I recently rented Mass Effect. It got great reviews and I'm sure it was
a serviceable game but I found myself unable to play it because it
relied so heavily on cut scenes. This got me thinking about dissecting
the problem with cut scenes more closely.
Above is a particularly bad "love
scene" from Mass Effect. In Mass Effect you occasionally got a choice
as to how your character would respond - you can see evidence of this
during the scene.
Cut scenes are moments in video games where the story gets
progressed but you don't get to play. The idea is that they give you
motivation and back story for the action that is to come. They are,
however, pretty much unwatchable at this point. When I'm playing a game
and get to a cut scene my first impulse is to see if there is a button
I can press to to skip it. If it's unskipable I switch over to T.V. for
a while until it's done. How did we get to this point?
Problem #1
There's a misnomer that a game should be a "movie you can play". This
idea comes from people who control the money but don't actually play
games. They see how much Hollywood makes and think that a game will be a
sucess if it is more movie-like. But the difference between a game and
movie is much like the difference between a movie and a book. Sure
there's a link but you need to completely rewrite your idea to make it
work. The first thing to understand is that all good games have stories
already.
There's
a really hungry guy with a pizza shaped head who's afraid of ghosts.
He's trapped in a maze with (fortunately) edible pellets and
(unfortunately) ghosts. Throughout the maze there are pills that give
the man courage and allow him to go on temporary ghost killing sprees.
This story makes perfect
sense in the game, and does not require a cut scene to make it work. It
would make a terrible movie. Solution #1 a. whenever
possible,
let the game itself tell the story, not a cut scene. The game Portal
has a very complicated story, (and even jokes), and it does not use one
cut scene. The image (right) shows a screen shot from portal.
"The cake is a lie" is an important moment in the game, and only fun
becasue you "discover" it by playing.
b. If you do use cut scenes make them important and unskippable. I
should want to watch becasue I have to watch.
Problem #2
The cut scene genre was created by the Japanese, and they still do it
best. But when they were first ported to the states the poor
translation and the outrageousness of the scene created a campy feel.
Famously the cut scene at the start of Zero Wing was the basis for "All your
Base are Belong to Us" ("someone set us up the bomb!")
Today cut scenes still have a campyness about them, and overacting is
the norm. In some games this campyness is appropriate, (the Japanees
game Resident Evil 4 is a great example). In most games, however, the
campy overacting is out of place. It seems that the text needs to be
translated into Japanese and back into English a few times, and the
acting has to be as stilted as possible.
Solution #2
a. Hire experienced voice actors, who have done work for radio before.
b. Try having the actors ad lib and not follow the script so closely.
Let them feel the character like a real actor would.
c. Hire writers who are familiar with writing dialog and have them
present when the acting happens so they can make changes on the fly.
In other words - if you're going to do it, take it seriously.
Problem #3
The uncanny valley. This is the phenomenon that the closer a character
gets to looking human the creepier they are. The term was coined by
Masahiro Mori in 1978, but it applies to today's cut scenes more than
ever. The real reason I don't watch cut scenes any more is the Uncanny
Valley creepiness of it all. When most people write about this problem,
they usually call for a return to classic game play. Clive Thompson in
Slate wrote a great article
about the phenomenon in which he states
"Jet
Grind Radio, the old Fear Effect series, and the more recent Viewtiful
Joe all use the chunky style of cell-shaded animation to create
characters who are cartoonist yet vividly alive."
He argues that the retro
route is the way around the problem, and I agree that it's one
solution. I also have to tip my hat to Halo's lazy but brilliant "have
everyone wear face shields" work around. But I think that complacency
is the real culprit. The industry wants us to get used to it instead of
really making lip sync work. If someone makes a realistic style game
where the dialog is watchable and the character aren't totally creepy,
everyone else will have to follow.
In the old days the cut scene was a pre-rendered video clip that you
had to passively watch until it ended. Today's cut scenes are done with
the same rendering engine as the game. Often the screen will suddenly
letterbox, the cue to the player that a cut scene is happening. The
player's controls no longer function, or function in a very limited way
(some games let you look around during the scene, or even move in a
limited fashion). This is impressive and does keep you in the "feel" of
the game but I wonder if we haven't thrown the baby out with the
bathwater. I will give up some of the "game feel" if it means the
Uncanny Valley is avoided.
Solution #3
a. Be innovative and get it done! It shouldn't be rocket science. Look
at how the lips teeth and tongue really operate, we are nowhere close
to getting it right yet.
b. go back to pre-rendered cut scenes with real video until we can make
something decent.
c. never settle for creepy.
