Get on with it already! Why do game intros seem longer and worse every year.

so ive been thinking about this a lot, because the last 3 games ive played (bioshock infinite, sleeping dogs, dishonored) all suffer from it to varying degrees. I have the suspicion that the eye-rolly reaction people seem to have to tutorial levels has a lot to do with it, but theres something sorta frustrating about the fact that most of the AAAish games rolling out have somewhere around an hour of plodding introduction these days. also this might be related with the deadly disease of introducing new game features all the way up to the end of the game, which i get but seems to throw the pacing off quite a bit (esp when they are super artificial means of doing so - looking at you B:I). Another thing I thought of is that the modern idea of gaming has sort of shackled us to this slow progression model that might inherently contain this no matter what you do?

Some games still get this right tho even within that model (fallouts, portal, skyrim, bulletstorm), so it isnt unavoidable. am i just seeing something that has always been there and glossing it, or do other people feel the same?

also of interest would be worst offenders and counter examples. also i am bored at work so, hey, chat it up.

I think Okami still carries the unbeaten record for this

ha i never played that but that is what ive heard

super mario galaxy pissed me off for this exact reason

yeah sometimes i'll get a game and not play it for months and months because i'm dreading the tutorial bullshit.

idk the dishonored 'play hide and seek' didn't bother me at all but the skyrim 'ride in a cart' drove me up a fukken wall after 5 sec

hahaha the cart ride

ten seconds into it when I realized I couldn't do jack shit but sit on this slow-moving cart and look around and it didn't seem like it was ever going to end, I started cracking up so hard and basically laughed for the entire ride

this has happened so many times: i get a new game, i'm excited about it but don't really have time to play. i'll start it while my girlfriend's getting ready to leave the house or something, then turn it off 20 minutes later having had control of my character for about 5 minutes. it would be an amazingly bold move for a big game to just start, like without a cinematic.

i was thinking about this in the context of the new Tomb Raider game (because that's what i'm playing right now) and it comes off pretty well. it does all the standard tutorial moves + gradual introduction of new gameplay elements, but in a way that feels tied into the narrative and well-paced.

i think someone mentioned it in another thread but 80% of new games start with you breaking out of some sort of jail or confinement, right?

Literally the first thing I did in Skyrim was make a save file right at the end of the cart ride so I never had to endure that shit again.

isn't the character creation screen before the cart ride though?

no it's after!

you get off the cart and watch a couple people get executed and THEN a guard asks you about yourself...

haha you can tell how many playthroughs of Skyrim I had (one)

and me (too many)

Jordan describes my sitch perfectly. & what's worse is that by the next time I play the game I will forgotten both the narrative bullshit & the control tips

yeah ive got sort of a stupid game library at this point and nothing is worse than realizing that the controls are unintuitive and cant be remapped, and then ponder playing through the intro again and back in the box it goes.

i almost quit sleeping dogs last night because i was starting to worry that i wasn't going to get to drive a car for 7 more hours or something. also on my shit list: training sections where you have to repetitively spam some dude with a combo that you will never probably use because the computer needs to know that you've got it down.

on the plus side the dishonored blink training section gets it totally right, other than the fact that it is an inherently goofy fucking dreamland shoehorned into the game.

i think someone mentioned it in another thread but 80% of new games start with you breaking out of some sort of jail or confinement, right?

back when i played videogames on the regular it was waking from an amnesiac coma. things done changed i guess

http://regmedia.co.uk/2012/01/17/dizzy_1.jpg

i haven't thought about the dizzy games in years

tbf they were a sucking bag of cock

the original half-life's monorail ride is probably to blame for the 'look around a slow-moving cart' style intro. skyrim probably used it for the same reason, to force you to marvel at the graphics

Shut up thomp. Dizzy was great.

Assassin's Creed III's intro/tutorial lasts FORFUCKINGEVER. I think it took me about seven or eight hours to wade through it.

I thought the half life intro was pretty good.

it would be an amazingly bold move for a big game to just start, like without a cinematic.

hearing stuff like this is like 50% why I haven't tried to play a new game in close to a decade at this point - just sounds awful! Every game I've ever really loved, I think, just starts with you getting to walk around and try to do stuff, whether it's Super Mario 64 or Chrono Trigger (I think?). This might even explain why replaying CT sounds like a better idea than replaying FF6, if I think about it.

in recent years, both Limbo and Bastion had really nice "wake up! get moving!" kind of introductions, straight to the point

yeah even nintendo seems to have abandoned their mario64/ocarina of time approach of just dumping you into the game and sticking a shitload of signs/npcs everywhere that you can talk to if you really want complete instruction

i guess ocarina had a cinematic but it's only a couple minutes long and the game is huge enough in scope to justify it

Assassin's Creed III's intro/tutorial lasts FORFUCKINGEVER. I think it took me about seven or eight hours to wade through it.

― bizarro gazzara, Friday, May 10, 2013 1:43 PM (2 hours ago)

yeah this is why i quit that goddamn game. i hit one of the follow people and hide in hay bales sections, failed it twice and decided fuck it, im not even playing the actual game yet.

to be fair, that game did absolutely nothing correctly so the long intro didn't stand out as especially bad

hahaha well yes

cutscene - walk up this short hill - cutscene FUCK YOU

Metal Gear Solid 4 started with about a half hour cutscene iirc

ha yes, another game i quit in the first hour

that is NOT a series you want to play if you don't love cutscenes

i hate this tendency so much. i hate all cinematics tbh

literally any moment in a game where i'm not in control of the character i find agonizing

^otm. By law all cutscenes should be skippable

literally any moment in a game where i'm not in control of the character i find agonizing

― we're up all night to get (s1ocki), Friday, May 10, 2013 2:29 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what's crazy is that, i like, you know, movies! we've had games with some cinematic capability for decades now and still even the basics of pacing and editing seem beyond this industry. it's fucked up! to say nothing of the generally low quality of the writing w/r/t to snappy characterization and exposition.

there's not a game yet i haven't mentally rewritten more or less in real time. it's really frustrating.

a game that was basically one long cutscene (LA noire) got sooo many kudos for just approaching the basic competence episodic tv.

i guess i don't know how this works, are there people with movie chops at work on games now? should there be?

competence *of

but games aren't movies. even if the cutscenes are like citizen kane, people are still going to be pissed because they want to be playing a game, not watching a movie.

all the more reason to not make them horrible!

in many if not most cases they are not necessary, of course.

are there people out there who like these cutscenes today? like what's the audience

I think it would be ridiculously funny to insert 5-10 minute clips of classic movies into the middle of a random platforming game

get character across the room, open the door, and suddenly the chase up the tower steps in "Vertigo" plays

like Dragon's Lair was the fuckin coolest game on the planet when it came out, like holy shit video game = cartoon, but then when you couldn't really control much it was like, what a waste. I feel like a reliance on cut screens takes exactly the wrong lesson from that.

game cutscenes peaked with ninja gaiden imo.

I'd say Ms Pac-man

ha. i'm serious, ninja gaiden cutscenes feel way more "cinematic" than most current-gen games! and they're nice and short.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRLqwsXebHQ

(granted the music does most of the heavy lifting)

but games aren't movies. even if the cutscenes are like citizen kane, people are still going to be pissed because they want to be playing a game, not watching a movie.

― congratulations (n/a), Friday, May 10, 2013 3:42 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is it! exactly! i feel like my mind is in a COMPLETELY different state when i'm playing a game than when i'm watching a movie. it wants different things, it responds to stimulus in different ways.

i basically think almost all "storytelling" in video games is bullshit though so i sort of stake out an extreme position

basically, give me super mario. dude just wants to go from left to right and end up at a princess. that's all the story i need.

i actually thought bioshock infinite handled this pretty well.. i was actually thinking "great i'm going to have to sit through 30 minutes of cinematics before i'll get to play" as i walked home from the store. instead there was just a few minutes of sitting in a boat and then i was off exploring

on the other hand, i feel like the first objective goes on a bit too long, i've been doing the "get to monument island and find the girl" for 2 hours so far

s1ocki ebert

idk i like a certain level of narrativity. abstract and cutesy type games often leave me pretty cold.

tetris 4ever

I'd like to play a game with a big backstory/plot that you can choose to totally ignore if you want to

like, say, your character wakes up in a room and the goal is to escape the house, and there are all sorts of traps/puzzles you need to solve to make your way out, but there's also the option of figuring out who put you in the house, why, and stopping that person as an alternate ending

so for the story fiends, you get a game about piecing together the reasoning of the person who put you in the house and multiple direct confrontations, while the pure puzzle ppl get a game where you are attempting to escape, maybe within a specific time limit, without getting caught

Maniac mansion!

haha yeah basically

djp you've played portal, right? aside from the double ending, that's p much what it is

i actually like a bit of ambient setting/story, but just to like position me in the world and give me a reason to do something. less is more tho

maniac mansion is the best

ya portal is a great example of a super simple story done well

I've played Portal 2, not the original

as well games like portal and half-life tell the story ambiently, just through what you overhear, and you can mostly walk through it if you dont want to sit and wait

Yeah, I think games are best when the storytelling is mainly based on exploring the world the game takes place in. Like with Zelda: The best storytelling in Ocarina of Time is the way the world changes in the two different time-periods.

i don't think portal would be as impressive after already playing portal 2 but the twist in portal blew my mind

the cake being a lie?

i love cutscenes when they're done well, they can be really juicy rewards at best. that said games seem to screw them up more often than not these days, being too long, unskippable

i like the portal/half-life versions of real-time storytelling too, but in certain respects they feel narrower to me - like you have to be in a specifically slow-paced, quieted environment where your it makes sense for your player character to be idly snooping on someone else's converation (or audio logs, computer terminals, etc.)

I have really been enjoying The Cave because of how the platforming directly ties into telling the stories of the characters you choose to explore with without needing to resort to cutscenes

otm

dishonored had some good stuff where you could eavesdrop on conversations that fleshed out the world/storyline, or totally not do that. of course there was a lot of repetitive/canned dialogue too (lol whiskey & cigars), but who cares.

can't believe thomp dissed Dizzy, came v. close to the FP

a game that was basically one long cutscene (LA noire) got sooo many kudos for just approaching the basic competence episodic tv.

and yet is one of the worst games i have played this generation

heavy rain was sort of the same thing... like... a game that is at best a mediocre movie or a mediocre game...

I thought everyone hated Heavy Rain, though

Nice thing about the short and sketchily-delivered scenes like Ninja Gaiden is that they really give your imagination something to do - like text adventures etc. While you're hacking and slashing through the next level, the literary/emotional side of your brain is filling in the story, imagining the character's thoughts, whatever. At least, that's how I related to these things at age 9. The more you actually see your character talking and thinking things out, the less you can inhabit/identify with those pixels on the screen.

so disappointed i can't find the cut scenes from fast food dizzy

thought i had earlier: it seems like even the most ameritrash style these games are kind of in subservience to the aesthetics of the JRPG? admittedly i never play new games and i was playing final fantasy vii at the time but that's what i thought

like, say, your character wakes up in a room and the goal is to escape the house, and there are all sorts of traps/puzzles you need to solve to make your way out, but there's also the option of figuring out who put you in the house, why, and stopping that person as an alternate ending

so for the story fiends, you get a game about piecing together the reasoning of the person who put you in the house and multiple direct confrontations, while the pure puzzle ppl get a game where you are attempting to escape
― far too much asshole flesh (DJP), Friday, May 10, 2013 10:04 PM (Yesterday)

Does remind me of Metroid Prime's approach to storytelling where it was entirely up to the players to decide if they wanted to figure out why the planet was in ruins and the backstory of the environments they encountered. 2 and 3 unfortunately introduced traditional cutscene progression.

one-long-cutscene games peaked a decade before l.a. noire with THE LAST EXPRESS:

http://elder-geek.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/last_express_screenshot1.jpg
http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2011/01/tle_ladies2.jpg
http://www.blisteredthumbs.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Last-Express2.jpg
http://www.gamasutra.com/db_area/images/feature/3862/lastexpress_shot2.jpg

ken levine's learn-the-story-from-audio-diaries thing works great when you're on a spaceship listening to recordings the dead crew made during a period of extreme crisis and less great when you're standing in a public bathroom listening to a wax cylinder you found on the floor containing a recording of the mayor insulting black people

half-life's opening ride can be blamed for a lot i guess but i like that it really feels like commuting to work and when it came out its closest competitor in terms of using first-person-shooter mechanics to create what felt like a real place was duke nukem 3d. that was where we were at.

(where we're at NOW, on the other hand: i LONG for duke nukem 3d)

like, say, your character wakes up in a room and the goal is to escape the house, and there are all sorts of traps/puzzles you need to solve to make your way out, but there's also the option of figuring out who put you in the house, why, and stopping that person as an alternate ending

so for the story fiends, you get a game about piecing together the reasoning of the person who put you in the house and multiple direct confrontations, while the pure puzzle ppl get a game where you are attempting to escape
― far too much asshole flesh (DJP), Friday, May 10, 2013 10:04 PM (Yesterday)

http://calyxa.best.vwh.net/myst-lens/bookcase.jpg

(no i'm lying. you have to read those books they have clues in them.)

last express was really good stuff. pretty great use of the "overhearing" mechanic, seeing as how you're expected to replay the timelines to hear different conversations

yeah! major chills in a videogame: if you dispose of an inconvenient corpse by throwing it out the train window, you can later overhear the little french kid failing to get his parents to believe that he saw a dead body on the tracks ("il est mort! il est mort!")

last express looks pretty cool!

dlh otm about those wax cylinders. way dumb.

been meaning to play last express since forever

totally underrated: 'the colonel's bequest'.

which is a roberta williams adventure game in an english murder mystery idiom, in which it's possible to not solve any of the puzzles etc and just wander around finding bodies and have no idea what is actually going on

Haha totally, plus listening in on conversations through portraits with the pupils cut out of them! Good stuff.

The FMV craze of the 90s was pretty much ahead of its time and I think the industry still has a hangover from those days when Interactive Movies were the wave of the future on the information superhighway.