| Paul_Warren said: It's funny that some people complain about cutscenes as a method of telling stories in video games, yet you never see these people complain about the fact that there are boxes with characters and word ballons in them that advance the stories in comic books or that when you go to see movies or watch dramas and comedies on television, you see characters and actors on the screen that are playing out stories that you in no way have any control over that many times last up to two hours or more and are oftentimes not as interesting as the cutscenes in games like Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, or the best Resident Evils. |
You're still completely missing the point.
Let me see if an analogy will do the trick. Does it disturb you when you go to a theater, and you see all the action from one viewpoint? Now, does it disturb you when you see a movie and the camera never once moves? Why is it okay in one, but not the other?
Simple. A movie that follows the same rules as the stage is failing to take advantage of the opportunities before it, since it can do things that can't be done in theaters (and vice-versa! Theaters have aspects that can't be replicated by movies). This doesn't automatically mean that a movie that follows the same rules as a theater will automatically fail (indeed, the first movies were essentially recorded theater productions).
What it does mean is that a storyteller can get much more bang for the buck if he recognizes that his medium is not the same as any other, and that he should act accordingly. I've stated some examples above, and other people have done the same in this thread. But perhaps I should end this with a question for you: how much control do you, the viewer, have over the actors on the screen when you're watching T.V.? And how much do you have over the main character in a video game?
See the difference?
P.S. And before you get started, no, I do not completely agree with the author of this article. But you're still failing to grasp his point, so your counterpoints are falling most decidedly short of the mark.
