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I’ve just finished playing through a harrowing section of Resident Evil 5. The tense action required me to constantly run about, avoid rabid zombies, and dodge deadly chainsaw attacks. As I finish the area, a sense of relief pulses through me, and I’m greeted with my reward — a cut-scene.
At least, that’s what cut-scenes used to mean. After I’ve set my controller down in order to fully appreciate the story-telling device, an onscreen notice suddenly prompts me to press several buttons. What the hell? Fuck. I just died. I’m forced to watch this scene again? Ugh.
We all know them, and more than a few of us hate their guts. My inner-Seinfeld surfaces: “What’s the deal with these quick-time events?”
Resident Evil 5 wasn’t my first experience with the ill-conceived game mechanic — Clive Barker’s Jericho clumsily introduced the concept to me. I clearly remember the utter confusion as I fell off a ledge over and over again. Why is the game forcing me to navigate the side of a cliff like this? I thought I was playing a squad-based, first-person shooter!
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAPdpwRk70o 425×344]
Both games highlight exactly why I feel quick-time events are lazy game design. These are clearly sequences that the core gameplay could not adequately address; instead, the game hoists a series of timed button presses to get the job done.
Resident Evil 5 is particularly egregious because their inclusion ignores previously learned incentives. Dozens of games have burned into my mind the incontrovertible fact that a cut-scene is a reward for clearing a difficult section. I almost always take the time to set my controller down and enjoy the break.
We critics on the outside aren’t the only people to notice the disconnect with quick-time events. Bitmob’s past interview with X-Men Origins: Wolverine project lead Dan Vondrak revealed that even developers as notable as Raven Software despise the mechanic.
So, who’s responsible? Many would point back to 1983’s Dragon Lair, which was, essentially, an interactive cartoon. The game was most impressive because it brought Disney-quality animation to games during a time when blocky sprites reigned supreme. But the gameplay was little more than pressing the right button or pushing the joystick at the right time to progress the animation further.
I’d argue, though, that God of War is likely responsible for the mechanic’s popularity among developers. Previously, few games used quick-time events (most notably Shenmue, whose director, Yu Suzuki, is credited with coining the phrase).
But after 2005, a deluge of prominent titles have incorporated the gameplay device — Assassin’s Creed 2, Bayonetta, Indigo Prophecy, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, Resident Evil 4, and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed are just a few.
While God of War does make use of the previously mentioned cinematic quick-time events for boss fights, the game’s combat-focused implementation is less annoying. These occur during the action, so the player’s guard is never down. Additionally, failure in this case never means repeating the sequence; instead, the player faces a risk/reward scenario. If a player fails, he’ll only lose some health; however, if a player succeeds, he is given a measurable combat bonus.
Despite this, I still feel that the quick-time events in God of War are awkward. Why must there be random button presses? This method is disconnected from the actual gameplay of the hack-n-slash button masher. Why not make these events more intelligently integrated?
Once we go there, we realize that the quick-time event is really a poor man’s combo system. If the button presses are intuitively mapped to the available control options, then the player no longer needs blatant “press X to win” onscreen prompts.
Street Fighter 4 does this with the “focus attack” mechanic — in essence, the game teaches players to read their opponent and press the correct button sequence at the correct time without any onscreen prompts. Demon’s Souls is another that teaches players to read opponents in order to successfully use the parry and riposte combat tactic.
I’m hoping that fewer new games take the easy path of quick-time events to force in sequences which clearly do not mesh with the existing gameplay. Instead, I’d rather see developers find intelligent ways to clue players to initiate any particular action.
