Do you press 'X' to skip?

briany

In other words, do you care about the story of the game you're playing or do you just want to go straight in. Do you regard cutscenes as something that just gets in the way or do you feel like the give you extra motivation in the game? Do you like a lot of story or does it make you feel like you're playing an interactive movie rather than a game?

Generic Dreadhead

I don't the 1st time, it's all part of the experience IMHO

Kiith

Story is a big deal for me in games. Granted, they often suck, but i still want to know whats going on. I'll never skip a cutscene unless it's something i've seen already (i.e. die on a boss, reload pre-cutscene).

Mickeroo

Take away the story from a lot of games and I wouldn't be able to play them. Once I finish main campaigns i tend to lose interest in a game instantly, which is why I always leave those missions until last in RPGs and the like. The Souls series are the only single player games that have been good enough to hook me on gameplay alone that I can think of.

gimli2112

I always skip cut scenes. Anything over a few seconds and I've lost interest. Can't help it, just the way I am. That said the one time I hadn't was The Last of Us on PS3. Couldn't get over how much I enjoyed that story and even when I got it on the PS4 watched them all again.

Retr0gamer

Nope I don't skip cutscenes or dialogue. Even if the story is terrible it provides some context to what you are doing. I do however skip spoken dialogue and have subtitles on since I can read faster than the actors can speak but again the voices add context so would never turn them off.

If I suffered through the god awful MGS4 cutscenes without skipping I'll sit through anything.

briany

It's interesting because I posted this topic after seeing that clip of Conan playing Call of Duty:Advanced Warfare the other night and there being a moment near the beginning of the game where

your comrade is killed and there's a funeral cutscene and you're prompted by the game to pay your respects. It seemed a fair bit overboard.

But it made me wonder if cutscenes are really the most efficient way or just the way things are done in bigger games now. Time was that a lot of the game's backstory would be contained in the manual and you'd read it about it in between sessions (memories of reading them on Christmas day as you waited impatiently for the TV to be free, anyone?). Or you could just not read about them as well. You had that choice.

Retr0gamer

That discussion has come up before. I'm of the mind that cutscenes are very lazy and nearly redundant when you have the vast possiblities of an interactive medium. That's not to say that developers shouldn't use them but when they run for several minutes at a time they are taking the piss.

Something like the Last of Us uses a hell of a lot of cutscenes but they are used to disguise loading times, not an ideal solution but one that is preferable to a loading screen.

Sierra Oscar

Not unless I have seen them before, and even at that if I am doing a replay of a game that I havent played in ages I will watch through them again.

richymcdermott

Never

Banjo

I always watch them but there are some games that make me regret it. I'm looking at you, Bayonetta and Metal Gear Solid.

nyarlothothep

I'd like to but don't. I'm bored of games with pc 'messages' and character development. I prefer straight up action like we had in older games with the cut scenes being minimal. Back in the day though there was a massive graphical difference between pre rendered cut scenes and the in game graphics so I would stare in amazement. Now it's just lame characters talking about stuff I don't care about. Games have lost their way a lot. Graphics are never going to rival actors in terms of conveying character depth. And games stories are generally banal and clichéd. I actually prefer loading scenes for nostalgia reasons, Morrowind didn't suffer for it.

ShadowHearth

Mickeroo wrote: »

Take away the story from a lot of games and I wouldn't be able to play them. Once I finish main campaigns i tend to lose interest in a game instantly, which is why I always leave those missions until last in RPGs and the like. The Souls series are the only single player games that have been good enough to hook me on gameplay alone that I can think of.

Thats a bit of a problem of Modern games these days. They are becoming less of a games and more a Movies. Its like interactive movies with less and less challange.
I still love games with good Story, but its rare where games can pull it off without Cut scenes all the time. Bioshock 1 has a briliant story and minimal amount of "you cant do a thing, just sit there and watch this cut scene"

Stone Deaf 4evr

Not in general, but if I can read the subtitles quicker than dialog is delivered, i'll often speed it up.

who_me

Rarely skip them, as story/backstory/character/atmosphere is what it's all about for me. That said, anyone who puts a cutscene right after a save point (especially, the last save point before a boss fight) needs to be shot. Obviously there are exceptions to the "always watch" rule. Life's too short to watch the epic, dreamy, "tired, cynical character reflecting on his life wasted" cutscenes you get in some Japanese games (Metal Gear Solid...).

I prefer the 'modern' approach where cutscenes are replaced by semi-interactive sequences where you can move/look around while following/talking with a character.

kunst nugget

nyarlothothep wrote: »

I'd like to but don't. I'm bored of games with pc 'messages' and character development.

I like character development in games - a lot of times it might not be handled great but l like following a plot throughout a game. Just out of curiosity, what games do you think suffer from having pc messages.

ZiabR

Never, unless I am on my second play through.

briany

I'll generally skip a cutscene once I have the gist of what's going on and I'm relatively sure that doing so won't dump me suddenly into the middle of the action.

The Half-Life series is a great example, to me, of storytelling done well. There's almost no cutscene time, minimal conscious exposition, even. It's folded pretty neatly into the actual game play, and there's little easter eggs, particularly in Half Life 2 with things like the hidden Vortigaunt and newspaper clippings you see on message boards if it interests you to stop and look at that kind of thing. Other good examples are audio logs you find, particularly in FPS/Survival Horror (usually of the sci-fi variety) and even the mass of literature that you find around Skyrim to flesh out the main story or a hundred side ones

nyarlothothep

kunst nugget wrote: »

I like character development in games - a lot of times it might not be handled great but l like following a plot throughout a game. Just out of curiosity, what games do you think suffer from having pc messages.

Oh I don't know, I don't play games that much :pac: But I was reading about GamerGate and how games are moving in the direction of conveying social issues and while I'd probably agree with most of the messages I don't want to be preached at about social issues. I want stupidity and fun and an escape from reality, not to be mired in the mundane aspects of the real world. Although the Mass Effect series were good games I miss the 90s for the sense of simplicity. I think the ME games particularly demonstrate this problem with narrative and characters. The story was basically space opera by the numbers, the characters were incredibly dull/conventional with the exceptions of Joker and Edi. I actually gave up in the first 30 mins of Deadspace 3 (didn't play the first two) because I got annoyed at the convoluted plot, again another epic battle for the universe space opera plot with an added horror element that wasn't all that scary. That and it was identical to ME. In short I would like to see more pedal to the metal type games which don't get bogged down in plot and can have un-pc jokes, action etc in the vein of Doom or Duke Nukem perhaps but I fear for the survival of such games as developers strive for more 'critical appreciation' and it becomes less acceptable to have toilet humour and exploding demons as women dislike these things.

Retr0gamer

The problwm with Mas Effect is that it's not really that interesting and I don't know why it's held up as some example of great writing and storytelling in games. It makes so many narative mistakes such as boring unnecesary info bombs, explaining everything to the player in minute detail and the designers seem to be so in love with the generic world they created they don't trust the player to use their own imagination to fill in the gaps. It doesn't make the game bad but it does bring the quality down a bit. Contrast that with a good Obsidian RPG.

Anyway Phantasy Star 2 was doing social commentary before todays game developers where out of diapers and doing it better :P

Morag

Nope I press Esc but only if I have seen it before or it's made it's point and it's time to move on.

Hate games which go from a cutscene to a ****ty event time incident.

johnny_ultimate

A majority of games have awful cutscenes. I usually don't skip, but there have been occasions when I have due to the sheer incompetence of the storytelling compared to the quality of the gameplay. A lot also fail to understand the concept of brevity - cutscenes need to be short and snappy, not the overlong ones we're greeted with more often than not. Arbitrary button prompts and QTEs are a majority of the time (handful of exceptions aside) lazy design, and really I'd prefer if the developers just did away with them instead of trying to convince the player their games are more interactive than they actually are.

When done right, though, I think cutscenes have some distinct advantages over some of the common alternatives. I sympathise with the view that games should be moving away from cinema - especially when I play barely interactive junk like Asura's Wrath - but the fact is cinema does some things better than games, and games can use that to their advantage.

I'm specifically thinking quieter character moments or dialogue sequences. A lot of developers have tried to come up with ways of presenting dialogue in game, but a lot of them feel more contrived and stilted than than actually cutting away e.g. the bland, lifeless two-shot conversations of most Bioware titles, never-ending text boxes, or limiting the player to a slow walk while the conversation plays out. The latter drives me mad unless it is done with exceptional care - it's an awkward compromise between play and cutscene, and is deceptively restrictive where at least we're under no illusions with a full cutscene.

When a good developer / director cuts away, though, they have some handy tools at their disposal. You can offer more dynamic, exciting editing. You can cut between close-ups, wides and mid shots to tell the story in a more vibrant, emotionally involving way. The Last of Us may disguise loading times, but more importantly it also offers some superbly directed cutscenes that take full advantage of the directorial freedom afforded by removing player control. Exchanges feel more genuine and engaging in that game - the final shot, for example, would not be nearly as devastating if they didn't take advantage of the virtual camera opportunities afforded by a cutscene. (I'd actually argue Last of Us is one of the few games as well that manages in game conversations well - they're discovered through exploration, and the animation and settings are well-designed enough that it doesn't feel as distracting or stilted as they are in other cases)

First person games I feel are in an unusual situation. It makes more sense to never cut away there, because we're playing from an individual's perspective in the first place. But there are also limits. Half-Life is a brilliant example of fluid, total first-person storytelling, but it also highlights some limits. The whole 'voiceless' protagonist thing works great in HL, but not something easily replicated if the developers have other types of stories to tell (even HL has to joke about Gordon's silence regularly enough to acknowledge how weird it is). There's always something dissatisfying about an FPS taking control away from the player - it feels like something of a cheat unless there's a strong narrative justification for it (the end of HL2: Episode 2 perhaps the finest example).

While cutscenes do have advantages IMO, I also think it's vitally important more developers experiment with other ways of telling 'in game' stories. Experiments like Gone Home, Journey, Hohokum and Thirty Flights of Loving are exciting first steps - all games that achieve something impressive in narrative design without resorting to the same old tricks - and fingers crossed many more developers will build on the foundations laid out in those and other titles.

wandatowell

I like to play it fast and loose with cutscenes

tok9

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Something like the Last of Us uses a hell of a lot of cutscenes but they are used to disguise loading times, not an ideal solution but one that is preferable to a loading screen.

That's actually not correct. You can skip a cutscene and the next section will load immediately (a second or two).

tok9

On the topic, like most people I never skip a cutscene unless I've seen it. Story is one of the biggest reasons I play SP games. Even if it's not a particularly good story, I want a reason to keep doing what I'm doing in the game.

There is probably a case where I have skipped one but I can't think of any off hand. Possibly a co-op game.

CiDeRmAn

I never skip unless, like most, I've seen it all before on a previous playthrough.
That said, I appreciate being given the option regardless, unskippable cutscenes should be outlawed.
The doors in Resi Evil were hiding loading times too but added to the atmosphere, at least for the first dozen or so doors, they started to bug me after that and, when I picked up Resident Evil Revelations, it really really bugged me that they kept in the animations, especially on such a hub based world, meaning multiple trips through the same door animations!

jones

All about the story here too. My brother has never watched a clip literally skips eveything he can the second he can...it really annoys me ha

CastorTroy

I watch cutscenes unless I've seen them before as well.
Was playing Majora's Mask recently and the way the game is setup, having to start from Day 1 multiple times, you do have to sit through same cutsecenes every time you trigger them.

dreamers75

Only in games I dont have to watch them in generally shooting people in the face games where cutscenes are there to prolong the game. If its a RPG i will watch it.

Canis Lupus

I don't skip cutscenes but I will, in RPGS, always whack space or whatever the relevant key is to get the text up on the screen so I can speed read it.

Spunge

depends on the game.
if its FPS or action game ill go full ADD and skip everything nearly (CoD and shadows of mordor recently). But for RPGs ill take in everything (wasteland and divinity:OS).

BeerWolf

ANY game I play I always try to appreciate the story, so I tend to watch cutscenes and read quests and whatever... next time round I just keep them.

I do make exceptions though, for games like Elder Scrolls where there's so many friggin books to read... I tend to completely ignore every single one of them... :P