GTAs

ms. pac man cut scenes = worth it

of course we all should be blaming mario for this since he had to hop off that goddamn flagpole and take the castle with his blue-collar immigrant flair AT THE END OF EVERY SINGLE STAGE

I have still never seen the Pac-Man Jr cut scene in Ms. Pac-Man.

The worst cutscenes are the ones which come right at the beginning of a game, and stop you wanting to play it before you've even touched the pad. Psychonauts! Okami! Assassin's Creed! And I've got Mass Effect sitting there still unstarted, because I suspect it's going to be another one of them.

ya fuckin okami
and super paper mario, which is kind of the ultimate worst, cuz it's just stupid nonsense that even a child wouldn't get invested in!!

not quite cut-scenes but those cut to radio broadcasts in MGS2 just ruined it for me.

generally any interuption in mid game-flow is considered bad bad. Cut scenes that happen between missions can be forgiven AS LONG AS THEY ARE SHORT (gta i look at you yet again)

i think shadow of the colossus had pretty good ones?

And I've got Mass Effect sitting there still unstarted, because I suspect it's going to be another one of them.

They're pretty short, and actually very well done imo.

not quite cut-scenes but those cut to radio broadcasts in MGS2 just ruined it for me.

-- Ste, Friday, 7 March 2008 10:51 (10 hours ago) Link

lmao ya, the fukkin codec NOVELS

yeah metal gear had great in-engine story-motivated/motivating cutscenes. good shit.

-- BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 6 March 2008 10:34 (Yesterday) Link

fuk u

oh hey, the cut scenes in the first ninja gaiden game are A++++.

I think the radio shit is a great (skippable) part of the MGS series-- I love that there's just as much detail as you want about the plot and the relationships of the characters but you don't NEED any of it

the cut scene at 3:00 is so great/terrible (re4).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-Ffu8dilUU

I loved the cut scenes in Super Paper Mario, because they didn't seem to have anything to do with the main story at first, and then it slowly dawns on you what's going on. What was going on turned out to be pretty simple stuff, but it's the mystery, man.

The worst cutscenes are the ones which come right at the beginning of a game,

Did Super Metroid start this? (It's forgiven because it's interesting and the only one in the game.)

Hotel Mario

I can't stand it when the cut scenes don't have subtitles. I usually listen to my own music when I play games and I hate it when I have to turn it off to hear bad voice acting.

i like cut scenes when they're appropriate for the game

I frequently pass out during cutscenes in old RPGs like Chrono Trigger or Secret of Mana.

Fast-forward in emulators is a godsend

i think shadow of the colossus had pretty good ones?

-- Jordan, Friday, 7 March 2008 16:43 (Friday, 7 March 2008 16:43)

It did indeed! It was terrible to spend so long killing the monster only to have this terribly sad music in the background as it collapsed :(

GTA:SA has the best cutscenes! Katamari was pretty and thankfully totally skippable. For sheer "WTF stop repeating without giving me skip through button" I nominate all of the Prince of Persias.

I normally try to skip cutscenes, they can take forever!

The cutscene in GTA:SA following the mission where the cops are jumping on the back of the car as it flies through the sign onto the freeway is the best.

It's mostly of the characters looking at each other going "WTF was that all about?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B_6HgoiCss = my god it's full of stars

fire emblem at least knows well enough to not bother with voice acting all this nonsense

Cutscenes I think were only put in games to give players enough hands-free time to chug the rest of their beer and possibly go get another.

or mountain dew, or whatever.

the absolute brilliance of fire emblem's switchable-axis wiimote controls is that when your pizza shows up you can switch to vertical from horizontal and keep killing motherfuckers with your off hand while you eat with the other

The problem with Mass Effect wasn't the cut scenes. It was the 40+ hours of dialogue you've gotta have with everyone in your crew after every single mission.