For the various anons here, what games you played that succeeded in making the title "feel cinematic"? We have more than enough examples of the industry failing to understand the concept. Where have there been brief moments of them succeeding in it?
Best examples I've had of it are from Criterion's Burnout games when the roads start getting busy, a couple of '05 FPS games (F.E.A.R., Doom 3) due to their "hands off" approach with the gameplay and how the player interacts with the world, Mirror's Edge (The original) when you successfully pull off a series of stunts without breaking flow, and Slave Zero for the same reasons as the FPS games.
Beyond Good and Evil, specifically the part when the soldiers chase you on the rooftops.
Tyler Johnson
you make it feel cinematic by having the entire game take place on a 1930s movie screen and have 1930s movie graphics you also make the game be extremely linear and 100% of its combat should be conducted via QTEs
that wouldn't really be a fun game though; it'd just be a movie that goes when you tell it to go
Michael Mitchell
in fact… that wouldn't be a game at all
Gavin Fisher
(double-checked) QTE games are still games.
Jack Sullivan
That just made me think of those shitty interactive extras they'd throw on dvds in the 2000s
Hudson Sanchez
So a VN with even less gameplay?
Colton Sanders
Or would that actually be more gameplay? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Josiah Martinez
These two definitely succeed in presenting a story that feels cinematic, with graphics that were astonishing back then, while also excelling in gameplay.
James Adams
The ending bit to the recent Mario Oddessy is in my opinion a great example "cinematic" done right with videogames. I won't spoil it though.
I will say that it's mostly because it doesn't take control away from you.
Ethan Harris
Intense single-sitting challenges are in fact the most cinematic of video game experiences. There is nothing else like being on the edge of your seat in the final stage after 40 minutes of harrowing victories as the bridge underneath your feet explodes and, in the most brutal attacks being thrown in a last ditch effort to take the player down, you survive through quick thinking and masterful dodging.
Grayson Johnson
Witcher games are quite good for that.
Austin Ross
A whole schlock of PS1 games.
Leo Long
Been playing Mafia II recently. Lots of cutscenes, sure, but the world, people, and locations all feel genuine. I'd say it qualifies.
Matthew Taylor
Those are from a dead era. We can never tell a neat story with decent gameplay again. Well, a big factor to those games was that no one made games that mixed the cinematic feel with platforming so those games felt real fresh compared to most of the games out during that time. Same reason why Parasite Eve was so big she was shilling for Calvin Kline for a while but the game itself was actually pretty fucking good and had some meaty post content stuff to work on.
Nolan Ross
Nier Automata did quite well in being "cinematic".
Christopher Cruz
Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Paper Mario. Cuphead Didn't Riviera: The Promised Land do that? The Mario & Luigi series, Resonance of Fate, Xenoblade
Jace Brown
Cinematic is a bad fucking name for this, those games were trying to accomplish the feel of the smoothness of action that an action movie would present you. We need to find a different name for this. Cinematic implies taking control away from the player.
Story driven games with smooth action elements and presentation are not bad conceptually but retards have taken the name to mean "it should be a movie"
Lincoln Johnson
The Last of Us
Ethan Smith
Asura's Wrath is the only QTE/cutscene focused "cinematic" game that actually works, because it actually uses it's QTE's and cutscenes to do insane bullshit that wouldn';t be possible inside normal gameplay and it knows how fucking stupidly over the top it is and rolls with it
Pic related made shooting guns in vidya actually fun.
Luke Perez
As a person that loves Asura's Wrath, this is bullshit. If you fail QTE's it isn't guaranteed you'd fail your action, and that makes me mad. Sometimes when you fail you fail the QTE the action fails and there are consequences like an stupid but of health lost and you getting hit, for example, but for the most part, is inconsequential, you fail the QTE, you a bit of lost health but the action is still pulled as if you didn't fail. I'm just saying that if they focused so much on QTE they could have at least planned a bit about these things, also, there's the fact that QTE felt really stiff and completely unnecessary in some actions too.
They could have just made a damn movie.
Benjamin Sullivan
thats not the kind of QTEs i was thinking of i was thinking QTEs like in kingdom hearts 2 when you use buttons other than triangle for the QTEs; nothing but that sorta stuff
Jose Diaz
Maybe not the most obvious choice, but Metro 2033 always felt cinematic to me. Notice how all the good cinematic experiences are like 90% gameplay, and actually have good gameplay?
Anthony Phillips
this is an 18+ board
Camden Rodriguez
You also reminded me of the escape sequence in Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. Felt cinematic as fuck, too bad the game turned into a shitty Half Life clone after that.
Sebastian Wilson
Seems like you're the underage one to me m80 "Feels cinematic" is usually the same as "immersed me while I was doing cool shit." Milsims have their moments for this, but the problem is that you have to go through a lot of uneventful gameplay for those moments in most milsims just like real life Other than that, Mechwarrior can be pretty god damned immersive, especially Mechwarrior 2. The graphics are primitive, but the fucking sound design is stellar. Every important function on your mech has a visual and aural cue, just like you would expect on a real military vehicle. It serves the dual purpose of immersing you and giving the player feedback. The tension that builds as you approach the end of your mission with low armor on your vital areas and fight that last group of mechs is delicious.
Oliver Jones
Is this an example of a "cinematic" game done right? It feels like an extension of the show in all ways, aesthetically speaking, from graphics to sound to animation.
Not saying the game was great (I liked it) but as an example of what a cinematic game should be like, is it worth mentioning?
Aiden Morgan
People seem to have different ideas of what the phrase means, but to me personally it means "I feel like I'm in a movie" not "this game is similar to a movie."
Wyatt Foster
I define cinematic (in games) as a moment that would seem well written if it was written, meaning it's something that happened out of some interaction of the mechanics that makes for a cool story to tell other people.
An example would be in Breath of the Wild where there's a lightning storm and a big enemy dude, you try fighting him head on and he kicks your ass but since your sword is made of metal it attracts lightning, and just before you get struck you throw it at the enemy causing him to be struck by lightning instead.
If that was a sequence in an action movie, it'd be a pretty cool sequence, and since it happened in a game that wasn't scripted it felt "cinematic."
So to answer the question, any game that has lots of systems that can dynamically interact with each other like this feels cinematic.
Jack Scott
A cinematic action scene: good Cinematic, as in lots of drama cutscenes: bad
Gavin Gutierrez
Be careful with this. Keep in mind those scripted setpieces where all you're doing is moving forward while things burn and boom and crash all around you and everything looks really epic (for lack of a better descriptor) but you're not actually engaged mechanically and your character is in no real danger unless you stop moving forward (and sometimes in no danger at all even if you press nothing). That's a cinematic action scene. Is it good? Sometimes, yes. They're not always bad, but they have to be exciting and used in moderation, preferably with at least some sense of tension and some use of mechanical skill.
Lincoln Sanders
I would love a game with Indonesian shadow puppet aesthetic but it would probably end up being some pretentious indie shitter so nvm
Jayden Morales
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Carson Jenkins
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Lucas Evans
The ending was really similar to Halo 3's warthog run.
William Reed
I had it a while back and it's a bit grindy and if you have no sence of rythem don't bother. It's kind of like a musical version of battlecats but there are only so many songs you get to play so it gets really repetative fast.
I know they made a second one
Joseph Turner
Another World. That's it, no more.
Caleb Lopez
I have to agree with this, Another World sets a pretty high bar
Lincoln Ramirez
Honestly, the most cinematic game I've played (or the best use of it, in my opinion) was Resident Evil 2.
