31st January 2005, 2:19 PM
Haha, at first I thought that Ryan posted this and was already thinking up my rebuttal about him liking games just for their story. 
But yeah I mostly disagree with this article. I think that cinemas that really disrupt the flow of a game and seem disjointed from the rest of the experience are the wrong way to go (see: Xenosaga), but I also think that right now it's one of the better ways to tell a story in a game. I think it all comes down to two things: expectations and implementation. In the case of MGS2, for instance, people just wanted a solid stealth game with a generic-but-interesting Tom Clancy-like subplot that took a backseat to the gameplay. They got the great gameplay alright, but they also got a Japanese graphic adventure game as well. The story in the game--which is largely told through cut scenes and hours of codec dialogue--is one that could only be done in a game, even though it was done like a movie. The story could only work if MGS2 was a game, and had actual gameplay moments. However, they did go a bit too cinema-heavy so in that sense the implementation was far from perfect. MGS2 is half action-adventure game, half graphic-adventure. They just went a bit too far with the graphic-adventure part. MGS3 perfected that.
I could go on forever on this subject, but I sense a raging retard* readying to start a fight so I will not continue.
*ABF
But yeah I mostly disagree with this article. I think that cinemas that really disrupt the flow of a game and seem disjointed from the rest of the experience are the wrong way to go (see: Xenosaga), but I also think that right now it's one of the better ways to tell a story in a game. I think it all comes down to two things: expectations and implementation. In the case of MGS2, for instance, people just wanted a solid stealth game with a generic-but-interesting Tom Clancy-like subplot that took a backseat to the gameplay. They got the great gameplay alright, but they also got a Japanese graphic adventure game as well. The story in the game--which is largely told through cut scenes and hours of codec dialogue--is one that could only be done in a game, even though it was done like a movie. The story could only work if MGS2 was a game, and had actual gameplay moments. However, they did go a bit too cinema-heavy so in that sense the implementation was far from perfect. MGS2 is half action-adventure game, half graphic-adventure. They just went a bit too far with the graphic-adventure part. MGS3 perfected that.
I could go on forever on this subject, but I sense a raging retard* readying to start a fight so I will not continue.
*ABF