Blog 13, Cut Scenes. by John Lyver
I have noticed a trend in video games to market the games towards having better and better graphics for computer animated cut scenes in video games. I find that commercial after commercial of video games I see tend to focus the majority of the commercial showing clips of these animated cut scenes. This seems odd in a way since the focus of the game is the game itself and not a 30 second cut scene every few hours of game play. However, this seems to be the way to get kids to drool over the latest game by showing them the best in cut scene animation, forget actually having quality game play or good graphics in the game itself, the market is all about the cut scene. Game company after company seems to place the focus primarily on marketing and pushing the hype of a game based more on the cut scene animations then on the game itself.
One game in particular seemed to focus the whole game around the cut scenes and the story line was the many focus. It was more like watching a movie then playing a video game, which for me I found to be very annoying. I played the game to play the game, not to sit around and watch cut scene after cut scene after cut scene. With Kingdom Hearts 2, it seemed like I spent more time waiting for the lame scenes to end then I did actually playing. Now I appreciate a beautiful cut scene in a game with great CGI as much as the next person, however, when the whole focus of the game seemed to be on the cut scenes I lost interest in the game.
I remember when another Square Enix(formerly Square Soft) game was advertised that I had to have based solely on the animated scenes. Final Fantasy 7, I had little to no knowledge of what an RPG actually was let alone what turn based combat meant, yet I had to have this game. Fortunately, FF7 turned out to be a great game and the cut scenes simply went along well with the game as a whole.
Has the focus shifted in the past few years? Do game makers only see cut scenes and flashy graphics as the way to make a buck? I mean sure you will get people to buy the game based on those things, however, if they expect the sequel to their games sell well they are going to have to reach for a little more substance and enjoyability then just an eye catching cut scene.
Here are some game trailers from a few years ago and some more recent, watch how little (and sometimes not at all) these trailers show the actual game play verses eye catching computer animated scenes.
Final Fantasy 8
Metal Gear Solid 4
StarCraft 2
Fable 2
I commented on Sarah Askri’s Post at http://animationayshun.wordpress.com/2010/04/27/coraline-blog-13/#comment-36
April 27, 2010 at 12:03 pm
I agree, many games nowadays leave you feeling “Hey, do you really need me here playing, or do you wanna’ do this yourself?” Splinter Cell: Conviction had this in a different manner where you could have Sam Fischer (the main character) eliminate multiple foes automatically at almost any time. As for Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts, and often JRPGs as a whole… they almost entirely rely on fancy animated cutscenes and walls of text, and the advancements in graphics over the years only encourages this. Now to me, this isn’t necessarily bad as long as the actual gameplay is decent, but I can easily see how this can and would be bothersome to others, or to me in the future. However, Trailers do exist to market the item as best as possible, and epic action scenes just sell better than gameplay videos (Look at Movie Trailers, too).
April 27, 2010 at 12:04 pm
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April 27, 2010 at 4:08 pm
I think my brother would agree with you on this. He is more of a gamer and prefers to just play the game without all of the well made cut scenes. For a person like me, however, who definitely is not a gamer, the cut scenes help me understand what the games are about. I am also an English major so I’m pretty much all about the story, which would explain why I find the cut scenes interesting. But I do agree with you, there is no need to have extensive cut scenes when all a person wants to do is play a game consecutively. I think the cut scenes should be optional, so a person could watch them if they wanted to, and wasn’t obligated to watch them to continue the game.
May 3, 2010 at 5:27 am
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