Intro video - how important?

#21 Don't make them skippable, make them playable. Spend as much time on your opening gameplay sequences as you would on your ending (assuming that you actually spend time on a decent climax). More people will see the opening anyway, and if it grips the player it might hook them and keep them around to see the rest.

#22

Quote:I love intros! I watch every intro i can get! I even download intros! ;)

But it seems i'm the only one who's thinking that way... most of my friends, skip intros... even the best ones!

Not the only one! I absolutley love intro's too! In my opinion it basically is what makes the game a game. Don't know why, but intro's really tie it together for me.

You should make it play the first time you run it, but is still skipable. After that, it doesn't play anymore but you can goto a menu and replay it. Simple and the best way to go about it.

#23 Me too, i love them, they are tying the gamer inside the world of the game, and a good introduction movie (not an 3d engine cutscene), with good video FX and dramatic cuts, etc is a great experience and benefit. they are transporting the feeling in first instance, e.g. the intro of warhammer 40 k dawn of war, fast, full of action and drama, fast cuts at battle, smooth ending with a little so called plot twist (hero dies, but landing troops appear) has all emotion inside, which the warhammer universe emitts: deadly action, loss, brutality in first, then heroic actions and strongness, death and throughout the sacrifice comes the victory. what a beauty! ahm, just an example, but in my opinion an intro movie is a great benefit, if well done.
and yes, with just one ESC hit it must be able to skip it, for sure.

ka
www.3dtowns.at

#24 @Matt

By playable, I don't mean "I can watch them again and again through the options menu". I mean interactive. I mentioned it up above, with Beyond Good and Evil, where the intro battle is one of the most exciting in the game and its fully playable.

#25 I don't mind intro movies if they have a skip button or somthing.

Most of the C&C games make you watch the intros when you first install and run the game, after that you can just hit any key to skip to the menu.... it dose piss me off, but in most games you will never fully understand whats going on unless you watch the video (ie C&C game)

#26 What about commercial videos as an intro?game trailers?
Many publishers aim to add those.
I'm willing to go with it as long as I get discount for the game.

What do you say?

#27 What about when the video is very important to the overall experience of the player? For example, the game I am working on is very story driven. If the player skips a cut sequence/video, they will miss some important information about what they need to do next and why it is even important. I would like to hear everyone's thoughts on this.

#28 Then make sure that they know that it is important to not skip them. Or add a device which allows them to get the same information in-game (better).

#29 Jason,

Just as one cool example of it in action, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time used between-level video clips that really helped gameplay (IMO). The vids that you provide for Project Phantom could be just as important to your players. If you haven't played PoP:SoT yet, I highly recommend it.

#30 I personally agree with what Jason said - allow them to skip the videos and give them another method of getting the information. Perhaps have a summary of what they missed when they skip the video in as short a blurb of text as you can get.

Don't forget, either, that if a player plays your game twice, he's not going to want to be forced to sit through a cutscene twice. It's not uncommon for most people who encounter a game that forces them to sit through a cutscene to quit the game and never go back.

The unfortunate fact is - people hate cutscenes.

#31 Thanks, guys. Aaron, I will definitely have to check it out, thanks for the high recommendation. I disagree with some of you guys, I love cutscenes - if they are well done and to the point, driving the story forward - good example: God of War. Without the cut scenes in God of War, it just wouldn't have been the same, since the story made it so much more addictive. I do realize, however, that cut scenes is not something everyone loves as much as myself. So I must find a delicate balance somewhere.... Some suggestions have been helpful (Cliff, Aaron, and David.)

#32 Some cut-scenes definitely drive the game forward. God of War, Devil May Cry, Final Fantasy VII, etc. But in the vast majority of console games, FMV's are there simply to be there. Personally, my favorite use of FMV was in FFVII's transitions. I liked how the opening frame of the FMV was the final pre-rendered frame so that if you entered say a gondola, it seemlessly moved along in full FMV fashion without a render-break. Unfortunately, most games have a huge break between in-game engine graphics and pre-rendered movies, which is obvious and often jarring unless the movies make sense in context (ie. the way you mention God of War). Like anything, it needs to make sense in context. Just putting a FMV in for the fun of it when the in-game engine could serve the story as well or better doesn't make sense. But putting it in when you need the extra whizz-bang visuals can be a great tactic. But I am also coming from the train of thought that there is almost nothing story-wise that could not be shown using an in-game engine that could be shown in a FMV. Most likely not as visually spectacularly, but visuals and story are two intertwined pieces. My only real caution is to avoid the Xenosaga Syndrome of horribly long cut-scenes (that you can skip, thankfully) that make it feel like you're watching a movie with randomly interspersed segments of gameplay. I enjoyed the Xenosaga series, but the first game gave me a movie with random gameplay rather than a game with interspersed movies.

#33 Personally, I love a good cinematics. A gorgeous bit of animation helps set the mood for the game, and provides a nice mid- or post-game reward. (And yes, you MUST be able to skip or permanently disable the video. That's a no-brainer.)

That said...

* Consider the purpose of your cinematic. Is it an info dump? A mood setter? A reward for achieving a goal? Gratuitous eye candy? Or is it there because "that's what everyone else does"?

* Good video/animation puts the player into a positive frame of mind before they experience your game. Bad video/animation does the reverse. If you don't have the resources to do it well, don't do it.

* People hate re-runs. Allow them to skip the video, and consider putting in a flag that automatically skips video after the first viewing, perhaps with an option to view the cut-scenes from the main menu once they've been unlocked.

* Cinematics can be a great reward. I've played through games I really hated, just to see the finale.

* Cutscenes should be brief. The player is sitting in front of their computer to play, not to watch a 30-minute video.

* Cinematics should retain the feel and style of the game, but do NOT have to use the game engine to accomplish this! Whoever came up with the idea of using close-ups of minimally animated low-poly characters for cut-scenes should be flogged. Sure, it's cheap -- and it shows.

* Timing is everything. A cutscene stuffed into the middle of a frantic, action-packed battle is NOT welcome. Usually, this is the result of some trigger being activated without regard to the rest of the game. Example: you kill the boss critter, but his minions are still pounding the snot out of you. You're fighting for your life, and BAM! A cutscene rudely interrupts your life-and-death struggle. Cutscene ends, and you get slaughtered while trying to find your place in the battle again.

* For an example of cinematics done right, look to the Fallout series. The hilarious retro-50's cartoons set to scratchy 1930's recordings of vaguely nostalgic doo-wop songs immediately set the game apart as something unique and original -- even if the gameplay wasn't. And then there's Ron Perlman's solemn narration: "War. War never changes...."

* Another good use of cinematics: Diablo II. The dramatic cutscenes of Tyrael surging into battle on tendrils of light are still fresh in my mind, even though I remember very little of the game itself.

#34

Quote:* Cinematics can be a great reward. I've played through games I really hated, just to see the finale.

The only reason to play FFVII - Dirge of Cerebrus is to see the cut-scenes. It is one of the best examples of bad gameplay, sluggish control, terrible, linear level design, and washed out environments...with beautiful FMV. Now that I think about it, watching the scaled-down videos on YouTube is preferable to actually playing the game. Too bad I paid import prices for it.

Quote:* Timing is everything. A cutscene stuffed into the middle of a frantic, action-packed battle is NOT welcome. Usually, this is the result of some trigger being activated without regard to the rest of the game. Example: you kill the boss critter, but his minions are still pounding the snot out of you. You're fighting for your life, and BAM! A cutscene rudely interrupts your life-and-death struggle. Cutscene ends, and you get slaughtered while trying to find your place in the battle again.

I am reminded of RE:4 and several RPG's which have "evolving" bosses. They irritate me as well, especially if the control doesn't pick up as quickly as the enemy AI. While Devil May Cry did this in several segments (say, the first battle with Phantom), the control was just as quick as the enemy AI and never caught me off-guard. Though that could have been because I learned never to be off-guard in DMC.

#35 Intros are okay, but when games of the same title that have different sequels, and have the same intro, and the same exact crappy ending, i get mad.

Reference to the Spec Ops series for playstation 1 (i think im the only one who has PS1. Cant wait till xmas). The beginning in Ranger Elite and Covert Assault is a guy saying the ranger creed while it shows a montauge (spelling?) of pictures of helicopters, people running, doing training, things like that. And when i beat both the games, i was dissapointed to see that they had the same ending, this time a montauge of people celebrating.

What im saying is, a game should always have a good intro and good ending, that is different of other games in that series, and can be bypassed.