The Witcher 2

[frogbeastegg]

Monk's explanation is good. It's a lazy way to get your character to perform moves they can't in normal game conditions, or to keep the player involved during non-playable moments. In practice it means you can never relax at any time in the game, including cutscenes and other traditional downtime, and you're going to be repeating sections over and over until you hit the right buttons in the tiny time frame. If they appear in cutscenes then you'll watch every one by focusing on a tiny portion of the screen in case a prompt appears; you won't watch what's happening on the screen at large. If they appear in combat, on the other hand, then you'd better resign yourself to doing 3 times the bosses health bar in damage before he finally drops because you failed one split second demand and the game gave the creature half it's health back.

I'm not a fan of the concept and never will be. It's nothing but lazy programming and lazy design. I can't think of a simple example out of the many I've sat through where I felt it to be worthy of inclusion. Conversely, I can think of scores of times when they have made a game painful.

[Krusader]

Dunno...I played The Witcher 1 and while it had some nice stuff, I just wasn't hooked. One of the things that put me off was the voice acting that was strange some places.
But CD Projekt should have kudos for doing so much with the game and I still think the Enhanced Edition was a good deal when seeing what you got in the box for the price.

But no matter...Dragon Age: Origins is coming...dreading the day it drops in my mailbox.

[Krauser]

I'm not a fan of the concept and never will be. It's nothing but lazy programming and lazy design. I can't think of a simple example out of the many I've sat through where I felt it to be worthy of inclusion. Conversely, I can think of scores of times when they have made a game painful.

I think it's fine as long as they don't overdo it. In Resident Evil 4 I had a blast with the cutscene/battle with Krauser, whom my forum handle was named after. It was a lot of trial and error, but it kind of made sense for a knife fight. Leon would need instant reactions to block the stabs and swipes of Krauser. They never included this mechanic in real battles, only in some of the cutscenes. I think they could have gotten rid of the Indiana Jones parts, but it seemed to work fine.

I guess I'm more a fan of complete interactivity than sitting back and relaxing. When I play a game, it better fool me into thinking I am the character on the screen. If the cutscenes are just passive, I start to feel like I'm just watching a movie with some interactive bits.