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Q.T.E.’s can be B.A.D. |
by Craig
5/4/2009 |
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by Craig Schorling
-Staff Editor
Nothing can bring down a game faster than poor game play. Controls that are not responsive and unnatural control schemes plague games and can ruin what might otherwise be a good game in all other categories. However, no game can be just as bad if not worse than bad game play. I speak of quick time events (QTE) which are not new to the gaming industry but appear to be on a steady increase as seen in such recent titles as Resident Evil 5 and Prince of Persia.
QTE’s can be traced back to the Dragon’s Lair games that started in the early 1980’s. These games were contained on laserdisc which allowed for animation quality images but not room for much else. These games consisted of watching the game and hitting the correct button at the right time to avoid certain doom. At the time, these games were unique and offered something that had not been seen before. Then in 1999, Yu Suzuki, who coined the QTE term directed “Shenmue”. This game introduced QTE’s in the form of cut scenes or interludes in an otherwise action based game. Since then QTE’s have found their way into many household titles such as God of War, Kingdom Hearts, Saints Row 2, Sonic Unleashed, The Force Unleashed, Ninja Blade, and countless other titles. While these QTE’s can offer cinematic scenarios and fun to watch moments, they really can take a player out of a game when done poorly or abundantly.
First we look at the aforementioned Resident Evil 5 and Prince of Persia. Resident Evil 5 relies on QTE’s to progress almost all of the boss battles that take place within the game and some are entirely QTE. While these look great when executed properly, I constantly found myself dying then redoing it over and over again out of memorization. This truly feels like lazy programming at times. Why not have boss fights where you actually fight? This is evident at one fight near the end of the game (being vague as to avoid spoilers) where the player has to fist fight, shoot, and evacuate to safety. All of this is done via QTE’s which begs the question, why not just create this scenario but with game play? Far more enjoyment and possibilities arise when actual game play is part of the equation. Where do I hold up? Where will I shoot? Which combo should I use? All of these options go bye-bye when QTE’s are implemented.
Prince of Persia uses QTE’s in all of their 24 boss fights (that’s right, you have to go through this 24 times) and various miscellaneous battles. As you are fighting a quick cinematic appears and you have to hit a specific button in order to succeed. If you miss you take damage, should you succeed nothing happens other than you get to go back to fighting. This was fun and exciting but after 24 fights riddled with this tactic it became stale fast. To have a system like this with no reward for succeeding and punishment when failing is beyond me and caused the game to have an artificial difficulty to it. A far more rewarding and engaging experience would be to give the enemies attacks that the player would have dodge, deflect, run away from, or handle any way they see fit. Prince of Persia had an ok concept but fell short on its execution.
Not all QTE’s are bad. In fact some are well done and leave the player with a sense of accomplishment. The God of War series implements QTE’s very well into their game. During battles you can, when prompted, begin a chain of QTE’s that will finish off you enemy and grant the player more experience than finishing off the foe by conventional methods. Here is a system that gives the player a choice on whether or not to do the QTE, thus never taking the player out of the experience and rewards them for doing it. It should also be noted that in these titles the QTE’s can become difficult to execute but they do not become a burden in the same way that some games make QTE’s. Kingdom Hearts 2 also implements a similar approach to QTE’s as they give the player choice whether or not to initiate the sequence and cancel it whenever they wish to.
QTE’s are not bad, in fact they have an ability to enhance a game in ways no other device can. More and more developers and programmers are adding QTE’s into their games and a lot of them tend to be poorly implemented. It is when this occurs that gamers and critics will bash the QTE system which is unfair. Developers need to look at the QTE as a way to deepen their game and not cripple it. When you offer a QTE mechanic but fail to provide game play to accompany it then you are left with a game that feels stagnant and stale. I hope for the gamer’s sake that more games incorporate the QTE in new, fresh, and innovative ways.
Also See
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TFC:Men Hunter
Heckler
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I though the Q.T.E on Shemue was good enough, i dont know why people knock it so much. One thing i would knock is how sega discontinue the 3d and last chapter and left all of us sega fans hung..I mean Damn the same thing they are doing now with the Virtual Fighter 5R home vesrsion.U got to go to japan to play em
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