In all honesty, I am not really one of those “do-it-yourself” kinds of people – I am actually quite lazy – but when it comes to playing video games things are some-how different. I do not like to have my hand held. If I play a tutorial I expect it to teach me the basics, but allow for exploration of the game’s alternative possibilities later on. This, discovery, is an important element of gaming, but what is perhaps more important is the combat! Of course combat only concerns games involving decapitations, guns, evil bunnies, and all of that good stuff, but these are the types of games I like to play. So, for me it is the star of the gameplay. And it is this love for combat, which causes me to struggle in the debate for or against quick-time-events (QTE’s) in gaming.
For those that do not know, quick-time-events are a style of gameplay that rely on the player’s ability to press the corresponding button on their controller, whenever they are “commanded” to press it by an indicator on the screen. For instance, in God of War, when fighting a Cyclops, a circle symbol will appear above the beast indicating that the player must press the circle button on their controller in order to kill the monster. Obviously, this style of gameplay takes a lot of the “hard-work” out of the equation – essentially the player can kill something or perform an action by pressing a few random buttons rather than executing complex combinations. As a result, this style of gameplay easily falls under my definition of having my hand held. Following my earlier comments, one might expect me to absolutely hate these “events”, but for me it is not that simple.
If I think about God of War without QTE’s the gameplay quickly transforms from something great to generic. Sure, the interesting story and fantastic visuals would remain, but the cinematic-soul of the game would be absent. In God of War, the quick-time-events actually enhance the experience because they give the game an epic, movie-like quality. Without QTE’s Kratos could not perform his now, infamously brutal executions. Instead, the player would just press a few buttons, maybe perform a few combos and see their adversaries die a boring, predictable death. So then, quick-time-events can actually add soul to a game if used properly. Likewise, stealth games often rely on sequences that are similar, yet even less “interactive” than QTE’s, in order to provide the player with a satisfying experience. I am referring to “stealth-kills”, which allow a player to execute their enemy with the touch of a button whenever they are behind them.
This one-button kill seems like a necessity for most stealth games and I think it is, but it was not necessary in Deus Ex because the burden of the kill was placed in the player’s hands – I had to aim for the back of the bad guys’ heads whenever I sneak up on them rather than press a single button and enter a semi-cinematic killing sequence. And this is where my feelings towards quick-time-events become more complex. In my opinion, first person games do not benefit from quick-time-events. The whole reason for having a game in the first person is to provide the player with a perspective that resembles their own. In doing this, developers can make extremely immersive gaming experiences. But if quick-time-events make their way into the experience than it quickly shifts from something natural to mechanical and robotic.
I remember playing the new Aliens vs Predator game and enjoying it some-what, but whenever I saw the “press E” indicator above a human’s head when I was about to “head-bite” them, I cringed. I cringed because the original Aliens vs Predator game needed no such quick-time-event in order to successfully portray the infamous xenomorph head-bite. I could head-bite a human at will, without initiating an unnatural looking sequence. Another flaw of QTE’s in FPS games is that the killing becomes more redundant. In Aliens vs Predator, I was exposed to a few death-sequences, but once I saw people dying in the same way again and again the immersion was lost completely, as I could not help but remember that I was playing a videogame every time it happened. Of course there are some exceptions to my view; The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay was not bad at all, but that was because its melee combat system was far more complex than the now standard, press circle followed by square, QTE’s or one-button-kill stealth attacks.
Now, whenever I see a game like Deus Ex: Human Revolution, I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, the stealth-kills (essentially QTE’s) add an intense, cinematic quality to the game, much like God of War’s fatalities. However, on the other hand, the player can kill more than two enemies at a time by simply pressing a single button. Technically, this is the same one-hit-kill as pressing the mouse button once to shoot a rocket into a pack of enemies, but the immersive quality is not equal – I am the one who shoots the rocket launcher, but in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, it’s this other guy who is doing all the fancy killing moves. Fortunately, the developers have at least taken precautions to prevent “combat-redundancy” by making each quick-time, or stealth kill unique to the specific location and enemy.
Another quick thing to consider is the impact of quick-time-events in “mini” games as opposed to actually forcing the player to perform actions through alternative, more realistic methods. I remember playing Fable 2; I was chopping wood for cash, and I would have to press “A” at a certain time otherwise my character would not chop correctly. That sounds exciting, right!? Not really. Now compare this to a game which forced me to manually do some dirty work. I remember having to hack into a computer at a hospital in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines. I did not have to do something stupid like press a, followed by q, and z, but instead I had to use account/login I had gathered from an earlier conversation and type it into a computer, and actually read the files on the computer in order to complete a quest. Now this sounds like something very small, “typing on a computer and reading stuff”, but it actually added a ton to my immersion in the game.
In the end, my stance on quick-time-events remains mixed. Although, I am inclined to look down upon games with QTE’s (or QTE-like elements) I cannot deny that I have also enjoyed some games that use them within their combat mechanics. However, I think developers need to discover some sort of alternative to QTE’s. They need to create a gameplay mechanic that maintains QTE’s cinematic qualities, while retaining a greater level of immersion. What that is, I do not know. Perhaps Deus Ex: Human Revolution will be the game to achieve a proper balance between the two, since the developers have already acknowledged some of the flaws with reliance on cinematic combat sequences. Now, I guess only time will tell.
