It is a few steps backwards.  The use of cutscenes to tell most of the story is an old trick for action games.  It mainly goes back to when graphic quality was not that high and the environments were not immersive.  Turn based RPGs use them because there is no real other way to do it when you aren't interacting with the environment.  Everyone else is using much more effective techniques to tell story but Kojima's stuck in cutsceneland.  It isn't the best way to do it.  You are just giving Kojima too much credit when he is a bad video game story teller.

I dont see the problem :

Just sit down and appreciate (if it is good ofc). Consider it is like a bonus movie u get with ur game.

The only bad thing is that u can't watch them progressively like a DVD jumping in it easly to be able to the 90min in 3*30min....

 Well I'd be interested to hear what you mean by this.  Although sometimes I suspect you just like to say nicely quotable things for later video game inspired fortune cookies.  

If you mean that you don't have to be pressing buttons to be immersed in the game, I would agree, but I think that some would not define non button pressing segments of the game as "gameplay"

It would be nice if they were good instead of boring B-movie quality, but I'm still not interested in watching even 30 minute cut scenes. Literally I'd rather be:

(1) watching a good movie or show, tons of which I have on my HD-DVR.

or

(2) playing a fun video game

And, for the record, the gamepro (which sucks) editor said that ninety minutes "sounds like an exaggeration" and that he doesn't remember any scenes being 90 minutes. But the very fact that he can't say for sure, after playing through the game twice, is very telling.

"I played the game twice and I'm not sure, but I don't think any cut scenes where 90 minutes," to paraphrase.  Very encouraging. Why don't you know -- did you skip them? Did you fall asleep? How can you not know after playing twice? 

We understand that. The problem is that other games have done a better job of "feeling like a movie" without lengthy non-interactive cutscenes.

Ack, he's onto me! 

Let's take a game like Fire Emblem as our example.  Now, the gameplay consists of selecting a unit, moving it, and choosing a weapon to attack with.  That's the extent of the button-pressing part of this example. 

However, with each of those individual steps there is a lot of thought and time spent.  Do you select your axe-wielding horseman or your sword-wielding myrmidon?  Do you move her onto cover to prepare for the enemy's movement or do you attack straight out?  Do you attack with the iron sword that has more accuracy and uses but less power or the silver sword with more power but fewer uses and less accuracy?

Sure you're just doing 3 things in the game but the thought process that goes into those three things can be incredibly deep.  I consider all that thought and preparation to be gameplay just as much as the individual button presses.  

Here is the main problem with that. It isn't a movie. It doesn't make the player feel like they are part of a movie with cutscenes, instead they are playing to reach the next cutscene. So, instead of feeling like you are Solid Snake, you get to be a donkey following a carrot. Incorporating the story with the game gives players the feeling that they are the action hero in that movie. So, Kojima is trying to take the player farther out of the game instead of immersing a player in it. This throws the action video game concept totally in reverse. If you want to make a player feel like they are a part of a movie, you have to keep them immersed. Removing the player from an action game for too long disconnects them from that feeling.

No no no, I'm not comparing the storylines of the MP games to the MGS ones, I'm merely pointing out that storytelling can very well be done in-game, if executed in the right way.

Also, yes I have played MGS games before, and I agree they have pretty good stories, but saying the Metroid Prime stories are that bad is just silly. Yes, the overall plot is fairly simple, but the beauty of the storylines in the Prime games is the fact that you can uncover as much about them as you wish. If you scan every enemy, structure, computer file, logbook, item, vehicle. etc. etc., you get an idea of just how intricate and detailed everything blends together and creates a living breathing world. You can just skip all the scanning and blast right through the entire games as fast as you can, or you can take your time to find out every little bit there is to uncover. They're good stories, really, if you take the time to learn them.

Still, 90 minutes for a single cutscene is grossly long.

edited by Rocketpig, CheeBee somehow FUBARed the page layout. No problem, fixed.

Okay thanks, dunno what happened, but it sure was awkward. :p