CG cutscenes and gaming culture

Dead Rising was kind of cool in that the cutscenes clearly used the graphics engine but were very good but you still had to sit through a loading screen when the cut scene was done with.

Overall, I think there are too many cutscenes in video games and that they should be more seemlessly woven into the action. The Halo games did a decent job of this but even they had a lot of cutscenes.

So I guess the general consensus here is typical of western gamers: No CG. Some of you don't even want any cutscenes. I hope you are not the same people complaining about the story in Gears. If it was up to you, you would skip the story anyway.

The cutscenes in GoW were arguably some of the most exciting ever, and were in-engine, which is preferable to most people. So why not just have all games have in-engine graphics like that?

CG Cutscenes are a lie...

Any of the CD-ROM based consoles and beyond can display hollywood-budget video and CG. But I don't care that millions of dollars worth of equipment can make an CG image that looks amazing. I already know that. That's why we have movies.

I love storytelling aspects of games, but show me what this $400 piece of hardware can do.

Leave me submerged in the same virtual environement I play the game in.

And PLEASE stop showing off CG cutscenes in commercials. Ever see a Final Fantasy commercial? Looks like the most amazing looking game ever. Then you pop it in and it's a 2d turn-based crap basket. No thanks.

I can't care less

Real-time Cutscenes - by far!

I absolutely loved the cutscenes in Saints Row- because you could actually see your own character!

Pre-rendered screenshots are so fake or something.

CG cut scenes are a waste of valuable resources. Plain and simple. I'd rather all that money and disc space go towards making a better game.

There is nothing I hate more than
#1 Pre rendered cutscenes,
#2 Slow loading times...

Usually pre rendered cutscenes cause longer loading times >:( as well as they waste the otherwise plentiful storage space we have on DVD-9

i like to be rewarded when I clear something epic with beautifuls cg's.

Personally, I prefer the pre-rendered cut cut scenes, mainly for one reason.

When I see this wonderfully created scene, I feel that I am being rewarded for getting where I got to. I get this enormous sense of achievement.

It does not seem as much when the same scene is rendered using the in game engine, as it means I am generally looking at graphics that I have been seeing for the past X number of hours that I have been playing the game for.

I like to see pre-rendered CGI at the start of the game. While playing the game I'd rather see short cut scenes done with the game engine and when I'm finishing a level the cut-scenes can either be in-game or pre-rendered. With a game like FF I even expect cut scenes. That's simply a hallmark of the series. Those games offer some of the best CGI outside of feature-length animated movies and I'd hate to see them replaced by in-game CGI.

I really like in-game, there's absolutely no reason why a development team should be wasting money on CG cutscenes when they can be spending time ironing out flaws and polishing the actual gameplay, especially at this point, where real-time cutscenes are more than capable of showing action realistically. That being said, it would also be a travesty if *some* eyecandy wasn't included. I like Kingdom Hearts' style. They have one major CG cutscene at the beginning and the end of the game, and that works. If anything, add another half dozen AT THE MOST interspersed in the game to give something for gamers to get to. But if your storytelling isn't good enough with retina-frying graphics, then you need to go back to the drawing board.

@50 Actually, I was astounded at how quickly FFXII pre-rendered cutscene loading times were. It was almost as fast as an in-engine cutscene; the delay was of about 1 second. O_o

Reminds me of the Gamers' Manifesto.

Brilliant read if you haven't seen it. Specifically talking of Part 3.

http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/games/manifesto.html

The idea being, stop telling me a game looks like this CG cutscene with shots of cutscenes in the print ads and on box, and show me real in game footage. Stop trying to fool me into buying your game.

I remember back in the late days of the PS1 looking at the back of the box of all the EA games seeing screenshots from the PC version. Graphics looked ridiculously good... But they weren't. That's also bad.

I think that a lot of the major developers have a pretty good idea about how to balance CG and in-game now. As noted by Daigoji Gai in comment 2, the Metal Gear Solid series (a japanese one, at that!) deliver rich storytelling with plenty of eye candy, keeping gamers immersed in the world in which the game takes part in. Meanwhile, you have the post PS1 FF games, amongst a few other titles, that use CG to deliver highlights in the game's story, while using in-game for a large chunk of everything else.

A good example of bad CG storytelling from a Japanese developer is Devil May Cry 2. A large majority of story was told in CG movies that were, quite frankly, somewhat ugly. Not only did the game not deliver in quality (all you had to use were guns to beat the game, and there were far too many weapons that you didn't need), but it was just shit.

What's important is balance, if you put CG in a game. Final Fantasy XII is a good example. While it uses CG to pretty the game up, a large majority of story is told in-game, while CG is primarily used for large explosions that just can not be delivered in-game, and is mainly used for cinematic eye candy, to show greater detail than the system that the game is on allows. There are many more reasons that make FFXII one of the greatest games ever made, particularly noting the quick battle system and especially the voice actors (glee!), the topic at hand is with CG.

The one game that used CG extensively in FF, and was most well known for, was FFVIII, particularly due to its intro, as well as all of the key scenes of the game, and mostly near the end of any disc, reaching for some sort of climatic cliffhanger. FFVIII is old news and an acquired taste, so I'm not going to go into that.

One last example that I'd like to use is Ninja Gaiden on the xbox. Being a game that was designed by someone who had was known for the Dead or Alive series, and filling a niche in the Japanese market for large breasted anime girls that either play beachball or fight each other to the death, it uses a rather extensive amount of CG for cinematic story telling, even though, graphically, the game itself is very capable of doing that on its own (and something that I'd like to see myself, considering what MGS3 achieved on such a dated system like the PS2).

I think that this is an issue that will be brought up time and time again in video games, but in the end, immersion is what's important.

It seems more people here are leaning more heavily towards one side or the other, but just like when you're designing anything, I think you should choose what best fits with what you're doing. I agree with a lot of what #56 said. Personally I found one of the biggest draws for cutscenes for me was FFVIII. They used a prerendered cutscene in the back as you lead your characters through the scene. Probably one of the best cutscene experiences ever. RE4 brought this feel to the next level for me as it made sure you paid attention at all times, cutscenes weren't a break from the action, they were part of it. Each title has to find what style works for their game and go with it. Action games tend to utilize in-game better as that's what they're more suited towards and RPGs, well, you're telling a story, so pre-rendered works pretty well there.

I fracking HATE it when actual movie footage is used in a game. It's such an unbelievably cheap cop-out. When I saw this in the first LOTR Xbox game, I promptly ejected the disc and returned it. No thank you.