: : I've actually always enjoyed the level. The advance and retreat to shields
: I think we're in total agreement on the cutscenes part – especially because
: cutscenes make the game creators write the story as though it's a
: Hollywood movie instead of a book. And if Marathon has taught me anything,
: it's that writing like a book instead of a movie can pay off really well
: if done right.
Or, if I should paraphrase Mr. Shigesato Itoi, writing like a newspaper can pay off even better: it's not so much about what's written, but where it's placed. Marathon, and PiD in particular, are exceptional at this. PiD even goes beyond 'writing like a book' or 'newspaper' to 'writing like a video game.' See Lion O Cyborg's latest writeup for an illustration of what I mean, but the short of it is: You grabbed some items in the middle of the game that seems not just useless, but detrimental. A cloak that speeds up time around you, and a poison vial (or rather, two, but you learned from experience not to drink that stuff again). Deep down in the belly of the beast that is this series of torturous dungeon floors is a room that shuts you in. There's even a cheeky "uh oh" in the message box. A dead man here tells you he suffocated with two hours of air and the doors opened at the third hour. Also, one of his buddies got bit by a venomous snake. Hmmm...
After solving that trap, you talk to some dead dudes that say everyone got bodied by green oozes down the narrow corridor and eaten for lunch, except the guy with the snake bite, who they ignored. Hey, is there any good reason to put two of a consumable item in a game that hurts the player?
Video game writing. It's all about doing stuff in this interactive medium. Taking the yellow crystal out of the PiD demo was the stupidest idea bungie ever had (please don't take that literally and show me crap from Destiny that's even dumber).
Then there's the emotional breakdown you can have shooting grenades into Durandal's brain... a modern game would put in a $hi77y cutscene showing the character do that and go through the emotional trauma, because it just demands cinematics that are so hi-def it could only go in a non-interactive, pre-rendered cutscene to show off the state-of-the-art specs of the hardware before it gets dated in 3 years... *ka-sigh*
