Saturday, December 20, 2008

Steven Spielberg on Games and Cutscenes


More a link for my own reference:  

You know the thing that doesn't work for me in these games are the little movies where they attempt to tell a story in between the playable levels. That's where there hasn't been a synergy between storytelling and gaming. They go to a lot of trouble to do these [motion-capture] movies that explain the characters. And then the second the game is returned to you and it's under your control, you forget everything the interstitials are trying to impact you with, and you just go back to shooting things. And that has not found its way into a universal narrative. And I think more has to be done in that arena.
And:

Yeah, I've played Half-Life, of course. But some games will not let you quit out. I think Battlefield: Bad Company, which I played though, doesn't let you escape the interstitials. I do applaud them for trying the storytelling. It's important to try to invest in these characters you don't get to see when you're playing them. You only get to see them during the little movies. But you don't get to see the faces or recognize the foxhole buddies when you're just targeting the enemy. Yet I applaud them for at least attempting to tell a story.

It's just interesting to see that a filmmaker can get frustrated with cutscenes (although, arguably, the latest Indiana Jones movie was one long cutscene.)

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