I am fully aware how ridiculous this may sound, but I am being 100% serious when I tell you that this game's cutscenes, seemingly driven mostly by "hm, what would look the coolest here?", are better—and more thoughtfully—shot and edited than most other games I've played.
"But what about [prestige game]" especially better than that.
Despite the average shot length being too short for my taste, the cutscene where the Ronin attempt to ambush Johnny Gat and the player was when I realized "oh, someone DIRECTED this." Beyond the flashier stuff like the derivative-but-still-great katana flower-cutting discretion shot, there's a real sense of rhythm to the scene and thoughtfulness to the blocking (to say nothing of the physical comedy) that persists across all the other story cutscenes, once I started paying attention.
(Of particular note is the long take late in the Brotherhood arc, which I bring up not because long takes are inherently good or something—they're frequently misused pretentiously by people who don't understand what they're for—but because it's specifically there to create a vulnerable, scrambling feeling that underlines both the larger theme of the arc of powerful people feeling powerless and lashing out in petty destructive ways, and the immediate theme of Maero Is Bigger And Stronger Than Me Oh No.)
The fact that these cutscenes come out of an era in gaming that was still pretty dominated by "just vaguely point the camera at the action" is nuts.
Oh also the rest of the game's alright. It's extremely 2008 in good and bad ways. It's better than the HD GTAs by a country mile. It's hard for me not to compare its controls negatively to its sequel, since I played it first—jumping on cars to get in them without the animation is a salve, but doesn't compare to jumping directly into the driver's seat in SRTT—but obviously the tradeoff is that Stilwater is a better sandbox than Steelport.
(p.s. the female player character is sorta-canonically trans, which is fun)
"But what about [prestige game]" especially better than that.
Despite the average shot length being too short for my taste, the cutscene where the Ronin attempt to ambush Johnny Gat and the player was when I realized "oh, someone DIRECTED this." Beyond the flashier stuff like the derivative-but-still-great katana flower-cutting discretion shot, there's a real sense of rhythm to the scene and thoughtfulness to the blocking (to say nothing of the physical comedy) that persists across all the other story cutscenes, once I started paying attention.
(Of particular note is the long take late in the Brotherhood arc, which I bring up not because long takes are inherently good or something—they're frequently misused pretentiously by people who don't understand what they're for—but because it's specifically there to create a vulnerable, scrambling feeling that underlines both the larger theme of the arc of powerful people feeling powerless and lashing out in petty destructive ways, and the immediate theme of Maero Is Bigger And Stronger Than Me Oh No.)
The fact that these cutscenes come out of an era in gaming that was still pretty dominated by "just vaguely point the camera at the action" is nuts.
Oh also the rest of the game's alright. It's extremely 2008 in good and bad ways. It's better than the HD GTAs by a country mile. It's hard for me not to compare its controls negatively to its sequel, since I played it first—jumping on cars to get in them without the animation is a salve, but doesn't compare to jumping directly into the driver's seat in SRTT—but obviously the tradeoff is that Stilwater is a better sandbox than Steelport.
(p.s. the female player character is sorta-canonically trans, which is fun)
Snappington1
21 days ago
God Bless,
Snappington1