[EDIT: Changed the catagory from Editorial to Opinion where it belongs. Thats what I get for writing till stupid o'clock in the morning.]

It feels to me that the Movie Industry is having a negative influence on the Game Industry. Some current game makers are trying to be movie directors instead of game developers by introducing massive in game cut scenes, in many cases to the detriment of game play. These cut scenes have become so invasive in the games that what you end up with are effectively just movies that are interrupted by periodic spats of game play, which is fine in its own regard, but it's not much of a game. And there have been some hugely popular games that follow this model, and I still dislike them all almost completely.

One of the biggest offenders of this is the Final Fantasy series, where the player occasionally moves the hero avatar around and fighting maybe 3-5 monsters before putting the controller down for the next 5 minute cut scene or exhausting dialog strings. Maybe I am crazy but I like a little more game in my games, and a lot less watching movie dialog. Other games that do this include, Metal Gear Solid, and all the games from Biowear. All have so much tedious dialog and interrupting cut scenes that I have quit playing regardless of how good a review score they have received.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love movies! I have a massive collection of 400+ DVDs, all I am saying is that when I am playing a game, I want to play a game, not watch a movie.

On the same note of the Cinematic Experience is the Dialog Talk Tree. This inane addition to game play thankfully went extinct many years ago until Biowear resurrected it. The biggest problem for me with the "Multiple Guess" dialog game is that I don't like game makers dictating what my character would say in a given situation…just give me the dialog that I need to move on with the story and let me decide what to do with that info, I don't need 20 minutes of mindless talking, and your insipid dialog to show me that I made a choice. The other problem is that inevitably there is a choice that seems harmless enough, but picking it turns out to be disastrous, not at all what you though it meant, and even worse it causes combat with an NPC that you had intended to be friendly with. I have only ever seen Dialog Trees done well once and that was in the original Fallout game, and even that game had some problems with the dialog. So please, can we stop using them…they don't work, and they are not fun.