Every Monday the LeftStickRight team will take on a different topic surrounding news or interesting topics about games or the gaming industry and open it up for discussion. Our three editors will give their perspective and you are welcome to give your own. Agree? Disagree?

The topic this week is: What game mechanic has worn out its welcome and needs to retire gracefully? What industry trend needs to quickly make its way to the afterlife?

Ian H’s Take

In what I imagine will be a very similar answer to Ian Y., I am going to go with Quick Time Events, but with a caveat. I don’t mind the idea of QTEs and I think there is a way to execute them seamlessly and sensibly in games. I thought that Indigo Prophecy had a solid execution as a primary game mechanic, and even some of the ways it is done in many 3D action games makes sense to me. The way I don’t like them thrown in is randomly during cutscenes.

Left! Right! Now Left! Dodge that Angel!

Cutscenes in games are generally treated differently than the rest of the game. It cuts away to a letterbox style viewing, showing a pre-rendered sequence demonstrating a plot point. The view is altered and it is clearly different from actually playing the game. However, many games want to keep you on your toes by throwing in a “Press A or DIE!” moment when you may be more interested with what is happening on screen. I understand the integration of cutscenes and QTEs, but when there is a clear disconnect between what you are playing and a part that you are clearly made to be just watching, throwing in press button or Game Over moments does nothing for me.

Tim’s Take

The gaming community’s outcry against video-game based movies and movie-based video games has long fallen on deaf ears. As long as there are still parents out there who think buying their kids junk like the Avatar game will be a slam dunk, we’ll likely never see the end of it.

What makes this especially sad nowadays, however, is that game development and imagination in this generation has reached a point where games can provide satisfying cinematic experiences without the need of Hollywood at all. King Kong, although based on a movie, was a good start toward creating a game-film hybrid model on consoles, and titles such as the Uncharted series and Batman: Arkham Asylum (which arguably takes more from the comics than any of the films) have provided cinematic atmospheres while still clearly identifying themselves as great games.

Let me look on my toolbelt for my handy Batkick-to-the-sternum

I have also been pleased to see games more heavily rooted in cinematics and story starting to reach our shores. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories proves an engrossing plot with pretty shallow gameplay elements can still be a worthwhile experience (and on the Wii, no less) and the upcoming Heavy Rain seems to promise even deeper elements. Heck, even Hotel Dusk: Room 215 on the DS played out well and gained a cult following.

So please, please sever the ties between Hollywood and the game industry. Developers are proving now more than ever that they can provide what a lot of us have ever really wanted: fresh, original, playable movies. But as long as film and game companies keep knocking on each other’s doors, I’m afraid we’re never going to see as many instances of these games shining as we could.

Ian Y’s Take

What game hook needs to die? That’s easy, quick-time events. Y’know, those moments when you’re watching a nice cut-scene and then, without warning, faced with “press x now or die!” which you invariably mess up the first or possibly several times, and are forced to watch the whole damn cutscene again.

Why do I hate them so? Well, it’s not just because they’re responsible for the majority of my deaths in Bayonetta there-by ruining my end-stage scores. (What’s worse than a bronze? How about stone! Stupid stone awards…)

I'll show you a stone statue!

I can understand the reasoning behind their incorporation into games: to add some layer of interactivity to cut-scenes. But they don’t even do that very well. Pressing a button every once and a while to simply move the scene along is about as superficially interactive as you can get. In fact, they’re distraction from the very things their supposed to enhance. Instead of paying attention to the entire scene, listening to important dialogue or appreciating the on-screen action, you’re forced you to glue your eyes on a few square centimetres of the screen just in case a button appears.

But what I find most disturbing about this trend is how virulent it has become, infecting dozens of legitimately excellent games. There’s even Heavy Rain A.K.A. Quick-Time Events: The Game. It’s cheap and shallow mechanic that should be discarded and never spoken of again.