In today's episode of Speak Up on Kotaku, commenter Aikage laments the general lack of pre-rendered cutscenes in today's video games, a feature many were glad to see die out. Which side of the gorgeous CGI fence do you fall on?
Maybe I've been playing the wrong games, but I miss the pre-rendered / anime cutscene.
I know I'm in the minority here since all I see are people complaining that Metal Gear Solid 4 was a movie with a couple of interspersed action sequences, but I remember when I played Final Fantasy VII part of the joy was getting to the next cutscene.
American role-playing games don't do pre-rendered cutscene. Bethesda specifically has a clause that Jorundr will come to your house and be ugly towards you if you even think about a cutscene in their contract. BioWare thinks their graphics are good enough that they don't have to pre-render anything and they'd sort of be right, but, there's just something. Something about getting to a scene and just sitting back and being blown away by the visuals. It's a reward, one of the few that I feel are missing from American RPGs...even The Witcher (ed: a Polish RPG) had that badass opening scene.
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