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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Your Take On Cinematic Games?

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Veknoid_Outcast on 10 August 2016
Hynad said:
Veknoid_Outcast said:

@bold: that's a beautiful way to put it. I agree entirely.

@BioShock: I think you'll enjoy it. The story is told more obliquely, as in Metroid Prime, Unreal, or Half-Life 2. You explore and see more of the world and discover audio logs. In this way exploration/gameplay is linked to storytelling. I find it a much more effective way to tell a story in a video game unobtrusively.

Bioshock would have had the exact same gameplay even if it had relied on cut-scenes. Its gameplay doesn't give you more liberty just because it doesn't follow the same storytelling structure as a game like TLOU. It's pretty straight forward in its gameplay design, and the way it tells its story doesn't limit or open gameplay features. It's a story driven single player FPS, like many others. But it tells a good story in an interesting setting. 

I don't see how the way it tells its story helps its gameplay. It may help immersion, but in no way does it make its gameplay richer. It's the same with TLOU. The way it tells its story doesn't compromise its gameplay. There are scripted parts in both games. Both presenting them from a different perspective. You may prefer one to the other, but they're not different at their core.

I donno, I think the two are different fundamentally. There's cinematic storytelling, in which the player is a passive onlooker, and there's environmental storytelling, where the player is an active participant.



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Hynad on 10 August 2016
Veknoid_Outcast said:
Hynad said:

Bioshock would have had the exact same gameplay even if it had relied on cut-scenes. Its gameplay doesn't give you more liberty just because it doesn't follow the same storytelling structure as a game like TLOU. It's pretty straight forward in its gameplay design, and the way it tells its story doesn't limit or open gameplay features. It's a story driven single player FPS, like many others. But it tells a good story in an interesting setting. 

I don't see how the way it tells its story helps its gameplay. It may help immersion, but in no way does it make its gameplay richer. It's the same with TLOU. The way it tells its story doesn't compromise its gameplay. There are scripted parts in both games. Both presenting them from a different perspective. You may prefer one to the other, but they're not different at their core.

I donno, I think the two are different fundamentally. There's cinematic storytelling, in which the player is a passive onlooker, and there's environmental storytelling, where the player is an active participant.

Most games that are story-driven these days rely on environmental storytelling to a certain point. TLOU is a good example of a game that uses both approach.

But gameplay-wise, not much is added other than immersion. And that's my point. From a mechanics/player input point of view, I don't see how anything is added to the gameplay. I don't see how going through a corridor with a scripted event in which most/all controls are removed from you while sticking to the game's first person view (as is the case for Bioshock Infinite) is any different [when it comes to gameplay] from a cinematic cut-scene in which you also don't get to choose the outcome.



Veknoid_Outcast on 10 August 2016
Hynad said:
Veknoid_Outcast said:

I donno, I think the two are different fundamentally. There's cinematic storytelling, in which the player is a passive onlooker, and there's environmental storytelling, where the player is an active participant.

Most games that are story-driven these days rely on environmental storytelling to a certain point. TLOU is a good example of a game that uses both approach.

But gameplay-wise, not much is added other than immersion. And that's my point. From a mechanics/player input point of view, I don't see how anything is added to the gameplay. I don't see how going through a corridor with a scripted event in which most/all controls are removed from you while sticking to the game's first person view (as is the case for Bioshock Infinite) is any different [when it comes to gameplay] from a cinematic cut-scene in which you also don't get to choose the outcome.

I'm not exactly arguing that gameplay is enhanced, but that environmental storytelling takes advantage of the unique interactive properties of video games. Why emulate cinema when the video game medium provides its own storytelling tools.



Lrdfancypants on 10 August 2016

I enjoy story driven games.  I enjoy the ones that have limited gameplay as well.  I consider them games as much as any other game. 

i also enjoy other types of games as well that have no stories or weak stories.

I do not see why we can't have many types of games because it is a large market and can support variety.  People can like games for different reasons and a game that focus heavy on story, cutscenes, QTE's or whatever else is no less a game than another.  It's simply a different type of gameplay experience.  

Example:

If I play You don't know jack with my family and friends is it not a game because my interaction with it is limited?  Is it not a game because I have limited control over it?  On one of the games you simply click lie or truth I believe (not all that different than a QTE in a cinematic cutscenes) yet the game will bring in at least 6 people all laughing, clicking, talking, joking, getting frustrated, feeling accomplished and so on in my home.  We did not have complete control over the game.  The game led us down the linear path it chose.  We had limited interaction with it, even less interaction than some intricate cutscenes.  I know people will say it's not story driven cinematic cutscenes but it's not much different in my eyes.  It leads us down a path we do not control by supplying questions of its choosing which we have limited interaction with.  

Ill take another more recent example of cinematic gaming with limited control.  Until Dawn:  A movie and not a game as I've been told many times.  I don't disagree it is limited in its interactions and control but it is a game just as any other.  It's just different.  This non-game movie wannabe created more entertainment in my home as a shared experience than many AAA games that have been released.   Everyone on a couch passing the control, jumping at it's silly B-horror movie scares, laughing at the reactions the camera recorded and asking who needed new undies was an excellent gaming experience.  

I pay $60 to be entertained and I dont care what form the gameplay comes in as long as I'm entertained by it.  Having a wide variety of game types won't hurt the industry.  Quite the opposite, it will expand it.

 

edit: by the way, I completely understand if someone doesn't like heavy story games because we are all different.  I just don't think they need to be wiped from gaming because we need variety for gamings sakes.  I don't think there is anything wrong with options in game types.  



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collint0101 on 10 August 2016

Story is important but a lot of Sony's devs need to learn how to make good game again and realize story is secondary to gameplay



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bananaking21 on 10 August 2016

love them. but they are hard to pull off. specially the ability to make choices that effect the story. i really like it when thats a main feature in a game like Heavy Rain or The Witcher 3 for example;



outlawauron on 11 August 2016
Trunkin said:

Just finally got around to laying TLOU, and I think it would have been better as a tv miniseries. I've yet to see a story in a game that I didn't feel would have been better told in another medium. I feel like the fact that I'm playing a game puts an additional wall between me and the characters somehow. I've heard the opposite said, though.

And of course there's the fact that the level of interactivity oftimes has to be compromised for the sake of storytelling. The gameplay suffers for the sake of the story, and the story suffers for the game. 

I'm playing bioshock next, so maybe that'll change my mind.

That's very interesting, because I feel it's the exact opposite. I feel a level of immersion and empathy that I do not possess watching media in any other format. Without the games including me in the adventure, I wouldn't get drawn in as much (which is the case for almost all movies, TV shows, plays, musicals, etc).



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Ganoncrotch on 11 August 2016

Really love them, if they're done right, something like LA Noire, fantastic experience. I feel sad that a lot of these games suffer badly to youtube since there isn't a whole lot of gameplay so I've actually went out of my way to buy Heavy Rain/Beyond/Last of Us just because I wanted to support games which can be watched rather than played. If you think about it, watching a cinematic game on youtube is sort of piracy, if it's just a silent playthrough, it's a strange one.



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method114 on 11 August 2016

Story is very important to me as well. With that said I hate those cinematic games. I feel The last of us is a nice balance, Mass Effect as well.



Zkuq on 11 August 2016

I couldn't care less about what others think. If it fits a game, I don't mind it being cinematic. On the other hand, I don't necessarily need a story at all if the game is fun. Anything goes as long as the game is somehow a good experience for me.