It seems like we may be sandwiched between a few releases that could be revealing a more cinematic but immersive direction for gaming.  First is Heavy Rain, a game I just completed.  A lot of people like to poke fun at the Metal Gear Solid series calling it an interactive movie.  Compared to Heavy Rain, MGS is non-stop action.

It’s not like Quantic Dream did anything different with Heavy Rain; Dragon’s Lair did the same thing decades earlier.  The difference is that this time, thanks to technology, this kind of gameplay is going to succeed.

At the time Dragon’s Lair came out, it was different and unique, and compared to the machines that surrounded it in arcades during its day, it looked way better.  Of course that’s because the game was really an interactive animated film that played off of a laserdisc in an arcade cabinet.  Do a particular action and you make a decision that changes the outcome of the “movie.”

While it was unique at the time, arcade-goers still craved the kind of game that required quick reflexes and gave you high scores.  Also the chance of Dragon’s Lair coming to your home was slim, as laserdiscs never took off and DVDs were still years away.

That type of gameplay took a vacation since it really didn’t have a good fit in games, until the Dreamcast and Shenmue brought the Quick Time Event during its interactive segments.  This brought interactive movies into games, and the technique continued in such titles as God of War and Resident Evil 4. 

There were a lot of reasons that the time was right for QTEs, or whatever you wish to call them.  For one, narrative in games was becoming more important than ever.  No longer were games just about heroes saving damsels in distress, there was plenty going on in between.  Games were also starting to look better, and more realistic.  Because of this you could create a game that didn’t need a fully animated laserdisc pumping out your images.  You could have 3D models doing it, which made for better “flow,” for lack of a better word.  Instead of a pause, a choice being made, and then resuming the action where you see the choice you made, it could be essentially seamless.

Moving to today we have a game like Heavy Rain.  It’s gorgeous, to the point that they used real actor’s faces for the characters that they voiced in the game, and they look fairly dead on.  Also, rather than having a few cutscene-type moments where you make decisions via QTEs, everything you do, besides walking and inspecting objects, is done through QTEs.  You can change your “difficulty” but really all you’re doing is adding a few more buttons it may ask you to press to do certain actions.  It truly is an interactive eight-hour movie. 

So why now?  Graphics are at a point where they look incredibly good, better than ever.  Again, Heavy Rain is a prime example.  Secondly, these are the kind of experiences that people are looking for.  I enjoy a challenge now and then, but honestly when I start games now, I choose the easiest mode first, because I want to experience the narrative and get accustom to the game play.  Later on I may choose something more difficult for the challenge, but the experience comes first. 

Developers seem to be taking note of this.  Another example of a game that is trying to deliver a cinematic experience is the upcoming Final Fantasy XIII.  While the series started off more open, the game has taken a linear turn over the years, and this release sticks to that.  The game has made user friendly turns, the biggest of all replenishing your HP after battles, that way you always start with a full HP bar when you go into a fight.  If you think about it, doing this makes the battle a more tactical, “gamer friendly,” QTE.  With Heavy Rain you don’t have a life bar, but if we pretend you have an invisible one, essentially it refills every time you start a new QTE.  If you miss too many buttons during one event, you lose a fight, however what you did in the QTE before it means nothing, and what you did in that QTE means nothing during the next one.  If you look at it in that light, this makes Final Fantasy XIII and Heavy Rain pretty similar.  While Final Fantasy isn’t necessarily accessible to everyone, games like Heavy Rain whose gameplay boils down to simple hand-eye coordination movements and less tactics can introduce a new audience to games.

It’s not to say that these experiences will take over all our games; we might not be having conversations in our sports titles, and we’ll still see “don’t talk, just fire” type shooters, but it does look like these experiences will be entering unexpected places as well.  Look at the Mass Effect series; where between all the shooting there are plenty of interactive cinematic moments that change the outcome of the game, but instead of timed button presses, you determine what happens through conversation.

Personally I welcome this type of game.  Narrative has become more important to me in games than ever before, and it’s interesting to see it in its various forms.  Don’t be surprised though when we see it more often in its rawest form like Dragon’s Lair attempted and Heavy Rain has proven can be successful today.