Interactive cutscenes. Opinions?

I'm just curious about the "public opinion" in regard to what I call "Interactive Cutscenes". You find these in games like God of War or some of the newer Tomb Raider games, where you will enter an area, and a cutscene of sorts will begin, and you must press a button at a certain time in order to dodge an obstacle, land an attack on an enemy, etc. Usually, failure to press the button in time, or pressing the wrong button, will result in the player taking damage, or (in the case of the Tomb Raider games) dying a horrible death. I'm wondering what you all think of these. Are these a nice addition to a game? Should they be used extensively, sparingly, or not at all? Now, I personally like them. I think that there is a lot that can be done with them. But at the same time, if they are used, for example, in a combat situation, i want to be doing the actual combat myself most of the time. They are cool to be used for complex, theatrical attacks that the game's controls won't allow, but it is definitely easy to overdo it. So I'd say they are okay, but don't use them for everything. What do you guys think?

 

I think they're ultimately pointless and could be better served by use of more standard in-game mechanics, with cutscenes functioning as a reward/wind-down period to help nail home a climactic moment.

 

I don't think they should ever be used as a crutch for actual gameplay. If they are used ONLY in the context of taking an otherwise "sit-back-and-watch" cutscene and making it a little more immersive then I do enjoy them and see their usefulness.
However, I absolutely hate it when developers make things like boss battles into QTE (FarCry 3 comes to mind at the moment).

 

Pretty much this. If your making a cutscene, make a cutscene. If your giving me a section of a game with different gameplay, give me different gameplay.

I think if your cutscene needs pressing a random button every 20secs to make it feel immersive, then you've failed at making a good cutscene. If I had to continually press a button to stop the power going off while watching a movie, I don't think it would make it feel more immersive.

 

Well every 20 seconds is a pretty extreme example. I certainly wasn't saying every cutscene should be like Heavy Rain (press X to pick up glass of water, wobble controller back and forth to drink it). But at the same time games like the Uncharted series had some very well implemented QTEs that I feel added a lot to the feel of the game. I certainly wouldn't say Naughty Dog failed at making their cutscenes by adding them.

 

Well, in games such as the Naruto Storm series, QTE's are done pretty well. It depends on the game though. In the storm series only the big boss battles had them, and even then they only happened once a enemy hit a certain amount of health, and the cinematic where pretty nice. Also have games like the Walking Dead from Telltale. As long as your not overwhelming the player with them I think it's fine depending on when it's used.

 

IMO they are probably bad. It detracts from the cut scene and uses different gameplay. The benefit is that it can pull the players attention, but that should be doable without it anyway.

I've been looking at implementing a system were the player can control their side kick(Like Navi from Zelda or the Dragonfly from Spiro) during the cut scenes and collect items or something but I think that users could become to focused on it instead of what's happening in the cutscene.

 

That actually sounds pretty cool.

 

Although not sure if you would consider it one.

Mass Effect series revolves around "ingame" cutscenes and I think Bioware did a fantastic job of it. Although they did more of a "press a button to change cutscene" mechanic.

 

Some games do QTEs well, although too many QTEs can get boring quickly (eg. Resident Evil 6). Here and there I think is OK, as long as they're not a core mechanic of your game.

 

I agree. If they are used to make a little change in pace, just to spice things up a little, I fully condone their use.