Tomb Dater: Quick Death

Like the timed press of a yellow face button when being forced off a cliff, my shared marital adventures with the Tomb Raider reboot was saved, and seemingly at the last possible second. After last week's post, it really looked as if the universe had righted itself and that all video game playing in my home was again squarely in my hands. But behold my bemusement when she suggested that we turn on the Wonder Machine and get back to the faux-Lost episode that Sorority Croft has found herself in. I suppose that makes the title of this particular post a bit on the misleading side.

But it's not. We need to take a quick second to talk about that Thing That Everyone Hates (today's, anyway), and by that, I mean quick time events, or QTEs. Now, I'm sure that you, the God of War/ Shenmue/ any-other-action-game player that you happen to be, are quite familiar with the concept of the dreaded QTE. Something happens onscreen, usually of the more "cinematic" variety, and a button prompt breaks any sort of fourth wall the game may have built to explicitly tell you that you should press this button to get that result. Think about when your bald, screaming Greek butcher hops to a cyclops' shoulders. If you're not mashing that O button, well, that singular eyeball isn't going to tear itself out now, will it?

The QTE has had quite the bell curve of popularity and acceptance since its widespread gaming infection in the late 1990s (yes, they've been around in one form or another since much earlier). It became the de facto way of "playing" a cut scene not too long ago, which caused many players and games writers to kind of throw up their hands. Other criticisms leveled against them are that they crash the momentum of action sequences, making a breakneck pace grind to a halt while you look at your controller in bafflement. Personally, I find them obtrusive and irritating, especially in games like Tomb Raider where they pop up out of seemingly nowhere and lead the game to a failure state.

This has become a shared problem, which is why I'm bringing this up. The wife, she hates them with an almost impressive passion. She walks through a jungle and a wolf pins her down. She guides Lara over a bridge, and a thug pushes her over. For someone that hasn't been playing games and isn't used to seeing these things, it's a bullshit bait and switch. I've already espoused the problems with the uninitiated learning the combat mechanics. Couple that with the a looming threat of death if you don't hit a button, or sequence of them at the right time and things can be pretty aggravating.

When they first showed up in the game (which I can't even properly recall since it's been so long since we started it), I caught myself mumbling aloud, "they're still doing these?" It was legitimate surprise. I really thought the mounting distaste for these things would remind developers that games don't need these anymore. Sure, they were fine for a moment, but that moment passed. Yes, that's just my opinion getting the better of me, but poop on a game that requires me to hit the shoulder buttons and a direction to jump off a flying bat (or whatever) when I was just doing back-flipping slices with my giant chain swords a second ago. Most of the time, this stuff just doesn't make any sense. Then again, Kingdom Hearts sill exists in the state that it's in, so I guess I'll never get what I want.

Ok, I know that I've been ragging on TR in all of these pieces so far, and that may not seem fair for a game that, really, I dig with a shovel. I'd like to remind you again that these have simply been my observations of having played portions of it with my wife, the ungamer. Sooner or later, some gushing will happen, I'm sure of it.

Your homework for the day is Gamasutra's feature article on the ethics of free-to-play games. It's a thinker. Also somewhat timely since my earlier piece on the recently-released Tekken Revolution.