The official "I hate really long cut-scenes" thread

C

cvxfreak

Member
I really like this game. Bought it when it came out but only played it today. I have the same praise everyone's had, but the same problem from Metal Gear Solid 2 is back. *takes a deep breath*

WHY WON'T EVERYONE SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Seriously, once again there are too many long cut-scenes, although they're more interesting this time around.

Even though it's story was infinitely lamer, RE4's short, but funny and memorable cut-scenes were a lot better than MGS3's really long cut-scenes. Bleh.
 
I watched my bro play the first 15 minutes of MGS3, and already I was sighing about Kojima's preachy, drama-queen dialogue.
 
Its not really the length of the cut scenes that bothers me, its the atrocious dialogue. The long cut scenes just make the dialogue that much more unbearable.

Hire a professional scriptwriter already, jeez!
 
Every game with noticable cutscenes should have

1. a way to pause the cutscenes and
2. a way to skip the cutscenes.

What bothered me the most in MGS2 weren't the cutscenes though, but the codec interruptions. I thought the cutscenes in MGS3 were interesting enough, and the codec talk had been cut down substantially. I only wish there was a way to pause cutscenes in MGS3...
 
I love 'em. I really look forward to lengthy cutscenes, as I enjoy watching them and they serve as a nice "reward", if you will, to the gameplay. It does not work for most games and I wouldn't want it that way, but part of what I love about MGS are the cutscenes.

Thankfully, for your sake, MGS3's first mission is packed with cutscenes but once the game really begins, they tone the amount down by quite a bit. You'll forget that you even have a codec, after a while...

I watched my bro play the first 15 minutes of MGS3, and already I was sighing about Kojima's preachy, drama-queen dialogue.
Click to expand...

Yeah, and like I said, the first "mission" in MGS3 absolutely does not represent the pace of the rest of the game...
 
That's part of what I hated about Xenosaga 1, the cutscenes are so long that they have save points, in the cutscenes. When you start doing THAT, you kniow it's time to start making the cutscenes shorter.
 
I have an idea... let's form a Spoiler Club. The goal of the Spoiler Club is to go into threads of recently released, ultra-cinematic games and spoil key plot points. You should catch the reader off guard with these spoilers, putting them in the middle of an unrelated sentance. For example: Yeah, Kojima said he did the level design of MGS2 with Snake dies you play through the entire game as Raiden!!

This will discourage people from playing cinematic games for fear that they're enjoyment will be ruined by spoilers.

;)
 
I endorse this thread!

A few things that would make long cut scenes more tolerable.

1. SKIP BUTTON! This should be mandatory, in the event you've seen it, or just don't care.
2. Pause. In the event you actually care, but the real world is interfering - like having to answer the door or phone.

It may also help for the gaming community to exile all of the frustrated wanna-be film makers on an island somewhere.

In theory, I don't mind cut scenes. It's when they comandeer my freakin' game that I get a little cheesed off. Fortunately I'm not a Hideous Kojima fan, so it's pretty rare. ^_^
 
I agree that we need to pause cut-scenes. But putting shit on Kojima is wrong! :D

Those that didn't bother in MGS3 before Operation Snake Eater severely missed out on one of the best Kojima games ever and the best of 2004. Like the other guys said, I rarely ever used the codec during Snake Eater.

The fact that he went back and cut down the codec talk due to complaints by people from MGS2 is testament that he actually listens unlike several other companies.
 
I'm a fan of Metal Gear's melodramatic storylines, quirky sense of humor, and hollywood production values when it comes to cut-scenes. MGS2 went overboard, yes, but I felt a perfect balance was found with Snake Eater.

Pulling RE4 into this debate was a mistake, I believe. The bland characterization and poorly implemented "codecs" killed what little appeal there was in RE4's paint-by-numbers plot. While I do believe gameplay is king, story presentation is an important element for me when grading a title in overall quality.

The ability to pause would be nice, though.
 
the problem isn't the cutscenes themselves. Its the use of them.

I like the cut scenes and story of mgs games. its why I am play them. But there is a definite tendancy to use cutscenes to explore story ideas that only have a vague relevance to the central story at best. And its those cutscenes where I just turn off my brain and phase out for a while.

mgs2 suffered horribly from these tangent ideas, mgs3 less so but there was still a couple of points where I just wanted to say to kojima, "enough with this, that cutscene added nothing to the game and was just some obscure plot idea you had that couldn't find any good way of fitting in nicely." the metal gear games are like having a good book but with the apendix of superfluous information sewn throughout the game rather than left at the end and out of the way where it belongs.
 
Thats nothing compared to Xenosaga Ep1. IIRC they actually asked if you wanted to save during the middle of a cutscene :lol

Mightve been 45 minutes at least
 
as a solution to the problem (aside from being able to pause cut scenes which I really wanted in mgs3) they should make a branching point for these superfluous story ideas. Like you reach a point and then it says, "if you want to watch a scene explaining x, press triangle now. Note, this is extra information and not needed to understand the core story."
 
It has to be repeated that MGS3 is actually a substantial improvement over MGS2 in terms of cut-scenes and codec sequences; in that they are much shorter and less frequent. BUT there is one part of the game early on that is ridiculously long. Much is revealed, but I think it was a serious mistake to include so much at once. Lucky that the rest of the game is just so damn great that all was forgiven.

I thought the story was good, and some parts excellent (the action scenes), but I'd agree that the dialogue got fairly preachy (no, I was not impressed, Mr Kojima). They also tried to walk a silly line between fantasy and an alternate history, which made it difficult for me to enjoy. I'll always open my mind to imagination, but MGS3 was such a strange mix of unbelievable and self-importance sometimes.
 
I fucking hate MGS3. The translation is boring and the lines are delivered terribly. David Hayter has lost the groove since the original MGS.

"A metal GEAR? A WEAPON that can LAUNCH a NUKE from ANYWHERE in the WORLD?"
 
I think Dark Cloud 2 has some of the best cutscene handling I've seen...

You can pause cutscenes.

While a cutscene is paused, you can skip it by hitting triangle. This eliminates any potential to accidentally skip the cutscene.

Even better, you can hit X to skip most lines of dialog once the subtitle has been displayed.
 
I hate when there's a long cut scene where I have to press A or X to continue each line of dialogue, especially when the dialogue consists of:

"..."
 
Sho Nuff said:
I fucking hate MGS3. The translation is boring and the lines are delivered terribly. David Hayter has lost the groove since the original MGS.

"A metal GEAR? A WEAPON that can LAUNCH a NUKE from ANYWHERE in the WORLD?"
Click to expand...
Hahaha I agree that Hayter's voice was a bite on the arse in MGS3. Everytime he'd saw a word in that husky heroic voice of his, I'd imitate it to my girlfriend over and over again.

"Meeetaall Geeaaarr...???"

A shame that Kojima could never put the Japanese voice acting as an option like he was wanting to do.
 
Its not so much the cutscenes, but the talking scenes in KOTOR II. I'm sitting there in the middle of a big conversation between my dude and Kreia and my wife walks in and starts talking to me. I'm like hang on a second. Ten minutes later she storms out of the room saying I'm ignoring her. Hey, I was just trying to get to a stopping point.
 
I set aside two full, un-interupted days in Dec to play MGS3, and everytime a cutscene started, I'd look at the phone and think "Dammit, somebody's gong to call me, I just know it."


*Actual True Story*

Cutscene begins
Cell chirps, I see it's Dark10x, I answer.

Dark10x: My car just got totalled!!
ASM: I'm in a fucking cutscene here, man. You should know better!
-click
 
This thread was timed well for me, because I was just considering starting The Twin Snakes (got it for Christmas, but haven't played it yet), but decided against it because of the sure-to-be-there lengthy cutscenes. I chose Everything or Nothing (GCN) instead for right now. ;)

The above story is quite hilarious, I must say. :lol
 
CVXFREAK said:
Seriously, once again there are too many long cut-scenes, although they're more interesting this time around.
Click to expand...


Oh, boy.... I really hope they're more interesting. I still remember in MGS2 that during some cutscenes I got so bored that I went walking around in my home or reading some comics until they finished :lol I particularly remember the one with that girl that tells all his life's story, sooooooo boring!
 
Man, I can't get enough of the cutscenes. Maybe it's because I grew up on a fat diet of Wing Commander my whole life, but the longer the better. Interactive movie and all.
 
Cutscenes are allright with me, but it's the wordy and pointless codec conversations that killed MGS2 for me. My interest kinda dwindled when Raiden went on and on with Rose over the codec. Ugh, bad memories....
 
Vlad said:
I think Dark Cloud 2 has some of the best cutscene handling I've seen...

You can pause cutscenes.

While a cutscene is paused, you can skip it by hitting triangle. This eliminates any potential to accidentally skip the cutscene.

Even better, you can hit X to skip most lines of dialog once the subtitle has been displayed.
Click to expand...
And it's a good thing, too. DC2 has some of the most eminently skippable cutscenes I've experienced.
 
dark10x said:
I love 'em. I really look forward to lengthy cutscenes, as I enjoy watching them and they serve as a nice "reward", if you will, to the gameplay. It does not work for most games and I wouldn't want it that way, but part of what I love about MGS are the cutscenes.

Thankfully, for your sake, MGS3's first mission is packed with cutscenes but once the game really begins, they tone the amount down by quite a bit. You'll forget that you even have a codec, after a while...



Yeah, and like I said, the first "mission" in MGS3 absolutely does not represent the pace of the rest of the game...
Click to expand...


Panajev approves this message.
 
I dont mind RE4 cutscenes where they are in game and not long. MGS2 on the otherhand felt more like an incoherant B movie than a game.
I the parts i wanted to play were actually in the cutscenes! argh!
 
dark10x said:
I love 'em. I really look forward to lengthy cutscenes, as I enjoy watching them and they serve as a nice "reward", if you will, to the gameplay.
Click to expand...

There was a time when playing the game was the "reward". Unfortunately, that time is gone and gamers apparently demand less.
 
Constant cut scenes just distract from gameplay. Kinda acceptable in rpgs, cuz story is often the most important thing in these games. But in other types of games they can just disrupt the flow if there are too many, and just bore the hell out of you if they aren't all that interesting.

I never agree with arguements that say you can just skip em, because it's impossible to know ahead of time which scenes actually relevant and need to be seen. But the ability to pause em is needed, and you definately need to be able to save immediately after some of the long ones (or at least make it skippable if you die and restart where you have to watch it again), pause them if they are insanely long (Hi Kojima), and skip them easilly the second time through the game
 
Tsubaki said:
There was a time when playing the game was the "reward". Unfortunately, that time is gone and gamers apparently demand less.
Click to expand...

Hence the quotations...

I was hesitant to refer to them as a reward for that very reason. I was not attempting to imply that I would prefer all games to move in such a direction. The majority of games on the market do not typically flood the player with cutscenes throughout the game and focus more heavily on the game itself. The reason why games such as MGS and Xenosaga receive so much attention in regards to the number of cutscenes and their length is that they are NOT, in fact, the norm.

The mindset you must be in when playing Metal Gear Solid or something like, say, Gradius V is entirely different. Simply switching between the two games is not going to work as they provide such different entertainment experiences.

I support and enjoy all the different types of gaming that one can engage in. However, if someone dislikes the idea of cutscenes in game and feel that they "distract" the player from the gameplay, I would suggest that they simply avoid those games as they are not intended for them.

I believe it is entirely possible to play different games for their own reasons. I can enjoy playing games for a high score, to unlock new modes, to experience the gameplay itself, or to simply sit back and watch a story. It's all entertainment and it's all fun, depending on my mood.
 
Hideo Kojima just doesn't know when to stop his cutscenes. Many times the cutscenes are brilliant, up until a certain point where you're sure it going to stop and you can start playing again. Only then there's 5 more minutes of absolutely unnecessary "would have been cut out in a movie" material.

And the Codec can die for all I care.
I can talk with my companions on the Ebon Hawk in Kotor 1+2 for hours without getting bored, because the dialogue is so well- written, and of course you constantly have choices to make. The codec conversations is the complete opposite.

And not being able to pause and skip cutscenes is nothing but stupid.
Too many games follow the exact same pattern: save point > door > stupid 2min unskippable boss introduction cutscene> boss fight. Then you die on the boss and have to watch the same boss intro scene again, and again, and again....and again.
 
Too many games follow the exact same pattern: save point > door > stupid 2min unskippable boss introduction cutscene> boss fight. Then you die on the boss and have to watch the same boss intro scene again, and again, and again....and again.
Click to expand...

Onimusha's f*cking water puzzle comes to mind...
 
dark10x said:
Onimusha's f*cking water puzzle comes to mind...
Click to expand...
Oh yeah. Jesus, Capcom has acted like they had a gold pass this gen haven't they?

"We're gonna give 'em online Street Fighter in a few years, so put the damn cutscene in, and make that puzzle timed or something."
 
I think many people just cannot take a story which is not presented directly in your face and needs you to think over it while listening to new pieces of the story which keeps on unfolding and is not too trivial to follow.

Blame it on short attention span or to ADD or whatever, but I see this as a trend more and more prevalent in people everywhere, not only in gamers.

People also seem, in general, not to notice and find pleasure in things well polished... not enough of them... many developers would want to put more polish, but th top managers say that this is wasteful... the problem is that they seem to be more and more right as time passes.
 
Panajev2001a said:
I think many people just cannot take a story which is not presented directly in your face and needs you to think over it while listening to new pieces of the story which keeps on unfolding and is not too trivial to follow.
Click to expand...
But they might bork it up like in Half-Life 2 and do a poor job of providing any clues to the story. Intentional or not, it miffed me that you were never given the chance to know what even half of it as really about.
 
ArcadeStickMonk said:
It would be, had I said something like this:

See? Watch:

You be like, "What the hell is he talking about?"
Click to expand...

It was a rather broad statement, to be sure, but I was not referring to the common genres (which you clearly were)...

If that were the case, I would have said that I support and enjoy MOST genres (which IS true).

For the record, I've never been a huge fighting fan. I thought I might have been at one time (Dreamcast era, mostly), simply due to the amount of fun I had playing giant round robin matches... but that only lasted for a couple years. I hated the genre when I was young, you know...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Dispatch writer regrets cutting sex scenes
Game Dev 
26
1K
Jormatar replied
Long Drive North - Official Release Window Trailer
Trailer 
7
366
SomeNorseGuy replied
The Official Art In Video Games Thread
|OT| Social Opinion 
28
1K
Bernkastel replied
The Day I Will Die - Official Announcement Trailer
Trailer Indie 
0
170
IbizaPocholo replied
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle™ MachineGames Anniversary Update - New Game+, New Outfit and Extended Ending Cut-Scene Added
45
574
YeulEmeralda replied
Top Bottom