Chris Crawford on Game Design

Integrated Cut Scenes

The next step in this snail-like evolution was the presentation of the cut scenes using the same graphics engine as was used for the game itself. Half-Life pioneered this technique. This greatly smoothed the transition for game to cut scene. The jarring effect of jumping from one graphics style to another graphics style was eliminated; the experienced smoothly flowed from game to story and back again. The story itself remained functionally isolated from the game; nothing that happened in the game affected the story itself. This required some story jury-rigging. The easiest arrangement was to simply kill off the story with the player; should the player die, then there was no opportunity to see the rest of the story, which ...