What's a "Movie Game" ?

Recently had a discussion with one of my friends and he claimed that the Rise of the Tome Raider is a "Movie Game" , which i utterly against it. If that's a movie game , then what you call Beyond Two Souls ?!

In my definition, the game in which the emphasis is on story and narrative rather than gameplay can be called a "Movie Game". Almost any David Cage games falls into that category , the most recent one can be Until Dawn ... But i don't believe Uncharted/Tomb Raider is a "Movie Game" because there's enough engaging gameplay to have fun with.

Just a term for games that have little gameplay in them. But people name Uncharted and the like movie games, which doesn't make sense. If you wanna be that fella that uses the term, do it properly for games like The Walking Dead and Heavy Rain.

Wait I thought movie games were games based off of movies. Has the defination been flipped around to something else now?

Story focused adventure games like Heavy Rain, Beyond, The Walking Dead, Until Dawn. The Order is this weird cross between those and a TPS, so it kinda fits the bill.

Rise of the Tomb Raider wouldn't really fit since it's mostly gameplay, but it does seem a little too QTE heavy. Uncharted is mostly gameplay as well. I'd say these are cinematic but not movie games.

A game where you are watching more than playing

Like this?

Yeah, I agree. But older Tomb Raider games had actual exploration, platforming, puzzle solving, driving sections, clue hunting and so on, while Uncharted was always more focused on connecting different shooting galleries with set pieces.

New Tomb Raider also removed some of its features and started to feel a lot like Uncharted in some places (Walk in straight line... Jump when we tell you... Yay Platforming!). So may be that's why your friend called it "Movie Game".

Yes UC is more about overall experience and less about just the gameplay itself but I still don't think it's a "movie game". QTE fests like Until Dawn and David Cage's "games" are different story though. That QTE crap pretty much killed good boss battles during last gen, even in non-QTE games (Far Cry 3 for example).

The Order: 1886 was a good movie when I rented at Redbox back in February.

Games with little gameplay.

A "Movie game" is a concept used by people who can't seem to understand that "video games" no longer means the same as it did in the earlier generations. The entertainment medium simply spans so much more than it used to.

I think The Oder is a good example. 800p, black bars, "cinematic" frame rate that fluctuates from 11 to 24 fps.

I enjoyed Until Dawn but I don't really understand how it's considered a video game. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I could have just watched it instead of worrying about QTE's popping off. What little video game there was there actually got in the way of my enjoyment...

I also agree with others about The Order 1886 being a movie game hybrid. The difference between The Order and Until Dawn though is the story in The Order was total trash. The only redeeming quality The Order had was it's graphics.

I didn't mind that movie either....I finished it!

I got the Platinum! All trophy hunters should get this one. I literally only had to replay 1 mission because I missed 1 hidden collectible.

Wow, you actually finished watching that 5 hour long marathon? Props to you then.

nope, you call them "photorealistic" or "powerpoint"...

Now that is some commitment :P

This is gold.

Yeah , Tomb Raider is dumbed down but still it's not a game like Until Dawn.

Couldn't agree more , even in Batman Arkham Knight, which i love it, there was this battle with a bulky guy where you should just press buttons and it really annoyed me.

Yeah "cinematic" is a better term.

lmao

Games @Heil68 enjoys.

Yeah, mostly PC adventure type games, but they are fun nonetheless.

@GoldenElementXL: I wanted to get Platinum but I just couldn't do another replay due to can't skip cut-scenes. If it's on PS+ in the future, I may Platinum it.

Music game - Guitar Hero, Rockband

Book game(visual novel) - Zero Escape, Stein;Gate, Xblaze

Movie Games - Until Dawn, Heavy Rain, TWD

GOAT games - Uncharted, TLoZ, TLoU, Persona

A movie game for me is one that provides an experience that is more akin to watching a movie, i.e. Mostly passive action of watching and limited gameplay/interactivity.

@Legend002: GOAT Games: System Shock 1&2, Half Life 1, Planescape Torment, Deus Ex 1, Fallout 1&2 - inaccessible to inferior console peasants :>

never heard of any of them except half life which is on the ps2... deus ex and fallout are console games.

I would not class puzzle/adventure games as movie games that stupid. I'm assuming people are referring to cutscene vs game length, where you watch more than you play.

Looks like Star Citizen single player campaign might be the next big movie game, to be honest I would not classify that as a bad thing if done well.

Seems like there's some etymological revisionism going on in this thread.

The term movie game isn't new, it's been thrown around since the early PS3 days when games like Uncharted and MGS4 were all the buzz but weren't particularly good but praised to high heaven for their production values and movie like qualities, hence "movie games" was used as a pejorative for games that weren't really games because they're more focused on shallow things like photorealism than actually being what they're supposed to, games. It's like people act like they only started gaming less than five years ago. Playstation fanboys would be like "all you got is shooters on Xbox" and Xbox fanboys would be like "well all you go is movie games"; it was a pejorative, just like shooters became a pejorative. Just more red meat thrown into a piranha tank when uttered, like 'microtransactions' or 'brown/grey tones' and games will eat shit for it forever.

Sure, there's other games that actually are movie games in this sense, Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls, Walking Dead, etc, but at least those know what they are and are good at what they do, and had a play styles that predate the term, probably have more to do with the adventure genres and choose your own adventure stories. You'd often seen games like Heavy Rain and later Beyond: Two Souls get unfairly attacked, IMO David Cage's style predates that bullshit.

Uncharted all throughout had a good story but beyond that was mediocre in its shooting gameplay, and they're very much shooters too. MGS4 just fails on multiple levels, though good visually the game failed to be a game, then it drowned the experience in story, tons of it, which might not have been so bad if the story wasn't some of those most godawful writing I'd ever seen, and it was void of the tiniest semblance of gameplay to boot. Even a game like God of War 3, praised to high heavens for its production values and cinematic qualities, I felt personally was a tremendous letdown after God of War 2, some of the worst designed filler combat and some of the weakest boss fights in the series to date, and the game keeps you on training wheels like half the way through the game.

Other games like Max Payne sure borrowed from the Uncharted in the higher production values in many respects but they mastered what the games were supposed to be, shooters, and boy is Max Payne more shooter than all the Uncharted games combined. Tomb Raider (2013) also borrowed from Uncharted (ironically) but was more enjoyable than any of the Uncharted games I played too, IMO at least. I'm sure Siren Blood Curse might have been part of that nasty dialog too had people been more conscious of it, thank God it wasn't, I actually liked it quite a bit and it was quite a spooky survival horror.

Anyhow, I guess etymological revisionism is at hand here, guess we're "taking it back"...

A term fanboys came up with to discredit games.

@mjorh said:

@skelly34 said:

Games @Heil68 enjoys.

Yeah, mostly PC adventure type games, but they are fun nonetheless.

Dont knock PC though.

@Heil68 said:

@mjorh said:

@skelly34 said:

Games @Heil68 enjoys.

Yeah, mostly PC adventure type games, but they are fun nonetheless.

Dont knock PC though.

U mean like classic point-click adventures ?

'Movie games' are games that basically use the W story board structure to move the player thru the events in the game:

A lot of people dont like them because they are on rails. Yes both Uncharted and Tom Raider are 'movie games'. Nowadays most single player rpgs fall into this category as well. Most just try to cover it up with tacked on open world timesinks. (MGSV, The Witcher 3, Mad max, Arkham)

Yes its meant as an insult because most movie games sacrifice gameplay/mechanics/freedom of choice to funnel the players thru the plot and try to dazzle you with non player controlled effects rather than actual good gameplay.

@lamprey263 I agree with your point but you didnt have to be so heavy handed with the racist schtick to get your point across lol.

I personally dont hate movie games, but I usually play thru them once and never play them again.

On a sidenote, I think gaming is actually finally getting to point where the tech is there to finally break this paradigm and make some games that are like movies but have plots driven by players. This is what is really missing from MMOs. Most MMOs actually dont have any real RPG in them because everything is on rails and in a themepark setting. I'm waiting for the day when developers realize that they should make an MMO that has a set lifespan with a beginning an an ending that the players make happen. Then you can reset it or make a new game. Instead of a themepark you have events that are permanent in the game.

Crowfall is kinda doing something like this.

It's sort of like a point and click adventure thing I think. There's a similar amount of interaction with both types of games.

Uncharted 2 and The Last Of Us are excellently executed games, period.

fixed.

A game that is almost entirely out of the player's hands, where you don't really play so much as watch. I'd consider the Walking Dead TellTale games to fall under this category, although there are some games that really toe the line. Max Payne 3, for instance, regularly has long cut scenes, takes control away from the player and lets the story dictate where you go so despite the fact that it does have decent enough gameplay, I'd say it also falls under the "movie game" category.

Give me The Last Of Us and Uncharted over TLoZ and Persona. If you had said Mario and Metroid, that's a different story.

@FoxbatAlpha: I'd like to see some proof of this 11fps. I played it and i didn't see any slowdown....I'm sure you haven't even played it.

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On topic: Movie games are like David Cage's games. Not Uncharted games. Even if a game is a "movie game" like David Cage's games....doesn't mean they are bad. There have been games like Leisure Suit Larry that aren't exactly heavy on gameplay or that one game back in early 2000's where you would get emails and phone calls are something to figure out a mystery in the game.

Some games are just for the experience....and some ppl some of the time just want to sit back and take in a good experience.

Theres nothing wrong with that.

It's not they're taking over so ppl should bitch or bash them.

This is the correct answer.

Also, stuff like Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, Ninja Hayate, Cobra Command, Road Blaster, Time Gal, Time Traveler, Who Shot Johnny Rock, etc.

when people are too busy trying to put a label on things - they fail to appreciate and find the beauty in things for what they are.....

but I guess it's just human nature. We tend to want to apply labels to people as well and want everything to fit into a magical category.

@mr_huggles_dog:Yeah there's nothing wrong with that type of games , i've enjoyed playing TWD and The Wolf Among Us.

@oflow said:

'Movie games' are games that basically use the W story board structure to move the player thru the events in the game:

A lot of people dont like them because they are on rails. Yes both Uncharted and Tom Raider are 'movie games'. Nowadays most single player rpgs fall into this category as well. Most just try to cover it up with tacked on open world timesinks. (MGSV, The Witcher 3, Mad max, Arkham)

Yes its meant as an insult because most movie games sacrifice gameplay/mechanics/freedom of choice to funnel the players thru the plot and try to dazzle you with non player controlled effects rather than actual good gameplay.

@lamprey263 I agree with your point but you didnt have to be so heavy handed with the racist schtick to get your point across lol.

I personally dont hate movie games, but I usually play thru them once and never play them again.

On a sidenote, I think gaming is actually finally getting to point where the tech is there to finally break this paradigm and make some games that are like movies but have plots driven by players. This is what is really missing from MMOs. Most MMOs actually dont have any real RPG in them because everything is on rails and in a themepark setting. I'm waiting for the day when developers realize that they should make an MMO that has a set lifespan with a beginning an an ending that the players make happen. Then you can reset it or make a new game. Instead of a themepark you have events that are permanent in the game.

Crowfall is kinda doing something like this.

With that definition , 90percent of videogames are "movie games" :D

And your idea about MMOs having lifespan is interesting.

It's a $100 steak.

@mjorh: I was more speaking along the line of the cinematics in the game too. Games like Uncharted, TLoU, TR, Batman actually use the same camera angles etc as movies. Theres lots of games that dont fall into that structure. most platformers, arena games, mobas, rts, turn based games, arpgs etc.

Saying a Game is a "Movie Game" doesn't mean it has to be like Beyond Two Souls or Heavy Rain or Until Dawn. It means the game is very "Hollywood" as in there's a lot of Motion Capture Cutscenes and the feeling of those games feels like you're experiencing something you would see in a movie theater.

So certain games like Tomb Raider or More so like Uncharted feel more like a Movie than a Game and the Game segments are just things to help you be more interactive for the "Movie".

It's like that Sony commercial for Uncharted 2 where they joked that the dude's girlfriend thinks it's a movie than a game. It's not so much as that those games are trying to be movies it's just that the structure of those games is that the CAN be movies.

I hope that makes it a little more clear.

Puts attempts at being cinematic before gameplay/interactivity.

Its very simple, they are games where the focus went on presentation and story instead of gameplay.

Is it really? or is it a term created to describe a new type of game? maybe you can call it a "pick your own adventure game" I don't think it has to do with fanboys. these games exist on all systems. and personally I think they are terrible for gaming.

@oflow said:

'Movie games' are games that basically use the W story board structure to move the player thru the events in the game:

A lot of people dont like them because they are on rails. Yes both Uncharted and Tom Raider are 'movie games'. Nowadays most single player rpgs fall into this category as well. Most just try to cover it up with tacked on open world timesinks. (MGSV, The Witcher 3, Mad max, Arkham)

Yes its meant as an insult because most movie games sacrifice gameplay/mechanics/freedom of choice to funnel the players thru the plot and try to dazzle you with non player controlled effects rather than actual good gameplay.

Interestingly, Shigeru Miyamoto said something similar about Nintendo's games being based on the "Kishotenketsu" structure, which is what Chinese literature and Japanese manga are modelled after. If modern AAA games are "movie games" because they follow the "W" plot structure, then would that mean classic Nintendo games are "manga games" because they follow the "Kishotenketsu" structure?

Movie games is just a derogatory term devised by gamers who don't like games on a platform they don't own i.e. games they have never played and will never play so actually they don't even know if they like them or not.

Yes, it's as stupid as it sounds.

I don't think of games like Heavy Rain as movie games they're just kind of scaled down adventure games. Slow paced and interesting and nice to look at but without the challenge of normal adventure games because although gamers have not magically become really stupid overnight, developers think they have and treat them as though they are all braindead. That's modern gaming on ALL platforms.

I personally draw the line at anything Telltale put out. Horrible graphics and literally click to progress their really boring narrative. Ugh, just awful.

People who describe games like Uncharted as movie games have never played them. It really is that simple.