Posted September 22, 2015
Here are a couple of thoughts:
1. Cutscenes in games, especially RPGs and adventure games, often contain important plot points or clues that are important to the rest of the game.
2. The use of the escape key to pause a game and open the in-game menu is so much a standard now that practically all PC games use it.
Why is it then, that almost every game containing cutscenes also use the escape key for skipping them? It means that in most games, once a cutscene starts, you had damn well better stay glued to the screen until it's over, or you will miss it, because the damned things cannot be paused.
I'm a family man. My wife or son may need my help with something very quickly, the cat may knock something over, requiring quick action, lots of other things can happen while I'm playing a game. But if it happens during a cutscene, I usually have to choose between waiting for the cutscene to end, or skip the damned thing and pause the game, thereby potentially missing something important.
I'm playing through Broken Age at the moment, and lo and behold, pressing escape during a cutscene does open the in-game menu, but pauses the cutscene as well, so I can watch the rest of it when I unpause the game again. It's brilliant, I love it. And it doesn't mean that all cutscenes are unskippable, the game just uses the space key to skip them instead, so it's the best of both worlds (because unskippable cutscenes are also a pain in the ass). I therefore have to ask the question, why the hell don't all developers use this feature in their games?
What other really neat features have you appreciated in a game and wondered why they aren't used more?
1. Cutscenes in games, especially RPGs and adventure games, often contain important plot points or clues that are important to the rest of the game.
2. The use of the escape key to pause a game and open the in-game menu is so much a standard now that practically all PC games use it.
Why is it then, that almost every game containing cutscenes also use the escape key for skipping them? It means that in most games, once a cutscene starts, you had damn well better stay glued to the screen until it's over, or you will miss it, because the damned things cannot be paused.
I'm a family man. My wife or son may need my help with something very quickly, the cat may knock something over, requiring quick action, lots of other things can happen while I'm playing a game. But if it happens during a cutscene, I usually have to choose between waiting for the cutscene to end, or skip the damned thing and pause the game, thereby potentially missing something important.
I'm playing through Broken Age at the moment, and lo and behold, pressing escape during a cutscene does open the in-game menu, but pauses the cutscene as well, so I can watch the rest of it when I unpause the game again. It's brilliant, I love it. And it doesn't mean that all cutscenes are unskippable, the game just uses the space key to skip them instead, so it's the best of both worlds (because unskippable cutscenes are also a pain in the ass). I therefore have to ask the question, why the hell don't all developers use this feature in their games?
What other really neat features have you appreciated in a game and wondered why they aren't used more?