I just finished playing my very first Ratchet and Clank game, Tools of Destruction. Yeah, I know, I'm late on the Ratchet and Clank train, but hey, I still caught it and enjoyed the ride while it lasted. It's a game that mixes action platforming with some fun RPG elements and does it very well. Paired with characters that remind of Pixar movies, it's a fun experience. But as much as I enjoyed the game, something that always bothers me in games really stood out in this one.
It sends me to the brink of frustration when I just finished slaughtering hundreds of badass robots with my impressive arsenal of sci-fi weapons, then a cut-scene has 3 of said robots soundly whoop me soundly and make off with my hard-earned treasure. One scene in particular has an antagonist holding Clank, the quirky robot side-kick, captive with a blade to his throat, threatening to kill him if Ratchet doesn't give up the treasure from the level. The entire time the hostage situation was taking place I kept urging Ratchet to haul out his Predator Missiles, lock onto the pirate's big ugly face and blow him to bits, or maybe use the shock ravager to trip the baddy off his feet. But no. Instead, Ratchet whimpers in fear and hands over the treasure, because apparently in cinematic mode his only weapon is his supremely useless wrench. Way to go Ratchet. Way to make the game last 5 levels longer than it had to.
Although these moments didn't detract from the game enough to hurt my overall enjoyment, it certainly didn't help when I was trying to believe the world that I was playing in. Game developers spend a lot of time creating a world that they can fit their characters into and make us as players dive in and understand its rules and logic. But when a game starts off with a free-fall from hundreds of feet in the air to a safe landing, and then I fall to my death down a pit 3 seconds later (this actually happened), I can't help but think, "didn't I just..." while blinking heavily. It makes me that much more aware that I am just playing a game with the occasional movie-like scenes interspersed, rather than a coherent experience that melts from cinematic to gameplay seamlessly.
The opposite is also sometimes true, where the characters in cinematic mode are wildly powerful in comparison to their in-game selves. I'm currently playing Vanquish and am constantly presented with these types of cut-scenes. Your character, Sam, has your typical japanese super-soldier sci-fi suit and can move at blurring speeds while slowing down time and shelling out some major damage to enemy robots. But that's nothing in comparison to his cinematic-self. In cinematics Sam often propels himself into the sky, deliver lightning fast punches Dragonball Z style and spins at mach-speeds to drill holes into giant robot enemy heads. After getting destroyed about 15 times by one of these giant robots, I have to say that I would love to be able to drill holes into their gigantic heads instead of shooting them with my puny guns.
Tom Bissell, in his book Extra Lives, talks about Narrative Dissonance in video games, which is when the narrative of the gameplay doesn't match up with the overall story. The morals of the characters can be aimed towards a virtuous end in the narrative of the story, but then during the gameplay you are disemboweling random creatures and enemies mercilessly. Cinematic/gameplay dissonance is another type of dissonance that I feel is present in games. It's something that has been present in games for at least as long as RPGs have existed and cut-scenes with them. How many times have you urged your character to cast Fire 3 on a whimpy cut-scene enemy, or to use their mighty Jump ability to get over a ridiculously low wooden bench blocking their path? Occasionally, a game will try to make their character's aware of their abilities outside of battle. In Tales of Symphonia, for example, the magic user Genis will often cast his level-1 spells to solve puzzles or scare away enemies. Of course, he never casts anything past a level-1 spell, but at least it was an attempt to make the character's aware of their own power outside of a battle sequence.
This messy weave of gameplay abilities as opposed to cinematic abilities is something that only video games as a medium encounters as a problem. Any other form of story telling is one-way, where the user is being told or shown events as told by the author or director. I believe it to be an enormous obstacle. These types of games are essentially telling two different stories, one that you have direct control over and one where you are nothing but an observer. For me, this disconnect creates an apathy in the player that makes them want to get the cinematic over with so they can get back to their story, rather than the story of the game developers.
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