My Thoughts on Video Game Cinematics

I love video games. Or more accurately; I love games. Recently the ‘video’ part of that erroneous title has poisoned the medium and it’s only getting worse. Not to say that I think games are now a horrible abomination that’s going to fry your brains and eat your children like my mother always reminds me. I simply feel like the video game market is heading in a very un-satisfactory and detrimental direction. I speak of video game cinematics; the increasingly common part of a game where you place the controller on your lap, carpet, desk etc. and watch as the interaction ceases and you are no longer ‘playing’ anything.

Cinematics overall attempt to achieve one or all of the following three things:

• Forge characters and story elements.

This is usually coupled with atmosphere yet that can easily attach itself to any situation of any video game, interactive or not. Cinematics here simply stop you from getting distracted by flailing your sword or jumping on the spot as you wait for the powerful wizard to tell you where you need to go. An example of this done mildly well are the deceptively interesting dream sequences in Might and Magic: Dark Messiah.  Those moments compliment the story, they don't replace it. An example of this not done very well at all is Mass Effect 2 where you are basically playing to reach cinematics which flood about 80% of the entire movie…I mean game.

 

Cinematics done right.  Too bad the rest of the game is trash.

A game doesn’t need to have a cinematic to have stories and characters explained to us. They don’t even need us to move around. Games like Bioshock and Portal 2 did extremely well with this by having barriers like windows, elevators and fences that forced you to look at a certain thing and have that the focus. It does exactly what this kind of cinematic tries to do but because it doesn’t take control of everything you always feel engaged. When a big daddy is slamming a deformed lunatic up against a window and shoving a drill into his chest you’re not going to have any desire to look away, even on multiple playthroughs. Not that you would play it again because I think Bioshock SUCKS!

You can't walk away but you're still PLAYING...technically.

• Gives you a better camera angle.

One of my least favourite things about video games today.

The best examples I’ve seen of this are contained within the games Lost Planet and Lost Planet 2. In the first game you are piloting a large mech suit through a corridor until you arrive in a large underground city. Before you take another step it harshly cuts to a cinematic of a gargantuan green beetle smashing through the buildings, roaring at you and eventually cutting back to you positioned nicely to blow the crap out of it. This cinematic lasts about 10 seconds. The issue here is that those 10 seconds were incredibly pointless. The only minor useful thing that it shows you is your characters lifeless, plastic face as he sees the beast before him. Did we really need to stop everything and watch it roar at us? Did it really require a cinematic to snatch the controller away from you?



This = bad

Lost Planet 2 is also guilty of this but easily its biggest crime appears as you are hurtling towards a planet in a mech suit. (The Lost Planet series really love their mech suits) You pilot your suit/comet towards the ice covered planet below accompanied by a brilliant score only for it to fade to black and show you a video of you smashing into the ground on the planet. My reaction; WHAT?! That cinematic brutally murdered what may have been one of the greatest moments of video game history. Forget games like Just Cause or X-Men Origins: Wolverine where you just jump from a couple hundred metres. We could have embodied the spirit of an asteroid as we spiraled towards a planet from space, watch as we enter the atmosphere, break apart and eventually smash into the ground with almighty force. 

Worst/Best moment in the game...arguably.

The main problem here is that it's simply taking away the 'game' part of a Video Game.  I don't think I've ever seen a cinematic that couldn't become, and be improved by becoming, interactive and a part of the game itself.  When you are 'doing' and not 'watching' the immersion improves and the engagement in what you're doing becomes greater.  You feel like a more major part of the experience.  But recently it's rather rare to find any interactive part of a game that isn't just combat.  Something as simple as; pushing a rock, whistling for a horse, cutting a hole in a window, applying bandages to a wound, crawling under something or even running away from danger can immerse you into a story (If the game does have a story) more effectively than a video.

These kinds of cinematics are what’s wrong with games and it’s feeding the ‘Video Games = Movies’ monster. It instantly takes away realism, mood, and enjoyment and constantly reminds you that you are playing a game that can bully the controller away from you and take you where it wants to go only for you to respond with “Yes Sir Mr. Game. I sure do like your graphics. Can I play you soon?” Both of those examples didn’t need to be cinematics and it comes off as being lazy. I hate it.



Queen, Baiztencale, Undeep, Vital Fortress, Debouse and The Gordiant (above)
are NOT introduced with a cinematic and they're the best fights.

• Disguises a loading screen.

This one is rather obvious and can easily be attached to the previous ‘types’ of cinematics mentioned above. These often happen before boss battles that take place on very complex platforms and arenas. It’s rather foolish of me to think that games should never have loading screens but they should be interesting and useful, not just a pointless time wasting cinematic that hurts the game more than it should.

Loading screens were done flawlessly in Mass Effect 2 which almost singlehandedly feels like a part of the game itself and not just a ‘texture loading sequence’. Mass Effect 1 had elevators that substituted loading, and we all know how much we loved them.

 

Loading screens done FLAWLESSY!




Statement: I am pointless

I’m definitely not saying that games should never have cinematics. They are still extremely useful when used correctly, but not when they suffocate the gaming industry that nowadays is putting story ahead of actual game play. Thanks for that Bioware! HK-47 better be important in The Old Republic! But I digress.

The obvious over indulgence of videos in trailers recently really makes me cringe. The very second after I saw the trailer for Batman: Arkhum City I said “Man, I can’t wait to play that movie that will never happen in the GAME!” It’s similar to how movies now use clips and dialogue from the film itself to tell you what’s going on. Whatever happened to the good old days of; “A story of a boy, a girl and a universe. It’s a big sprawling space saga of rebellion and romance.”? Now, video game trailers are more interested in putting you in the right mood that you’ll forget about once you start playing and you get a completely different mood thrown at you. The right one. The game’s one.

My expression exactly...

Long story short; games should stay games. When it cuts to a cinematic it is rarely worth it and could have been a dozen times better if you were still in control of the game but were unable to look away or get distracted. Have events occur during the game. Don’t split the experience up into ‘Interactive Parts’ and ‘Non-Interactive Parts’.