Jon, from The Clockwork Manual, got in touch with me the other day. As fellow video game fans we hit it off, until the subject of cutscenes loomed its ugly head. Jon was all for them. As a Metal Gear Solid fan he could hardly be against them. I, on the other hand, am vocally anti-cutscene. Jon’s initial email can be read here. He points out some of the defining and memorable video game cutscenes, and wonders how we could ever tell a story without them. My response was as follows.

In the film-making community, flashbacks and ‘dream sequences’ are considered a crutch. It is one of the first mistakes amateur film makers make. It is a weak way to tell most stories, and is usually used as a shortcut, or to cover up weak writing.

There are, however, no rules in any creative media that can’t be broken. Memento used flashbacks brilliantly. Spellbound contains a famous dream sequence. These are great films, and they know exactly what they are doing.

So let’s talk about video games and cut scenes.

In a video game, you have two elements that should reinforce each other: the story and the gameplay. Most amateur game developers, when they want to tell you something related to the story, use a cutscene. Is this bad? Yes. Cutscenes are jarring, they take away our player control, they break our identification with the player character, and in most cases - video game budgets being what they are - they are poorly acted and badly written.

Much like flashbacks, they are usually the ‘most obvious’ way of telling the player something, but rarely the best. Intertwining the story into the game play is a far superior method. Using a ‘breadcrumb trail’ of in-game information to allow a player to puzzle together the story themselves is an art in itself. As an example: the Bioshock audio diaries.
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I’ve diagnosed myself with gaming ADD.

No matter how great, how high-profile, how all-encompassing, or wanted the game is, sometimes I just can’t focus. My mind wanders. What am I missing out on? What’s going on in the Internet world? Is there any gaming news I haven’t read? What about my other games? I need to finish them.

I have a load of laundry in the dryer. I wonder what I’m going to make for dinner? Oh hey, cool! There’s a new episode of Tim and Eric on Adult Swim’s website to watch!

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For me, video games occupy a space somewhere between total downtime and work. Since starting to blog about games I have found myself analyzing them with a thoroughness I used to keep for English literature class. Gender politics, social implications, reflections of the current zeitgeist… Games are a significant media, if a frequently downplayed one.

And yet, as this week’s Round Table points out:

There is a commonly held belief that videogames are not the equal of literature and film. One conservative acquaintance of mine on Facebook doesn’t even consider them on par with “public speech and music.” On the other hand, we have anti-video game activists claiming that video games have the power to train children to be emotionless assassins. Even within the video game community I’ve often heard the reaction, “they’re just video games.”

Well, I am here to say that video games can teach us, make us feel, make us cry, make us laugh. That they are easily the equal of film and books (as are music and public speech on occasion - I have a dream, anyone?)

It’s easy to point to how they teach us explicit lessons. There’s any number of DS games that purport to teach you how to cook, how to design clothes, how to get fit, how to remember things better, or just how to think more efficiently.

But what about the other lessons? The unconscious ones, the ones that slowly shape our world view, the ones that affect how we interact and talk and think and live?
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Shit-slinging is a pretty big and entertaining part of gaming culture, particularly where games played over the Internet are concerned. Competition combined with the relative anonymity of sitting behind the computer or television screen, rather than face to face with the person you’re insulting, can breed within even the nicest of people a sense of uncontrollable nerdrage.

Personally, I like it.

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The biggest conundrum of the gaming world isn’t whether video games inspire real life violence or the ongoing console wars. It’s not controversy about Fat Princess being, well, fat either. Honestly, gaming has always been about the relationship between fans and developers—the semantics of when a company should listen and when they shouldn’t.

It’s about the acknowledgment that a company can be right and wrong; the realization that change isn’t always a bad thing, but isn’t always good either. And the simple fact that the angry lynch mobs of gaming should not always be heard.

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If I have the console or the PC with the recommended requirements, I will play pretty much any game you toss my way.

It goes without saying then, that I am starting or stopping games all of the time simply because there are so many to wade through. I am often faced with situations where I find myself unable to progress in any of the games I’ve started up. It’s a bump in the road that many have experienced. No matter what you do, or how often you try, you just can’t quite get past a certain spot in what you’re playing.

The first few footholds were easy to navigate to, but you have found yourself at a point that you just can’t quite get out of. Welcome to the gamer’s plateau.

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