@ 4:46 you say Niero! :)

Agree 100 percent! Great rant as always!

yes. except i dont hate QTEs abd MGS3 is my favorite game of all time, so you can assume my stance on cutscenes.

this is probably your most coherent rant yet. i agree with you in principle, but i don't think your comparison holds up all that well, considering that Bionic Commando: Rearmed is a 2d platformer being compared to 3d action games. You'd make a much clearer point if you stuck to a single genre

someone whose name escapes me said "Never underestimate the power of the player to undermine the story you're trying to tell." I think because Bionic Commando's game mechanics are simple, rigid, and versatile (due in part to the genre that it belongs to,) it's impossible to undermine the Hitler Head Explosion point in the narrative because the event is predicated by the game rules themselves. Because GTA4 and Force Unleashed are games with much looser mechanics and much more complex rules, there is ample opportunity for the player to undermine the story the designer is trying to tell. It follows, of course, that Shinji Mikami would come up with a workaround, and said workaround would be abused by far lesser game designers the world over.

I think QTE exists because the mechanics of these games don't allow for these things to happen as the developer intends them, but , evidently, someone thinks the chopping of an AT-ST in half is such a critical point in the narrative that it warrants wresting actual control from the player - basically forcing them into a gameplay sequene that is totally disparate from the rest of the actual game. So, as you said, there's more focus on showing cinematic cool shit to a player (like the 3d action games you mentioned) then there is on making a game that is predicated on cool shit. (like bionic commando.)

I don't think the problem rests with the pseudo-contro, i think the problem lies in the cinematics. That is, i just think narrative that arises from gameplay is more elegant in nearly all cases than gameplay that arises out of narrative.

and that games should stop trying to be fuckin' hollywood for fuck's sake


YOU KNOW WHAT I DO LIKE THOUGH i love those QTE's that involve tapping buttons really fast to simulate running or pushing something or any struggle of any kind. I can relate to my player character in some small way through those. Those are alright, the rest can eat rotten cupcakes

2 player QTE in umbrella chronicles are some of the most annoying QTE you will ever come across.

So...more gameplay, less cinematics and QTE?

the whole QTE thing seems like the product of producers saying, "hey, that Resident Evil 4 sold millions, God of War sold millions, give me that, I want more of exactly that!".

like most things, it was only fun when it was new.

I rather like mark and execute because it gives an emphasis on planning. The LKP seems weird to me.

Lol you said Niero instead of Niko once :o

I'm suprised you didn't mention Prince of Persia, seeing as how it's basically a 12-hour long QTE that critics loved because it looked pretty.

Wow, that was so fucking incredibly bad and lame when the guy in the clip started doing the AT-AT death blow animation, and then gets INTERRUPTED BY A FUCKING BULLET AND HAS TO DO IT AGAIN.

RE5 is the worst of the worst as far as this topic goes. The little cinematic cut scenes / QTEs throughout the whole game made me want to tear my eyeballs out.

QTEs (or these interactive cinematic moments) that require input should never result in the failure of the current game. Anyone who puts that in a game should be strung up by their testicles. Its never fun, and its never interesting.

Interacitve cut scenes are never that awful in my mind, but they rarely make the gameplay more interesting either (the end of MGS3 is the only one that comes to mind). Is there really anything to be gained by having limited player interaction with a plot developing cut scene? I think destroying the cut scene in favor of scripted events, like in Half life 2, would do more for player involvement; But I do realize that is far more hard to pull off than a regular cinematic sequence.

Good points, but I disagree about Splinter Cell. I think the mechanic is a great idea for a game that is not a straight-up shooter.

Many times in third person shooters, the aiming controls can be sluggish and frustrating. This mark and execute is a good way to work around this.

Think of movies like James Bond and Jason Bourne, where the protagonist guns down enemies in a room quickly. I think it would be tough to do manually.

Also, you could think of it as no different than the 1-button melee kills you could always do in the series. 1-button melee kills don't make sense in a hack and slash game like Ninja Gaiden, but they make sense in a stealth action game.

one thing that really bugs me about QTE's that I never really hear people address is (a good example is the GOW games), when you get to them you are not only drawn away from the character by what anthony mentions, but also the fact that you are no longer even viewing the cinematic. When I play a game and I need to fight a boss at the end, I like to feel that I have the payoff of watching the end of a story or actively doing something to defeat the boss and having a payoff- far too often in games nowadays I find myself looking at the corner of the screen seeing if I need to press X or [] and going on youtube and looking up the endings of the game to see what I missed. I am not saying that older games are better per say- but I felt like there was more payoff.