Should Video Games Focus More on Cinematics, Storytelling, and Spectacles than Gameplay?

(Originally posted for The Voice Of Heard on February 20, 2012)

During the course of my research for my entry on the history of UK-based video game developer Ninja Theory, I have noticed a pattern among their games they have made so far. These games, Kung Fu Chaos, Heavenly Sword, and Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, have an Asian theme and their design is generally influenced by cinema. Speaking of cinema, the two latter next-generation games have received critical acclaim mainly for their cinematic storytelling, environmental design, character modeling, motion capture, voice acting, and production values similar to those of Hollywood movies. The gameplay in both games, meanwhile, have been described as having limited depth and is therefore standard or average. In fact, in most of the reviews on Heavenly Sword and Enslaved I’ve read, including those at Gamespot, IGN, and 1up, the cinematics and presentation have received more attention than the gameplay. This observation leads me to ask this question: When it comes to making and selling video games, is it a good idea to place more emphasis on cinematics, storytelling, and spectacle than gameplay, the core of video games? I doubt anybody who has been buying games like Super Mario Brothers, Sonic the Hedgehog, Metroid, Zelda, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Call of Duty, Battlefield, Gears of War, God of War, Tekken, Resident Evil, and many other titles would do so just to watch spectacles. And to the best of my knowledge, my older brother and my oldest nephew would be a few of those people who just want to play a game. There were a couple of occasions when he or I played Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 on the PlayStation 2 at a time when we shared the same room. He would complain about the number of cutscenes overlapping the gameplay of both games, which did not sit well for him. On those occasions, I remember him exclaiming “Less movies! More kicking ass!” When I play fighting games with my nephew, he would often skip the character introductions, which last for a few seconds, in order to get to the fight, which is obviously the meat of fighting games. Now I wonder what he would think and how he would feel if he is unable to skip the intros, forcing him to watch them for a few seconds, a few minutes, ten minutes, or even twenty minutes. Based on those observations, I am positive that my brother and nephew would agree with David Jaffe.

Recently, I have read on a 1up article that at last week’s Design Innovate Communicate Entertain (D.I.C.E.) summit, game developer David Jaffe, known as the mastermind behind the Twisted Metal and God of War franchises, expressed his feelings that the video game industry is wasting time and money on story-driven games, which are a disservice to gamers. He argued that by making video games like movies and books, it would take away the one aspect that makes the medium special in the first place: interactivity. The full details of Jaffe’s philosophy can be found in this interview conducted by the game developer website Gamasutra a week after his appearance at the D.I.C.E. summit (Warning: The interview contains strong language. Reader discretion is strongly advised).

As a gamer, I would have to agree with Jaffe on many of the points he made. Video games are not movies nor should they ever be even though most of the former have cutscenes that function like the latter. The main reason most people buy video games is that they want to play with them, plain and simple.  And interactivity is the key. Now before moving on, I would like to briefly discuss video games in terms of cinematics and storytelling. In that regard, they can be divided into three categories: games with a lot of cutscenes, games with less and brief cutscenes that generally last no more than five minutes, and games that use either very few cutscenes or none at all. From off the top of my head, video games that fit the first category are Japanese role-playing games (JRPGs for short), likeXenosaga, Final Fantasy, Valkyria Chronicles, and the tactical espionage action series Metal Gear Solid.  While the cutscenes and storytelling generally don’t overlap the gameplay, they form the core of their respective titles alongside the gameplay. While those games are good enough for the fans, the vast amount of cutscenes just don’t sit well with casual gamers. Video games that have cutscenes lasting at least five minutes include Resistance, Halo, Killzone, Ninja Gaiden, and the story mode of the most recent incarnation of the fighting game Mortal Kombat. While the cutscenes, cinematics, and storytelling in those games are generally good, they do not detract from the action and gameplay, which are placed in higher importance. The third category can be divided into two sub-categories: games that have very little cutscenes and games with none at all. Games that would fit neatly into the former include fighting games like Street Fighter and Tekken because cinematics take a backseat while the gameplay dominates the show. The two best examples of the latter sub-category I can think of are the first-person, third-person shooter, RPG hybrid sci-fi game Fallout 3 and the third-person sci-fi horror franchise Dead Space. From a storytelling perspective, cinematic cutscenes are unnecessary in those games.

There is one more factor in video games that I think is of as important as storytelling, presentation, and gameplay combined: replay value. If you enjoyed the experience of a game, would you go through it again at higher difficulty levels, uncover secrets you may have missed, beat it faster, and enjoy the cinematics and story they present? Is one or more of the said reasons enough to justify the game’s shelf life? Or would you prefer to play the game with other people for a different experience, whether they are sitting next to you or online? What type of game would you prefer? A game that places cinematics, storytelling, and spectacle above gameplay, a game that balances all of these aspects, or a game that makes gameplay the highest priority? Your thoughts on these questions as gamers would be of great interest to me as a gamer. And you are free to express those thoughts in the comments section below, as always.