The player

Killzone 3'boasts' more than an hour of animated cut scenes, but JOE GRIFFINsays there are better ways to tell a story

KILLZONE 3's announcement of 70 minutes of cut scenes causes a flurry of upbeat reports on game sites. It's enough to fill a film! But I'm not sure if that's such a good thing.

The explosion of cut scenes has become inevitable as games become more sophisticated and complex. But just because something is supposedly cinematic doesn’t make it right for games. Sadly, many prestige games have players mashing their controllers trying to skip the cut scenes. As a friend once said: “If I’m not shooting something within two minutes, there’s something wrong with the game.”

Game developers seem to be yearning for the cache enjoyed by film-makers: David Cage ( Heavy Rain) has been known to introduce his own games Hitchcock-style, and the end credits of Modern Warfare 2has characters recreating key scenes in a film studio set-up.

Videogames are interactive, which is why they shouldn’t try to compete with other artforms in the same way. Atmosphere and context are worth more than a thousand words, and narrative shorthand is a crucial skill for any storyteller. You can have both depth of character and story without slamming the gameplay to a halt for a lengthy animated scene.

Bioshock 1and 2are good examples. Your character can listen to abandoned diary recordings, stop to watch advertisement videos or read old letters. Often, you can listen to the audio of these mementos while still playing the game and controlling your character. Elsewhere in the games, the juxtaposition of gleeful propaganda with a horrific, crumbling reality is very powerful.

In the Unchartedgames there are brief, amusing scenes, and then the dialogue might continue during the gameplay. Perfect! In the wonderful Shank, animated characters sometimes appear in the corner of the screen (in the style of a comic panel) to fill narrative gaps.

The cut scene isn't always a chore, of course. Rockstar Games ( Grand Theft Auto) and Bioware ( Dragon Age, Mass Effect) have strong teams of writers and actors. Rockstar makes its animated scenes lean and wry, while Bioware genuine tries to bring depth and good writing to the role-playing genre.

Cut scenes shouldn’t be thrown out, and there are moments of inspiration during the animated stop- gaps. But it would be nice if there was a decrease in animated characters spouting reams of exposition.