From a gaming perspective, which of these two tells a more interesting and better story?

A fully pre-rendered cut scene:

A simple image on a wall:

LOL WUT

I'd go for the latter. I've never been a huge fan of cut scenes in a game, and I always appreciate it when a developer implements the story or important information in the actual game as you're playing it. Audio Diaries in Bioshock, Scannable objects in Metroid Prime... these are great examples of creative storytelling.

Speaking of images on walls telling stories, Sonic & Knuckles is another great example:

Worst post ever award goes to you.

OT: Depends on the cutscene/image, but going by the ones you shown id say the cutscene...

Because hardly anyone knows what the lambda is. (Its symbolysing the decay of life)

I like both, cant decide

FF for me

In this comparison, as much as I hate to say it due to my near-hate for Half-Life 2, I must say Half-Life 2. However, pick any game from the main series since IV and FF>HL2.

In general, I prefer cutscene-based games for storytelling. Of course having them both would be the best.

It's a simple question-- which of those two above things tell a more compelling story?  I'm just curious what people think, of course I guess in this case it's also more fitting to have played Half-Life and Half-Life 2.

So if you haven't played those, just pretend I showed this picture:

(it's not a game image but it still works, and this one is a little better not knowing the context)

I'll go with Half-Life. I don't mind super long cutscenes, but I really like when games just tell you about the story while you're playing.

Smeags said: I'd go for the latter. I've never been a huge fan of cut scenes in a game, and I always appreciate it when a developer implements the story or important information in the actual game as you're playing it. Audio Diaries in Bioshock, Scannable objects in Metroid Prime... these are great examples of creative storytelling. Speaking of images on walls telling stories, Sonic & Knuckles is another great example:

Win!

Since when does Lambda represent decaying life? I never heard that before now... is it just the meaning in Half-Life?

Considering I haven't played Half-Life, that image really doesn't do much for me. Your second image is a better example I think, but I don't look at it and think it's telling much of a story. Maybe if it was a real crack instead of just an artificial one, I would think of it as a better story.

I'm going with the video for these particular examples.