Why Video Game Cutscenes Should Be Eliminated

Don Reisinger writes:

I don't know about you, but after playing through countless hours of video games saving the world in more worlds than I can count, I've grown tired of the same old thing. I can live with sword fights and looting, but more than anything else, I'm sick and tired of cutscenes that break up the action.

Can anyone give me one good reason for why cutscenes are really that necessary? Sure, they help move the story along and I can appreciate that, but I don't need fancy renderings of my pixelated heroes talking to each other when all I really want to do is slay some more beasts.

As far as I can tell, this idea of cutscenes, which was made brutally unbearable by Hideo Kojima in the Metal Gear series is nothing more than an attempt by game developers to display their graphical prowess and make a video game feel more like a movie.

I don't want a movie. I want a video game.

[Maddens Raiders]

-- "As far as I can tell, this idea of cutscenes, which was made brutally unbearable by Hideo Kojima in the Metal Gear series is nothing more than an attempt by game developers to display their graphical prowess and make a video game feel more like a movie.

I don't want a movie. I want a video game..." --

Opinion based bullshyt. I repeat opinion based bullshyt. How do you go from "I think cutscenes help to move the game along.." to, "I don't want a movie. I want a video game????"

This guy is a complete whiny douche that needs to think about what he's saying.

So cutscenes that use FMV suck. Cutscenes that use per/frame animation suck. And now seamless in game cutscenes are totally unacceptable? If you want to act like a complete fanboy and bash the MG series because you're jealous is one thing, but to come out blasting the game, inciting things like "I think Hideo is just trying to show off his programming prowess," is just plain jack-assish. STFU a**hole and go play Gears of War again.

[sonarus]

he is just ranting every once in a while some guy feels their opinion really matters and they go on a rant.
As for me i love cut scenes as long as they are entertaining. When they get boring or i am generally not interested i push start and skip it. that simple

[Genesis5]

Yeah! I don't want to eliminate the cut scenes. I like the cut scenes.

[cellypower]

I think if this game was coming to the 360 he would not complain as much.

[Violater]

Guys Just point and laugh and move on
It is just preemptive damage control.
They know MGS4 will be a major hit and console seller so MS/Cnet and the many more will try their hardest to sway who they can.
Look at his solution don't play Metal Gear go play Bioshock.

[The Killer]

because they will never get MGS4 or the past ones!!
also they get sh!ty Cutscenes in their halo and gears of war so they think its the same thing with sony games Cutscenes (especially MGS series)

[Harry190]

just said was open zone material.
nonetheless,the article is quite 'bidon'
cutscenes are here to stay.it's not one small blogger
who is going to impose his views on everyone.after all,
he's got to write something to fill the cheques at the end of the month.

[CrazyMystical]

i personally like cutscenes & i think that they should stay

he "kind of" of have a point, using one type of media in another form of entertainment media is 0k as long as the primary media is the main focus & is not overshadow by the secondary media

in short terms:
games should revoke all emotions & immersion on its own without depending on a CGI cutscene to do so, cutscenes can aid it but not take all the glory.

[fenderputty]

picture Drakes Fortune and Heavenly Sword without the cut scenes. Neither of those games would have been the same without them.

I, like many of you, enjoy cut scenes and feel as though they add to the game by developing a story line. I fell in love with cut scenes when I played Final Fantasy. I love MGS cut scenes as well too.

They can be a pain sometime but, if they ever become a bother, you can usually push the start button and progress on.

[BrianC6234]

I don't think cutscenes should be eliminated but we should be able to push a button and stop them. I hate when you're forced to sit through the whole thing. That just isn't right. What if you're replaying part of the game and already saw it?

[SeanScythe]

This guy needs to STFU, he knows not of what he speaks.

[Jack Bauer]

no cutscenes would ruin games... they would just be mindless action with no purpose...a few games do good without em like halflife, but at least for me i never get quite involved in the story without em...although there is a limit... MGS overdoes them a bit.

[Breakfast]

I kinda think some games should have them, and some game shouldnt have them. I guess it depends on what type of game it is...

Japanese games have like 3 hour long (jk) cutscenes. I personally dont like them, but it only bugs me when its too long.

[travelguy2k]

just add a setting in the options menu to turn off cut scenes. *poof* choice. Or maybe make that an unlock or an accomplishment/achievement.

[therealwillie]

nothing better than beating a game and getting a cool/funny/explosive cut scene for your work me thinks

[games4fun]

cutscenes are a reward for finishing a game i loved beating tekken 3 and seeing a cutscene to give a backstory to the characters i think many games are awesome when they have cutscenes i think that people beat the boss they deserve a reward at the end

[meepmoopmeep]

yeah, that's what i anticipate the most after playing.. is the reward of a cutscene and progression of the storyline. i need a break every so often to relax my hands and enjoy the story with some eye candy movie like sequences.

[Ureval]

If you look at games like Half Life and Bioshock, not having cutscenes can be a very very good thing.

And I agree about MGS. Biggest reason I havent been able to get into that series, the lengthy borderline absurd cutscenes.

[IzKyD1331]

absurd?
or you just dont understand them?
i think its the latter

[Mr_Kuwabara]

He obviously plays a lot of FPS....

He likes the "OMG enemy, shoot here now!!" scenes.

And wow Bloodmask, nice way to whore this article with a MGS4 pic, why not put the Bioshock one instead?

Oh wait... meh, why even bother to say the obvious? :/

[green]

its good for the action to be broken up,and what better way to do that than with a cutscene.

Also with the cutscene you get a bit of rest and you feel better mentally to carry on with the action until you get to the end of the level,check point or the next cutscene.

[EastCoastSB]

Especially after a brutal boss battle or such. IMO it would get boring if you're mashing buttons just for 7 hours straight, you need a little something to break up the monotony.

[Peekay]

would reduce "escapism" greatly. These days in video games there's such blur between cut scenes and game play that it almost seems like a movie. There's nothing wrong with that. Movies make the greatest connection between one human to another. Seems like this guy just wants a reason to hate on MGS.

[heavyarms]

someone give this guy a grenade of STFU.

[Baba1906]

i loooooooooooooove cutscenes. really really do. fell in love with them when playing ff7

[Asurastrike]

The cutscenes are the reason I love Metal Gear Solid. And the cutscenes in Final Fantasy games are always enjoyable.

[poopsack]

"Why Video Game Cutscenes Should Be Eliminated"
... F^CK YOU!

[eagle21]

Too much time on his hands to write this fluff! And yes, 360 cutscenes are made of slop (Halo 3 is laughable!)!

[ForTheFallen]

He states that the reason cut scenes should be eliminated is Hideo?!?!?
Hideo was killing before killing was cool. AKA, he made cut scenes what they are today; Awesome.

What a dumb-ss.

True that, eagle21.

[The Closing]

God forbid there's a story at all. Another useless bloated opinionated article that makes absolutely zero sense from a logical standpoint.

[BigKev45]

Disagree with the article. Cutscenes add to the game. The article gets a
fat "F".

[Anything but Cute]

They take away my favorite part of video games. And that's the story, the drama.

That what makes video games so great, it's kinda like a movie, except you take part in it.

[xplosneer]

Cutscenes are great for their purpose and should not be taken away. But blurring away the line between cutscenes and gameplay(so the game looks as good as the cutscenes) and making some interactive like new release might be a plus.

[KidMakeshift]

I love my cutscenes. They've saved many so-so games like DMC4

[kapedkrusader]

Movies aren't immersive either, because your just a spectator. Dumbass!

[BlackIceJoe]

I for one love cutscenes and if they were not in games like Final Fantasy the feeling company's like Square-Enix are trying to show would be lost because there would be nothing other then mind less fighting and I for one love seeing great stories added to the game I am playing. Because it adds an extra layer to the game. To make you get more into the game you are playing and I think that is a good thing.

[deeznuts]

I wonder when he wrote this, his bosses were writing their own article, titled:

"Why Don Reisinger Should Be Eliminated"
http://money.cnn.com/news/n...
CNet Networks to lay off 120 employees effective immediately

[GFahim]

tbh, i sometimes play video games just for the cutscenes!

[IzKyD1331]

"As far as I can tell, this idea of cutscenes, which was made brutally unbearable by Hideo Kojima in the Metal Gear series is nothing more than an attempt by game developers to display their graphical prowess and make a video game feel more like a movie."

brutally unbearable?!
someone go knock this guy senseless!
this entire article is full of biased opinions, just because the writer of that article doesnt have an attention span long enough to watch a simple cutscene doesnt mean he has to write an entire article about it....

[wAtdaFck]

I disagree with this guy.

He can't tell me that i'll be unhappy with cutscences, I love them the way they are. They aren't meant to show the graphical prowess of a game, but to help move the story along.

Bioshock did it well, but to be honest, I missed my cutscenes. Maybe thats why I didn't like it.

[MetalProxy]

I really like my cut scene's. Its like a anime and a game. Two for One. We should eliminate morons that want change, even though they dont make games.

[iHEARTboobs]

"until cutscenes that take me out of the action are eliminated, I will not be happy. And neither should you."

Seriously, get over yourself. Just because you've played through countless games and are now tired of them doesn't mean everyone else is. What about the new gamer that isn't tired of it? That's too bad you don't like them. Most games provide you with a fast forward/skip option. Telling us we shouldn't be happy because they're there is a joke, just like your article.

[meepmoopmeep]

he should jump off a cliff and die if video game scenes are too long for his A.D.D.

[Lord Vader]

I would never want to *eliminate* cut scenes, they are heavilly needed in RPG's & storytelling. But I'll agree that when I buy an action game or an FPS, I *personally* do want alot more action than cutscenes. But everyone has different tastes.

However, this artice is stupid as he goes to crazy extremes.

[meepmoopmeep]

some games benefit from cutscenes while others don't. and the way he tries to push his opinion on others is retarded. if he doesn't like them, skip them. i for one am always happy to be greated with a good cutscene after going through a level or killing a boss.

[Gorgon]

"If you haven't played Bioshock, you owe it to yourself to do so. But if you have, you probably realize that throughout much of the game, you're able to walk around, look around and do almost anything you want during cutscenes. And although the story is being moved forward during this time, it's allowing you to stay in character and play as if you're being spoken to or directed.

But alas, Bioshock is by no means the norm and unfortunately, most games still force you to play for a while and then stop before action resumes."

Thats funny. I would swear that when you kill whatshisname in the middle of the game that was a cutscene...

Also, I love the way he praises those supposedly cutscene-free moments in Bioshock. You see, they are still cut-scenes. You are free to look at a wall or jump like a retard, but in the end you will just stare out of the submarine's window like if it was a cutscene and you ain't gone stare at the back wall instead. If that is a big improvement well, keep it.

[callahan09]

This guy has no credibility in my book. Cnet? Who cares about Cnet. Don Reisinger? Never heard of him.

Some people happen to like the story of the Metal Gear games. Some people happen to enjoy the cinematic cutscenes of MGS and Final Fantasy. Sometimes we play a game for that as much as the gameplay, just like sometimes we watch a comedy when we want to laugh or thriller when we want suspense. Different strokes for different folks.

That said, making cutscenes more interactive is generally a very good thing. Metal Gear Solid 2 let you zoom in and out and move the camera during cutscenes for those with a spot of ADD who are interested in the story but can't sit completely still for extended periods of time. It also let you skip the story all together, which is something Bioshock actually does not let you do.

And he (along with many other writers) makes Bioshock out to be so original. It really isn't. It's gameplay is derived directly from Levin's System Shock series, it's story based on other peoples' writings, and it was not the original game to present cutscenes as it does. I'm not entirely sure what could be considered the original to have this style of storytelling, but Half-Life did it way before Bioshock. And in games like Half-Life and Bioshock, you can't skip the story, so if you have no interest and just want to kill zombies or aliens or drug addled maniacs then you're out of luck for those few minutes where you have to sit and watch/listen.

Games could still use a bit of tweaking to get cutscenes to a place in between Metal Gear Solid, with only semi-interactive but skippable cutscenes, and Bioshock with fully-interactive but mandatory cutscenes.

[Jazzzz]

The guy who wrote this needs to have him self a nice tall warm glass of less opinionated garbage. Follow me, if you will, for a mini-rant. For the sake of this poor saps argument I do have to agree with him on 2 points and those points are Half-life (1 & 2) and bioshock. The sheer immersiveness of these 3 titles pulls you in so vividly almost violently that they are able to thrive without the needs of the constant "complete chapter / get a flashy cutscene, rinse, repeat." Im sure there are other titles out there with a similar formula, none of which that im aware of do as well ... but that's not to say they do not exist.

However, on the other side of the fence, I, and im sure the majority of you, are sheer suckers for gripping stories. Let me ask a question: do you think games like, oh lets just say, Uncharted or even DMC 4 would have been as insanely enjoyable without the dialouge and flair and the pure production value of their stylized cutscenes? Not saying the games would have been garbage without them, but i do believe that titles like that, (particularly japanese action games, for some reason they just make more stylish action cutscenes), would lose a good portion of its depth without them.

Now sometimes cutscenes can go to far... i think we all remember the close to 30 minute mini-movie near the end of Metal Gear Solid II. Enjoyable as hell, yes it was, stylish and entertaining, but after about 15 solid minutes of cutscene, wanted to get back to the killin'. <./.rant>

[callahan09]

Personally, MGS 2 is my favorite. I loved the story. If it were any other game with any other story, I'd have hated that long sequence of cutscenes at the end. But I have such huge adoration for the plot, storytelling, characterization, events, and intrigue of MGS 2 that I can forgive it. The whole deal was just so brilliantly told in my opinion. Too bad Kojima took such massive risks with it that it turned people off. I didn't particularly like it when I first played it, myself. But I try to play it at least once a year, and I love it more each time. I think the reason Solid Snake has such a mythical legendary status amongst Metal Gear fans is because of we see him from the outside looking in during MGS 2. We get to see him as he really is, and we realize that nobody is as cool as Snake. Would we realize that as thoroughly as we do if we weren't stuck being Not-Snake the entire time? Not being Snake really solidified the hero that is Snake. And second, the whole S3, the simulation aspect, the artificial intelligence, the censorship thing, the big brother aspect, the secret society, all of it was so intriguing to me. I just love every detail about MGS 2, and it doesn't hurt that I think it has the best gameplay of the series. I think MGS 1 has the best level design and MGS 3 the best graphics, but MGS 2 has the perfect balance of user control and interface. MGS 3 was slightly too complicated, MGS 1 didn't offer the player quite enough control due to the limitations of the PSone. So for me, MGS 2 strikes the perfect balance between gameplay, graphics, and story, and it's among what I'd consider the finest games ever made.

But that's me. Anybody who disagrees, more power to you.

Oh, and Uncharted wouldn't have been nearly as good without the cutscenes. The story, humor and characters were endearing in it. Made it more fun than it would've been without.

[Jazzzz]

too-shay sir.

[kewlkat007]

As long as they give me a:

1. Dedicated "Skip" button
2. The "Scenes" actually add to the game/story not fluff.
3."Cut-scenes" do not make up 70% of the game.

Now that would be my gripe....Yes I'm looking at you FF13. Better not.

Towards the end of games sometimes, if it's just fluff and you know who your going after, I tend to skip it, it all depends. If there is no Skip button than it sux sometimes...

Cut-Scenes are one layer of the Presentation of the Game.

[Z501]

I could've sworn you were able to skip ALL of the previous Metal Gear cutscenes.
I could be wrong though.

[JasonPC360PS3Wii]

Not eliminated, just the option to click out would be nice.

[Dino]

cut scenes should be more interactive ala resident evil 4

[Jesse]

I believe emilinating cutscenes all together would be a terrible idea, I understand sometimes they seem drawn out.. I've been there, but its also the developers creative expression. Alot of these games are great because they are in the vision of the developer and to demand change would take from the finished product and you would be left with something else entirely.
I would like to see an option for people like Maddens Raiders who don't enjoy the cutscenes so much, but if that means taking away from the total package I would say too "bad so sad".
Game developers try very hard to appeal to everyone's taste and needs but its impossible to please everyone.

I personally really look forward to the cutsence, the MGS series is EPIC from start to finish and I enjoy the artistic nature in which it is presented.

I understand if not everyone agree's with my opinion, but at the end of the day thats all we have.

[Danja]

someones pissed cuz they system can't handle MGS4....or maybe cuz it's not ever coming to the ticking time bomb...

[GETPONED]

Half Life

[bakasora]

If he want to play games with no cutscene, he can play MMO games like WOW.

[Keowrath]

or Pac Man.

[Leord]

Cutscenes FTW =) I can't see how ANYONE could have anything against them...

[Keowrath]

stupid article, (oddly enough I feel compelled to comment though =/)

The guy doesn't want the action broken up by cut scenes. Surely that would result in a very repetitive wafer thin plot. Oh wait. This guy is one of the multiplayer peeps that only wants to shoot stuff and not actually have any depth to his games. Well good luck with that mate!

Now for the rest of us who actually enjoy a little story or background with our games please kindly STFU and go back to whatever storyless repetitvie online bullsh1t game you're playing,

Awesome news Bloodmask it's really made me look at MGS in a whole new light! (sarcasm)