MGS4 to have 90 minute long cutscenes?

[Final-Fan]

shio said:

DTG said:
You haven't played Planescape, have you? It does explain immortality, it's implications, and goes into depth for it; only the developers tried to show it naturally, and not convoluted (which is what MGS2 was like). In the beginning it is explained roughly (or rather, naturally) the immortality of the Nameless One. the player then will experience death, rebirth, loss of identity, immortality; and he will see the impact of the Nameless One's past, who he was, what he did, the evidences he left. The sporadic gain of memories from past lifes will leave the player wondering more about him, without ever having his questions fully answered.
Yes I have played the game, but your point about it explaining immortality through the gameplay sequence of death and rebirth was false.The game actually explained immortality through pages and pages of vast dialogue. It baffles me that you would even mention Planescape as a game that has compact storytelling presented through its gameplay when it has the largest script ever written for a video game.

Not having fully answered its questions isn't a demonstration of good storytelling. Hell, MGS2 had more loose ends than any game out there. It's simply a style of storytelling not a matter of quality.

DTG, did you see my previous post about about pointing NPC interaction as a viable way to integrate the story into the gameplay? No matter how big the game's script is (btw, Planescape's writing is divine), if it's used through NPC Interaction then it's already inside the gameplay, more so when it's games that have choices/consequences. Planescape has almost all of it's story (well, most of it) inside the gameplay by default.

And sometimes the the best way to explain something is to experience it. That is basic pathology, teachers always use exercises, after explaining the thesis to the students, to demonstrate it. This would let the students better absorb the information given. Same thing for games with complex stories.

This is not the case of MGS2 or MGS4. They exclusively use non-interactive scenes to tell the story, and that is just wrong when it's story-heavy games. It does not give the player anything playable and worst of all, it's storytelling is convoluted and not simple enough in many parts, leaving some people mind-**cked.

I hesitate to get involved in this as I have not played either game. But NPC interaction, if it is in the form of "listen to me talk at you", is exactly like a cutscene, only if it's text then it's like a book instead of a movie. And "pick one of five things for me to talk at you about" is not significantly better other than breaking up the "bookscenes" into smaller parts.

Since I have not played Planescape, it would be silly of me not to give you the chance to point out that what I describe is not at all like the "NPC interaction" you refer to in that game. Please tell me how it differs. Perhaps the main difference here is between what is optional and what is mandatory, or whether you can choose when to experience it. I get the feeling that most of MGS's cutscenes are mandatory and undelayable.

And for the record, I consider any cutscene longer than ten minutes, except at the opening and ending of a game, to be completely unacceptable. The game should be able to tell most of its story through the game itself, only having to resort to cutscenes at certain times -- briefly, before returning to the game. I think that Resident Evil 4 struck a pretty good balance here, even if the story it was telling wasn't spectacular.