30 day video game challenge day 16

    When it comes down to the best videogame cutscenes I find myself scratching my head and thumbing through my memory banks to see if there is any one game that stands out from the crowd. With modern releases, lengthy high budget cutscenes are becoming a common feature. Some titles have even become renowned from their cutscenes alone, such as the later Final Fantasy games and Metal Gear Solid ventures. Now I have not played these titles myself, but from looking on Youtube I can tell they literally have hours of cutscenes filling in narrative and back-story. For me this does not make a good cutscene, it needs to segue in effectively with the game experience. Massive chunky cinematics would break up the gameplay to much for me. If I wanted to watch a film of Final Fantasy, I would go watch Advent Children, and for Metal Gear Solid I would much rather watch Escape From New York and enjoy some Kurt Russell awesomeness. Halo Wars attempted to tackle cutscenes in a similar manor, and while it was cool to see some of the designs and characters from the Halo universe in incredible CGI, I felt that they were massively lacking in substance. The whole scenario felt too much like a Hollywood blockbuster- all action and no grit. Sargent Forge acts like a ass the whole way through and at the grand finale rather than feeling a sense of loss and respect for his ultimate act of sacrifice, I found myself rooting for the giant all consuming implosion. Go go billion degree heat- take that Forge you childish asshat. 

                 I think my personal favorite game for cutscenes would have to be Fable. Nothing special really, they were basically used to showcase some of Fables awesome artwork using a combination of a fresco montage and gripping narration by Zoe Wanamaker. In addition to looking amazing and stylistic, they accomplished what any good cutscene should by tying the story together in a neat and presentable fashion. Simple but effective. Cutscenes these days like to distract the gamer with some bright colors and noisy explosions whilst their character does something awesome. But its easy to forget that it is not in fact you doing something awesome, so what is really the point? That may sound self indulgent, but show me a game where you do not control the main character and I will show you a gaming anomaly. Anyhow, I could totally do a back-flip over a car and shoot the driver in the top of the head whilst on fire, I don't need a scripted scene showcasing someone who isn't me hogging the spotlight. Hollywood cheesiness should be left to high budget brain dead blockbusters, game cutscenes should be all about substance and immersion. You gotta feel it or else the gaming experience is considerably diminished, in my opinion.