Cinematically shot cutscenes and motion-captured footage is one thing, but to ram a game full of the stuff and forget about a key ingredient like say, gameplay, is a recipe for a game you'll clock in an afternoon, marvel at how fun and engaging it was - and then never play it again. As blasphemous as it might seem to say, that was the problem with Metal Gear Solid 4, and although creator Hideo Kojima still included some spectacular gameplay to keep things fresh, The Order: 1886 (yes that again, but it really is the perfect and most recent example) was literally just a cutscene-fest, with Gears-goes-Victorian gameplay lobbed in between. Heavy Rain's creative director David Cage said he only wanted you to play through his much-maligned title Fahrenheit once - as that would be the experience that you'd have to live with thanks to the cutscenes and branching gameplay choices all combining to form a cohesive impactful narrative. However that game had some very original control methods at the time, not to mention exploring the idea of a larger narrative whilst routing every scene in your control of the characters. These days forgoing the narrative backbone you've got a slew of titles all sitting somewhere between half-film, half-video game hybrids, with quick-time set-pieces and on-rails shooter sections taking you out of the experience altogether when you're not being told about upcoming DLC packs or sequel announcements only a week after release. It needs to change. What other gripes and grumbles do you have about the industry at the moment? Let us know in the comments, and join the Facebook for more!
