I recently read a rumor that Assassin’s Creed 2 might have three hours worth of cut scenes. Unlike a lot of gamers, I don’t mind most cut scenes. I remember when games would advertise “X hours of realistic CG cut scenes” as a good thing. I understand the common complaint against them, but I also think cut scenes are a fine way to tell a story in a linear game, and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is proof of this.

Cut scenes get a lot of hate because they interrupt gameplay. Too often a boss fight will suddenly become a cut scene, and after a quick verbal back-and-forth the protagonist will perform one final action that kills the antagonist. This wouldn’t be so awful if the scene only involved dialogue, but by reserving the death of the villain for a cut scene the game removes some of the satisfaction of winning. Technically the player never gets to kill the main bad guy as it happens in a cut scene.

One reason these non-interactive sequences work in Uncharted 2 is that they never interrupt gameplay, in fact gameplay sometimes interrupts a cut scene. During a couple movies, just when the player thinks the action is over, an enemy attacks a nearby companion and suddenly we’re in control again, shooting the attacker. As soon as he’s dead the cut scene continues. Action always happens to the player, Nathan Drake only fires his gun once in a cut scene, every other time he shoots it’s because the player has pressed the R1 button. When a building starts to crumble with Drake in it, we’re in control; when a stone platform begins sliding down a hill with Drake and company on it, we’re in control; when he has to jump from car to car during a high speed chase, we’re hitting the button to make him jump. By making these grand set pieces interactive, it feels like they’re happening to us, not just happening to him. We become more invested in the character and his struggles because we’ve gone through them as well.

Since a good cut scene doesn’t have much, if any, action in it, it relies on the plot to keep players interested. These moments of calm have to move the plot forwards while setting up the next action scene, but these are also fitting moments for character development. Characters can be developed during gameplay through animation, voice over, or by having a unique skill set, but cut scenes are by far the easiest method for doing so because of their similarities to film, a medium with several standards already in place regarding proper character development. But any cut scene, even a well directed, well acted, graphical showcase, is still interrupting gameplay, so it must accomplish these goals quickly, or risk losing the interest of the player.

The Metal Gear Solid games are infamous for their failure in this regard. The high production values of its cut scenes are obvious, but the scenes drag on far too long thanks to endless exposition by various characters describing their personal motivations, their complicated pasts, the current political landscape, or others aspect of the plot. While some may defend these long movies for their high quality and intriguing themes, there are just as many people that hate them for their meandering dialogue and length.

On the other hand, the cut scenes in Uncharted 2 are never more than a couple minutes long, even when the plot twists and turns. In one scene Drake is caught by the villain Lazarevic and makes that classic “You need me so you can’t hurt me” stand, but when he’s searched Lazarevic gets a hold of a map with a giant X on it. The balance of power swings from Lazarevic to Drake and back to Lazarevic within the span of two minutes. The plot is pushed forwards by dialogue that gets straight to the point, there’s no exposition, so the player is constantly engaged by the quick pace.

The cut scenes in Gears of War 2 were successful in moving the plot forwards quickly, but never contained any meaningful character development. The new characters of Tai and Dizzy are interchangeable with out other teammates, personality wise. But since the cut scenes focus purely on the plot, the game give these new characters a distinct look to set them apart. Tai’s tattoos make him look like some ancient mystic, and Dizzy has a cowboy hat; the game then hopes that we’ll get attached to them based solely on their unique appearances.

The second cut scene in Uncharted 2 fully introduces us to Chloe, one of the new characters in the sequel. Within a few minutes we learn that she and Drake have a romantic history, that she’s using Flynn (the other new character) to help get a treasure, and that her and Drake plan to run away together after the heist. Too often in games a women is portrayed as tough by being cruel or indifferent to everyone around her (see Rubi in Wet). We see a little bit of that in Chloe as she casually plans to betray Flynn, but then we see a vulnerable side to her as well: She has genuine feelings for Drake, she wants to run away with him because she actually likes him. She’s not the one dimensional “tough bitch” stereotype that games normally fall back on, she’s a complicated character with complicated motivations.

Cut scenes are a viable way to tell a story in linear games. They provide a chance to advance the plot while developing characters, but the gameplay must always take precedent, and that’s a mistake many games make. The player should get to partake in all the action. Successfully implementing a cut scene is difficult, the many failed attempts are proof of that, but Uncharted 2 is proof that, when done right, cut scenes can add to the depth and enjoyment of a game.

—Nick Dinicola

Whenever a critic of the gaming industry starts to decry the level of violence in games, the response is generally the same. It’s standard to point out that violence in games pales when compared to the more explicit violence and gore in movies. While that may be true when comparing a game like GTA IV (the mass media’s favorite whipping boy) to a movie like Hostel, it doesn’t hold up for games versus movies in general. If we go by gallons of blood spilt, games are more violent and gory than movies by a longshot. But what’s the real effect of all this violence? A little blood is realistic, lots of blood is scary, but the geysers that often fly from enemies in games is cartoonish. The more blood there is in a game, the more unrealistic it becomes; it ceases to have any real meaning and becomes a joke. Any message or deeper meaning the game might have is lost because no one takes it seriously.

Gears of War 2 is a prime example of this sideshow gore. It embraces violence as one of its selling points but also tries to be serious at times. When we chainsaw a Locust in half, the camera rotates slightly giving us a better view of the chainsaw cutting into our enemy; blood spews out and splashes all over the camera to emphasize the very bloody nature of this kill. A lot of care and attention to detail went into this short scene because it’s important, it’s our reward for getting in close for a kill. We could have shot at the alien from the relative safety of distance, but instead we chose to get in close where we could have been easily flanked or killed by a single well-placed shotgun blast or been punched and cut in half ourselves. The violence has been embellished to the point of ridiculousness, and that’s why it works as an entertaining reward.

It’s interesting that the most emotional scene in the game is completely bloodless. When Dom finally finds Maria, his missing wife, she steps out of a tiny cell looking normal and healthy. They embrace, and when the camera pulls back, we realize that we’re seeing her through Dom’s eyes, and in reality, she’s nothing more than an emaciated skeleton that is mentally dead. But there’s no blood. There are scars on her face, we can see her bones through her skin, but no blood is presented in the secne. Gears of War 2 embraces bloody mayhem as it’s chief attraction, but the lack of it here suggests that this scene is not supposed to be enjoyed, this scene is meant to be taken seriously. But it doesn’t work.

Gamers make fun of the Maria subplot in Gears of War 2 because that single moment of seriousness is out of place in the game. It really is a powerful moment, but when surrounded by ultraviolent fun, it alone can’t grab the player’s attention and make him care.

Where ultraviolence helps make a message clearer is in parodies. Madworld and No More Heroes are two of the most violent games on consoles, let alone on the Wii, and both have embraced their cartoonish ultraviolence by becoming cartoons. They parody other violent games by exaggerating other aspects of the game, the art style, boss fights, and characters to the same extent as the violence. In this context, the ultraviolence seems normal, but being normal in these kinds of over-the-top worlds serves to showcase how out of place it is in purportedly realistic games.

Games must learn restraint before they can be taken seriously, however, “restraint” doesn’t just mean less violence. Bloodless violence is common in games rated anything but M, and this kind of violence is often seen as childish, as the removal of something graphic in order to make it more appealing to a younger audience. So to avoid this unwanted label and to make themselves immediately stand out, M rated games tend to go to the opposite extreme but end up looking just as juvenile. It’s then up to that player to actively try and get over his immediate preconceived notion that these games are just over-the-top mindless fun. There’s nothing wrong with a little ultraviolence, but not every M game has to embrace it to the degree that’s currently popular. Everything in moderation.

—Nick Dinicola

Saw VI comes out today, the latest movie in the “torture porn” sub-genre of horror. When this sub-genre first began to grow in popularity, many film critics lamented that torture had become something entertaining, but in all the time since then, horror games have not jumped to cash in on the trend. Horrow games have changed dramatically over the six years since Saw was first released but not along the same lines that their filmic counterparts have. Horror games have become more action packed thanks to Resident Evil 4 and Dead Space, all but ignoring the seeming popularity of torture. It seems those critics can breathe a sigh of relief because, while certain horror fans enjoy watching torture, it seems that they also don’t want to partake in it directly.

That’s not to say there are no instances of torture in modern horror games. One scene near the end of Silent Hill: Homecoming feels ripped straight out of Hostel. The hero is tied to a chair while a cultist stabs a drill into his leg, and a few quick-time events later he’s free and the drill is sticking out of the cultist’s eye. Then there are the Manhunt games in which players are forced to participate in a snuff film. And the franchise that arguably started it all, Saw, made its first jump to video games earlier this month. What’s interesting about all these examples of torture is that the player is always the victim, never the torturer. We’re tied to the chair in Silent Hill: Homecoming, we’re a killer in Manhunt, yes, but a killer forced to play the starring role in a snuff film. In the Saw game, we don’t play as Jigsaw but as a cop caught up in one of Jigsaw’s maniacal, elaborate traps. Every torture device that we come across has someone else stuck inside it and solving the trap plays out like a mini puzzle game. This allows for a variety of play that we wouldn’t get to participate in if we had control over Jigsaw because torturing people just isn’t an interesting game mechanic.

—Nick Dinicola

A couple weeks ago I wrote that graphics simply can’t get much better, and while I firmly believe that, I also believe that gamers are constantly awaiting some new leap in visuals. It’s something we’ve been conditioned over decades of consoles to expect, and we still expect it now. But if graphics can’t get much better, is a new visual leap is even possible?

In September Resident Evil 5 was released for PC with an interesting new addition: It could be played in 3D, the kind of 3D that has things popping out of the screen, the kind that requires special glasses, a special monitor, and a special video card. LG, Samsung, and Sony have released or plan to release 3D HDTV’s, and Sony has plans to release a patch for the PS3 in 2010 that will allow the system to display 3D games.

There are already a surprising number of games available in 3d on the PC. NVIDA’s GeForce glasses are compatible with DirectX 7, 8, 9, and 10 games, automatically converting the normal 3D to work with the glasses. So this technology is not particularly new, but as usual consoles lag behind, and in this gaming age unless 3D catches on there it won’t catch on at all. So far, the only developer to try and break this new ground has been Sucker Punch, with their game Sly 3 Honor Among Thieves.

Sly 3 uses the now antiquated red/blue 3D glasses to make certain scenes pop out at the viewer. Given the nature of this old technology, it should come no surprise that the change is almost imperceptible at first. The 3D only becomes apparent, and even then only barely, after one starts looking closely at Sly and his position relative to the rest of the level. The effect of the glasses is less “pop” and more like a series of moving 2D images placed on top of each other; you begin to see the level in layers. In the first level the 3D was only obvious when I came to a thin ledge with moving lasers I had to sneak past. The source of the lasers was off-screen, above the camera, which seemed to be just over my head in the real world thanks to “pop” of the 3D. Overall, the 3D didn’t change the experience in any fundamental way, but it did add a new and interesting visual flair to an otherwise typical platformer.

Of course the biggest hurdle facing any implementation of 3D is the skepticism. Is it necessary?

It wasn’t necessary for Sly 3 because it didn’t add anything to the experience. Even if I exaggerate the effects of 3D in my head, I can’t imagine it’d make jumping around any more or less fun than it already was. But I think it could add to the experience of a game like Dead Space: Extraction. In that game enemies must run towards the screen in order to hurt the player. The entire game relies on enemies moving through that third dimension of depth that 3D showcases so well, making such a game the perfect vehicle for the technology. After all, 3D and horror go hand-in-hand since those “boo” moments of something jumping at the screen are only made more shocking if the monster seems to be actually jumping towards the player.

I believe it would add to any game that could exploit this added depth of field: First-person shooters for example, in which there’s always a gun hovering in front of us, and we’re constantly looking down its sights; racing games, where inferring the distance between cars is important, and the details of the cockpit view would stand out just a little bit more; but for a fighting game or any 2.5D game it would only serve as more background eye-candy.

Without going too far down the dangerous road of speculation, I imagine 3D can be very compatible with motion controllers, since it’s easier to move a character in 3D space if you can move the controller in 3D space as well. Combine it with the promised full-body tracking of Microsoft’s Natal, and you could have a truly unique experience unlike anything that has come before. But that’s getting a tad too far ahead of things, and ignores my previous question. Is it necessary?

While I think certain genres would benefit from the added depth the simple answer is no, games will play the same either way. At least motion control changes the way we interact with game, but going 3D only makes them more pretty (or less pretty if you don’t like the new look). Gamers do expect to be wowed visually, and the longer this console generation goes on the less it will wow. So if the next visual leap is not from 3D to 3D, than what will it be? Will there even be a leap? I certainly don’t know, but what I do know is that Sly 3 is fun whether in 3D or not.

—Nick Dinicola

Over the past week on Moving Pixels,  L.B. Jeffries and G. Christopher William have written about system gank in games, a term that describes “a situation in which a player is still operating legitimately in the confines of the game but has broken the system.” They wrote mostly about the negative consequences of “breaking the game,” but I think ganking the game can be a good thing, at least in single player games.

On a purely semantic level, I disagree that cases of system ganking in single player games is really ganking as L.B. Jeffries defined it in his post. The hyper-production in an RTS, the abundance of health in an RPG, and the speedy financial growth in The Sims all strike me as very purposeful design choices, meant to encourage the player to play a certain way. Am I still ganking the game if the game itself allows, even encourages, me to do so?

When Final Fantasy X first came out a friend of mine played the utter hell out of it. He found the secret weapon for each character, all the secret Aeons (summoned creatures), and even a few secret items that disabled the 9999 damage limit for his characters. When he finally fought the final boss of the game, he defeated it in only two hits (now I admit that this memory may have gotten exaggerated over time, but I clearly remember us both being shocked and laughing for a good while at how short the fight was). Clearly he was overpowered, so much so that even the final boss was no challenge, but did he gank the system? The game allowed him to equip those items, to find those weapons, and it was his own strategic equipment layout that enabled him to become that powerful. He earned the ability to gank the system.

This is, of course, an extreme example, but I believe that ganking is often used as a reward for following the rules. Sometime it takes a long time to earn that reward, as in Final Fantasy X, and sometimes it doesn’t, as in The Sims. Whether that’s seen as a positive or negative depends on the individual and the game that they’re playing. As Christopher mentioned at the end of his post, some gamers prefer “play,” referring to freedom and the violation of rules, and some prefer “gaming,” referring to the challenge and competition that is represented by and generated by a system of rules. If a player enjoys a game for its challenge, then obviously when that challenge is removed, so is the fun. Earning the ability to gank the game ruins the game. But if a player enjoys a game for its freedom, then when that freedom is fully embraced (thanks to our ability to gank the system), the fun remains. 

Some games also encourage one play style over the other. I see nothing wrong with the get-rich-quick nature of The Sims, but then again, the last time that I played it I used a money cheat to build myself a mansion. I felt that the game was more fun when I embraced the freedom of experimentation that it offered. On the other hand, I wouldn’t approve of any cheat that makes it easier to earn gold medals in Trials HD. I feel that game is more fun when I embrace the challenge of the system of rules. Ganking one game makes it fun for me, ganking the other ruins it for me. It all depends on the specific experience that we want to have as players and that the game offers.

However, all that said, I agree with Christopher that better rules would fix most (perceived) ganking problems in single player games. To return to the Fallout 3 example, while having lots of health promotes exploration, it’s also in direct contrast to the game’s heavy themes of survivalism. Throughout the game, we see people struggling to survive and even the main story revolves around making life easier for humanity in the Capital Wasteland. Yet for the middle to high level player, walking through the wastes is like a walk in a park. Sure, the ants may be bigger, but they’re no more dangerous. A system that limits the number of stimpacks that we can carry would fix this discrepancy between the story and the experience. It could discourage exploration by making it harder, but I actually believe that such a fix would have the opposite effect. Exploration isn’t just about the discovery of something new; it’s about facing the dangers of the unknown, pushing ourselves beyond what we feel is safe, entering that dark cave even knowing that we’re ill equipped to handle what may be inside. Danger is exciting, and exploration is Fallout 3 is anything but dangerous. A better system of rules would change this for the better.

When dealing with ganking and its consequences in an MMO, the situation becomes far more complicated since one player’s desired experience might conflict with another player’s desired experience as in the Twixt situation that L.B. Brought up in his first post. But still, ganking is not always a negative thing; it can also be used as a makeshift workaround for a poor system of rules, like being forced to piggyback experience off higher level players in order to play with high-level friends in City of Heroes. In an MMO, since you’re now dealing with many players instead of one, it seems to me that me that the best that the developer can do is try and make the game’s experience as pleasant as possible for as many gamers as possible. Therefore, popular opinion rules. Popular opinion ruled that Twixt exploited the teleport power, that he ganked the game in a bad way, so the developers “broke” the teleport power. Popular opinion ruled it was too hard to level up in City of Heroes, and as a result, players ganked the game in a good way.  Thus, the developers changed the rules to better fit the needs of the people.

As L.B. said, need precedes game design.

This discussion began with Moving Pixels Plays Telephone Part 1: Considering “Ganking” the System in Video Games and continues in Moving Pixels Plays Telephone Part 2: “Ganking” Broken Systems in Video Games before concluding here.