![half life 2 lets play half life 2 lets play](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/laGws1MYMq0/maxresdefault.jpg)
You+like+to+watch,+don't+you? While some of the most celebrated games in the medium have frequently relied on massively-scaled cinemas to tell their stories (i.e.
Half life 2 lets play series#
Both cases use cutscenes in nuanced and sparing fashion, allowing the gameplay to define the experience rather than a didactic series of movies that explain everything away. Similarly, GTA4 uses cutscenes as a tool to quickly establish a character's personality at the beginning of any given mission, then uses a similar amount of scripted voice-over to further embellish the story. The game cheats rather liberally in using static voice over to unspool its story while the player makes their way through each level, but embedding these voice snippets as discoverable audio logs in the environment helps to incentivize exploration and binds the exposition to a gameplay mechanic. In Bioshock, for example, the theme of control is embedded in the gameplay by offering players the illusory "freedom" of customizing their plasmids and weapons, while keeping them on a strictly linear path guided by the hypnotic cue "Would you kindly…" Cutscenes are used parsimoniously to build atmosphere and claustrophobia, but are rarely used to advance the plot. In the same way that film uses image, sound, and facial expression rather than simple expository dialogue to communicate, games should use their defining gameplay systems to express themselves. Interaction is the primary language of the videogame and should be the primary method through which a designer tells her story. There is a terrible pattern of abuse, however, where designers use cutscenes as storytelling crutches rather than narrative garnishes. Cutscenes are a powerful creative tool that can serve a number of vital functions, from simple level fly-over's to poetic encapsulations of a game's main themes.
![half life 2 lets play half life 2 lets play](https://coub-anubis-a.akamaized.net/coub_storage/coub/simple/cw_timeline_pic/c1bb8ad0c29/6f83626533b0909f09a43/med_1618340387_image.jpg)
Make sure to leave your own thoughts in the comments below! Cannibalize the Cutscene Cutscenes don't ruin games, it's designers who use them irresponsibly that ruin games. Here are some suggestions for how storytelling in videogames might grow up a little more quickly. It's tempting to say let them eat cake, but there is more than a grain of truth in the lingering stereotype that videogame aesthetics are fodder for teenage boys whose idea of narrative stops at the graphic novel. Likewise, GTA4's first week sales in excess of 4 million units was an unqualified success, but in a territory of over 300 million people, it becomes clear that the very best the medium has to offer is still inducing yawns of indifference from the average person. Enthusiasts may tout the great success of World of Warcraft's 9 million worldwide subscribers, but in a world of 7 billion people, that figure becomes much less impressive. In truth, the game industry may have grown to the level of a major corporate entertainment industry, but its major works remain myopically focused on the aesthetics of the average 18-34 year old man. For all the fawning praise for GTA4's story, the most apt comparison remains to "The Soprano's," itself a derivative amalgam of genre-defining works from generations past.
![half life 2 lets play half life 2 lets play](https://igg-games.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/HalfLife-2-Episode-Two-Torrent-Download.jpg)
For all the immersive art direction and embedded narrative in Bioshock and Portal, neither offered anything more than a pulp slant on stories that would have been fodder for dime store novels fifty years ago. As meticulously executed as Mass Effect's animations and branching conversations were, the binary moral system and blunt dialogue tree betrayed its decade-old mechanics. That's a shame, because as technically engaging as many of those games may be, none represent anything more than a marginal advance of the storytelling techniques that have preceded them. Each of them has their own unique approach to storytelling, but a quick scan of Metacritic shows the praise has been near unanimous. In a mere eight months a diverse array of narrative based games have been let loose into the world, including Bioshock, Mass Effect, Portal, Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Grand Theft Auto 4, and Metal Gear Solid 4.
![half life 2 lets play half life 2 lets play](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PwhVPbAEh88/UB_89zoKL9I/AAAAAAAAB3A/t5re32w7WG4/s1600/Half-Life+2+Mod+Mission+Improbable+1.jpg)
Based on the recent stream of games lavishly anointed with praise for their narratives, you might think the videogame industry was entering a relative golden age of storytelling.