Favorite video game cut scene? Also favorite game score?

[Cubsfan]

I don't care if it is CGI or not. I am curious what your favorite cutscene, intro scene, whatever. I am asking more along the lines of cinematic flair than story.

I would say that my favorite cutscene is actually the intro scene to Warcraft 3. When that huge Orc tank thing comes barreling over the hill top its pretty cool. Awsome sound, awsome CGI, and it really gets you pumped for the upcoming story, which was not a disappointment. A close second was the CGI between the diablo and baal lvls in Diablo 2 LOD. Yes, Blizzard is the bomb.

Best score, and I know there is alot of competition here, IMHO is MGS2. Especially the intro to that one. Really gives you a feel that you are playing a movie. All around hig quality game with high qual production values.

[Avalonian]

I've always really liked the style of the cutscenes in the original Homeworld. They're not CGI, rather they're animated line drawings mostly in black and white. Very cinematic and moody... the scene at the end (after you win) is possibly the best one.

Also, the fully-animated cutscene at the beginning of the Gardens of Kadesh level in Homeworld has some great animation, as well as a pretty serious "oh shit" factor when you see the attacking force streaking towards your fleet. A nice touch was that, even though it was technically a cutscene, it was animated like a game scene and shows an accurate representation of your fleet. The first time I saw that, I got seriously spooked. Good stuff.

Unfortunately, they screwed the pooch pretty seriously in this department for Homeworld: Cataclysm. The cutscenes in that are both invasive and poorly-done, and don't even show your fleet accurately. Hopefully, Homeworld 2 will return to the spirit of the original.

[Max Torque]

I liked the intros to the old PC game MechWarrior 2 and the Ghost Bear's Legacy expansion pack. Sweeeeet.

[furryman]

MY favorite CGI/animated cut scenes are:
1. Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete (The Working Designs version): The first animated cut scene where you see the girl singing her signature song. There's another scene later in the game called "Lunar Boat Song" which is great as well. The opening sequence is quite good as well.
2. All the CGI cut scenes in Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee and Oddworld: Abe's Exodus

[fusoya]

I know I'm probably gonna sound like a fanboy here.......but actually I still prefer the NES and SNES games so I don't play very many games with actual cutscenes. For my favourite, I guess I'm gonna go with the intro scene from Final Fantasy 8. The battle between Squall and Seifer with the background music of operatic Latin chant. I'm sure there were some other great cutscenes from that game, but it's been 3 years since I played it (I actually imported the japanese version and played through it with my bilingual friend before it came out in the States).

My favourite score would definately have to go to Final Fantasy Tactics. It's incredible.

[Kantalooppi]

For some reason, I like Fallout 2's scene where the ship leaves for the oil rig.

[BioHazard]

Oh yah! Homeworld ROCKS! I can't wait for HW2. And Avalonian, they weren't "animated like a game scene" they were actually mad by the game engine.

When I first played that game and cranked the graphics way up, it blew my mind away! It almost looks like the rendered game scenes were drawn by hand in the anime style.

For Cut Scenes, I would have to say either the begining/intro of Fallout1 or the last scene for FinalFantasy either 8 or 9, the retro one (with the guy with a monkey tail). Both are very wonderful, very cinematic.

As for Score I would have to say the music of HW1. Very amazing!

[erislover]

Favorite CGI is from Silent Hill with Lisa, the nurse. If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, I ain't spoiling it.

Music is tough but all Final Fantasy games, including (and especially) tactics, make me happy.

[Spit]

I thought the intro for Unreal Tournament: 2003 ROCKED.

[Journeyman]

I'll second the into for Fallout. Great game, and a great intro. Set the tone for the game very well.

The cutscenes in Warcraft 3, all of them.

I also really liked Homeworld's illustrated images. The thing I appreciated about the in-engine scripted events was that there was no break between them and the mission; you went from watching the Kadeshi stream toward you to suddenly having control. It gave the action a much more fluid, immersive feel.

Diablo 2 had great ones. The only exception, to me, was the cut scenes in the expansion. There were only two of them, and I thought they were disappointing. They just looked, not bad, but nowhere near as good as the other cut scenes.

I'm gonna reach back a little, here. Parasite Eve had cool cut scenes, I thought. I've never played the sequel, so I won't comment on it. Especially the opening (kind of a montage of bits from the cut-scenes elsewhere in the game), I don't know why but I liked it.

[TheeGrumpy]

Best game score: QUAKE. At least, it's the only game CD I've ever just listened to.

[capacitor]

Aerith's death in FFVII. Easily one of the most shocking scenes ever.

Also, the dance scene in Final Fanasy 8. Sorry, I didn't get to the opera scene in 4 (or is it 5?)

[Tarrsk]

Homeworld's cutscenes were fantastic, although I never really got into the game itself. The inability to queue orders and the complete lack of map details (yes, I know it's open space, but open space is boring!) made the game far too simplistic for my tastes.

Best ingame cutscenes: Halo. The detail that went into some of these are amazing- check out the Master Chief's movements during the last cinematic as Cortana reports the results of the mission. It's amazing how Bungie's cinematics team managed to convey the feelings of a character whose face you never see, entirely through a combination of subtle animation and excellent voice acting. Halo 2 looks to have even better cinematics, if the trailer (rendered entirely in-game) is any indication.

Best pre-rendered cutscenes- I'd have to go with Blizzard's work in Diablo II and Starcraft. Warcraft III's cutscenes had more impressive graphics than either of the older game, but lost big points in my book for the inane dialogue (to say nothing of the load of fantasy cliche that was WC3's plot). Honorable mention goes to Lucasarts' The Curse of Monkey Island, which features beautiful hand-drawn animation on top of the classic Monkey Island sense of humor.

Best score: Halo, again. Bungie's in-house music guru, Marty O'Donnell, may be a crotchety old man, but he's still among the best composers around, and knows how to use percussion better than just about any game composer I've ever heard of. His score for Halo has an incredible range, from haunting Gregorian chants, to soft electronic soundscapes, to fast-paced military marches.

Special mention must also go to Jeremy Soule, who burst into gaming consciousness with his bombastic orchestral score for Total Annihilation, and has since become one of the most sought-after and prolific game composers around. If there was an "A-list" for video game composition, Mr. Soule would probably be at the top of the list- *nobody* has written as many award-winning scores as he has. Short list of games that he scored: Total Annihilation, Icewind Dale, Morrowind, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Unreal II, Dungeon Siege, Neverwinter Knights.

[Manach]

The Original C&C, with Kane and his band of Noddies.

[SC_Wolf]

The soundtrack to Panzer Dragoon:Saga is absolutely kickass, but unless you live in Japan, it's almost impossible to find. The Myst series also had some good soundtrackage.

As for cutscenes, I'd say the opening to Soul Reaver 2.

[Earl of the CC]

Well, since they tend to be more artistic, I'd expect PC games to be the real winners here, but I don't really use my PC for anything but music and the internet, so my picks come from console games.

For cut scenes, I like Yuna doing the first Sending of FFX (that being the one where she walks out onto the water and the souls of the recently deceased swirl around her).
I also like dozens of MGS2 scenes, but if I have to choose one, it'd be the part right before boarding Arsenal. Otacon, Snake and Raiden leave the computer room and the music swells. Does an excellent job setting the stage for the heroics ahead and has an excellent "The Right Stuff" feel.

For music, I like the Zelda games, especially A Link to the Past, but I must note the single best piece of video game music that I've ever heard is the Gerudo Valley theme from Ocarina of Time. It's the only video game music I have in my mp3 collection.

[Biggirl]

My favorite cut scene is in Silent Hill (the first one) when you climb the tower in bizzaro world Silent Hill.

The best soundtrack ever is the Vice City soundtrack. Here I am raving about it. Although it seems I'm one of the few who loves the heck out of it.

[Earl of the CC]

Oh man, I can't believe I forgot to link to this great website
There's a lot of pop-up there, but the remixes are all extremely cool, provided you are familiar with the source materials.

[Lilly Putt]

My favorite score is 92,860

[pervertatoid]

It's a toss-up. Either the cutscene in Phantasmagoria where the magician kills one of his wives by slamming her head down onto a wine bottle...when he picks it up, you see all these pieces of glass sticking outta her head...

...Or, also from Phantasmagoria, where you're running from the Magician in "big blue monster" form (or was it not the magician, but the magic itself? Whatever the case may be, I haven't played it in like, six years) and you screw up and get caught. He sticks his thumbs into your mouth, and index fingers into your eye sockets, and rips your face in half. The litlte squirt of blood from between the brain hemispheres is classic.

If it couldn't be either of those two, then it'd be the "Transcendence of Bobbin Threadbere" in Loom. Sure, it's not good-looking compared to today's games, but it's filled with wonder and magic, and the music for that game, no matter how old and 8-bit, was beautiful.

[SlickRoenick]

Wing Commander III and IV
Warcraft 2 ending Human Saga

One time my score was like 345.324,138,000.6
I beat my friend's which was 57

[SolGrundy]

Best music is from Jet Set Radio, followed by Grim Fandango. Close runners up are Curse of Monkey Island, Final Fantasy Tactics, and SimCity 3000 and SimCity 4.

My favorite cutscene is probably from Final Fantasy X, when Yuna does the dance to send the souls of the dead to the afterlife. All the cutscenes in that game are so astoundingly well-done, but that's the scene that's really moving and not just overpowering spectacle.

Another favorite is in Jet Set Radio, when all the rival gangs in the city are being announced. You get a shot of each one, with their own dance moves -- Poison Jam and the Noise Tanks are just bad-ass.

For some reason, I'll never forget the cutscene from The Secret of Monkey Island when the ghost LeChuck is in his ship's cabin looking over the pits of hell and he has a conversation with a skeleton/ghost cabin boy about the whereabouts of Guybrush Threepwood. That scene is what got me into games in the first place; it was the first time I saw that videogames were capable of telling a real story.

[ElwoodCuse]

I'll nominate Sim City 3000 and Grand Theft Auto 3 (it's original, unlike VC) for best music.

Best cutscenes:

Metal Gear Solid 2--near the end, the slow-motion walk of Raiden, Otacon, and Solid Snake. VERY emotional, very powerful.

Metal Gear Solid--Sniper Wolf's final scene, with Otacon and Solid Snake. Again, great music and very emotional.

Also, pretty much all of "Sam and Max Hit the Road".

[Drastic]

Even though I spent much of the game wanting to squeeze Squall's neck till I heard the satisfying muffled wet crunch of his windpipe imploding and vertebrae snapping (he just wasn't a terribly likeable character for some reason), the 20-odd minutes of ending cinematic after you beat FF8 really gripped me.

The intro to <i>Syndicate</i> was really nice. (Would have been nice to have an ending one.)

For its time, the intro to <i>The Seventh Guest</i> made me go, "whoa, I have to buy a cdrom drive now."

The ending to <i>Interstate '76</i>. THAT was a satisfying revenge moment.

Speaking of satisfying revenge cutscenes, the closing bits of <i>Max Payne</i> had me cackling from the amount of overkill inflicted.

[PublicBlast]

Originally posted by Biggirl

The best soundtrack ever is the Vice City soundtrack. Here I am raving about it. Although it seems I'm one of the few who loves the heck out of it.

It's the best soundtrack ever, but it doesn't count because it's a compilation of other folks' songs. It's great, truly, but I don't think you can compare it to scores/soundtracks actually written for a game. My votes there go to Final Fantasy Tactics and Grim Fandango. I own the soundtracks to both, and I think Square should fire $!($( Nobuo Uematsu, who does the music for the flagship FF series, and replace him with the amazing duo that did the Tactics music.

Best cutscene--even though it's not the newest or prettiest, it's the one that sold me on cutscenes in general. It's in Final Fantasy 7. Tifa is trapped on the edge of a huge steel girder (actually a cannon, the Sister Cannon!) with nowhere to go, and the backround is a pre-rendered still. Suddenly one of your comrades tells you to run off the end of the cannon. As you run Tifa towards the end, the scene seamlessly switches to CG-animation, and your buddies come and whisk you away in their newly-acquired airship. It's also (I think) the first time in FFVII that the Highwind theme plays. Priceless, absolutely priceless.

The end of FF8 was beautiful and moving, but it didn't reach out and grab me the same way Tifa running off the Sister Cannon did.

[nightshadea]

Actually the intro to the morpg anachary online is pretty good

I liked the fall out game intros pretty well also

slight hijack ..... WAs anyone besides me mad that in wing commander 3 You didnt get to do the final planet run that ended up being a starwars ripoff ? After all the crap and base hopping ya had to do in a asteroid field you just got to watch it as the ending ......

[bong]

Best score: the altered beast theme

Or the realm theme*


*REALLY SUCKY SHOOTER.

[Odesio]

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Porn star Candy Suxx head and shoulders bob left and right as Tommy Vercetti speaks with the director. When Tommy asks Candy a question she excitedly yells out "Yes....Yes....YES!" and Tommy doesn't know if she's just acting or answering his question.


Best music would have to be Legend of Zelda. I still hum some of those tunes to myself after all these years.

Marc

[Odesio]

Originally posted by MGibson
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Porn star Candy Suxx head and shoulders bob left and right as Tommy Vercetti speaks with the director. When Tommy asks Candy a question she excitedly yells out "Yes....Yes....YES!" and Tommy doesn't know if she's just acting or answering his question.

UH, for those who haven't played the game the above scene is taking place in a studio during a porn movie shoot.

Marc

[HPL]

Originally posted by nightshadea
Actually the intro to the morpg anachary online is pretty good

I liked the fall out game intros pretty well also

slight hijack ..... WAs anyone besides me mad that in wing commander 3 You didnt get to do the final planet run that ended up being a starwars ripoff ? After all the crap and base hopping ya had to do in a asteroid field you just got to watch it as the ending ......

What? I remembered that I had to do rather long level(over a lava trench) to reach the final target on Kilrath. Were you playing a non-PC version or something.

[nightshadea]

hmmm i might be remebering wrong or mixing parts up ..... byt i played the 3do version

[High Priestess]

For score, I'm tied with the FF VI soundtrack and the Guilty Gear X Heavy Rock album.

For cutscene... the opera scene in FF VI.

[Johnny Angel]

The scene in Fallout in which the mutants find your base and you get dipped and your vault gets raided frightened the shit out of me. I restored my saved game and found my poor wanderer nervous as all get out and not knowing why. It was what I suddenly knew might happen that made the game immersive.

[Wyld Stallyn]

I dug (and still listen to) the tunes that accompanied the original Carmageddon. It was instrumental stuff, some techno-type which wasn't that cool, but there was some instrumental industrial-type metal that is unparalleled as hard drivin' music in the real world. Still haven't found out who created those pieces of metal mastery........

I think Carmageddon may have also been the first game where you could take out the game CD and put in your own music and it would be interspersed into the game (corrections expected if I'm incorrect)

[Mahaloth]

Best Score: Final Fantasy VI

Best Cutscene: Opera Scene in Final Fantasy VI(or the intro to the now off the market Suikoden III).

[BioHazard]

Hmm, I seem to remember being able to cue commands in HW1...but it was a long time ago and I DLed and installed the patch before I played it.

[Einmon]

I second any mentions of Grim Fandango, I was so sad when that game ended...

Also any Monkey Island mentions, I am a serious addict, especially I and II.

One game I guess I'm pretty much the only one to enjoy the cutscenes on is Gabriel Knight II. I just loved the scenes in the opera house...

[Chronos]

Personally, my favorite cutscene is "Battle on the Amerigo", from Starcraft. Mostly just for the cold fusion line. For that matter, the final sequence at the end of the Terran campaign, and the Protoss scene above Aiur where you see Jimmy's ship decloak, were also pretty cool.

[blainer]

The best cut scene is clearly the Mighty Bomb Jack Super Bowl Halftime Show in (the greatest game ever) Tecmo Super Bowl .

[kasuo]

Favorite cut scene: the one in Starcraft where the Marines and Ghost go into the Science Facility and duke it out with the Zerg, then detonating the nuke.

Favorite game score: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

[Mr. Miskatonic]

Originally posted by erislover
Favorite CGI is from Silent Hill with Lisa, the nurse. If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, I ain't spoiling it.

The acoustical guitar playing during that scene is especially effective, as is most of the Silent Hill soundtrack.

*sniff*

[Zanshin]

Originally posted by Avalonian
I've always really liked the style of the cutscenes in the original Homeworld. They're not CGI, rather they're animated line drawings mostly in black and white. Very cinematic and moody... the scene at the end (after you win) is possibly the best one.

<hijack>
For you Homeworlders, is there a commercially-available CD soundtrack for Homeworld? I've seen the game played and was blown away by the soundtrack, and would like to own it myself. Is there a CD soundtrack packaged with the game, or otherwise available for purchase?
</hijack>

[Balance]

Originally posted by fusoya
I know I'm probably gonna sound like a fanboy here...Final Fantasy....

With that user name? Nah.

Of course, three of my favorite cutscenes are from the FF series, so I can't say anything. In no particular order, they are:

Yuna's first sending in FFX (which several others have already mentioned)--a powerful scene, both beautiful and grim. What hit me hardest was the children among the bodies.

The parade scene in FFVIII, with its high-energy dance and music mixed with dark, sneaky undertones, was great.

The "Quistis is a total badass" scene at the end of the training mission in FFVIII, where she blasts the living hell out of the X-ATM092 that's pursuing you. The first time through the sequence, I destroyed the thing, but a friend told me about the cutscene, so I saved and went back through just to see it. It was worth it.

I also like the Phantasmagoria death-scene pervertatoid described, but only because I wanted the stupid protagonist to die a horrible, messy death by that point.

I can't decide on a best score; I'm a game-music junkie. The Zelda music gets stuck in my head a lot, and at one point I could play all the songs from Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask on one of my ocarinas.

[Ranchoth]

The soundtrack to the old Mac standby Marathon always was a favorite of mine. As is most of the music that Maxis uses, in whatever game.

[Miller]

Originally posted by Zanshin
<hijack>
For you Homeworlders, is there a commercially-available CD soundtrack for Homeworld? I've seen the game played and was blown away by the soundtrack, and would like to own it myself. Is there a CD soundtrack packaged with the game, or otherwise available for purchase?
</hijack>

Tragically, yes. Or to be more precise: Tragically, Yes. The soundtrack was taken from the album The Ladder, by the crime-against-mankind prog rock group, Yes. Do not buy it, as it features the shrill, Jr. high school lyrics of... whoever the bozo who sings for Yes is. I'm not wasting the time to google him or dig out the copy of The Ladder I bought becuase the Homeworld soundtrack was so good. Must have been one of the musical fluke things, like suckmeisters Toto suddenly getting all excellent on the Dune soundtrack.

My noms:

Soundtrack:
Fantasy General: A spin off of Panzer General, set in a fantasy world. Neat idea, beautiful music, brutally dificult ending.

The Monkey Island theme.

There was a second rate Master of Orion wannabe a few years back called Ascendancy, which had some really wonderful music.

Of course, those Star Wars games usually have some pretty kick ass tunes...

Honorable Mention:
Tony Hawk 4, X-Box version: Let's you rip tracks off your own CDs and play them in-game instead of its own (also excellent) soundtrack.

Cutscenes:
Almost anything Star Wars, but a few highlights:

Rebellion: A truly execrable Star Wars conquer the galaxy game. But the cutscenes were outstanding, and included some of the first glimpses of Coruscant. My favorite was of victorius Rebel A-Wings darting through Coruscant's skyscrapers and blowing up the giant Imperial symbol on the reichstag-like Palace.

X-Wing: Alliance had a bunch of really good cutscenes. Most of the Star Wars space sims did.

Jedi Knight: It's kind of disappointing that just when game makers started getting good at FMV, CGI came in and took over, and now we're ubjected to endless bad CGI cutscenes while the industry learns to make the wheel all over again.

I second the noms for Fallout, FFX, and anything Blizzard's ever done.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein had some cool scenes.

[Miller]

Originally posted by Ranchoth
The soundtrack to the old Mac standby Marathon always was a favorite of mine. As is most of the music that Maxis uses, in whatever game.

I've always been slightly bitter that the definitive Macintosh game was released almost exactly six months after I gave up on Macs and moved to PCs... because of the lack of good Mac games.

[av8rmike]

45 replies, and I guess no one here has played Dreamworks Interactive's The Neverhood. Now here is a game with some originality. No techno soundtracks or horribly violent cutscenes, but "Wallace & Gromit"-type claymation and a folksy soundtrack. I wish I had a sample to post somewhere...

[Toffe]

Best soundtrack: Outlaws, FPS by LucasArts. In fact, all LucasArts games I remember playing have great music. Cheers to Clint Bajakian.

Oh, the music in Redneck Rampage was great too.

Best cutscenes: I second Jedi Knight and bits of Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within.

As for single cutscene, the only fantastic one that springs to mind is also from Outlaws; deep in a mine, you shoot the gun out of the hand of one guy you're hunting (Dr. Death), so he runs on down the mine, trips, gets tangled up in a rope, and falls straight down a mineshaft while dangling from the rope. First thing he says: "My hat! Dammit!" The whole ensuing conversation is fantastic... ("It's all true, I swear on my mother's grave! _{if she had one} Now let me out!")

[Incubus]

Mechwarrior: Mercenaries had a very good intro which involved two mercenaries making a desperate run for their Dropship while the entire DCMS is after them. Asshole Dropship pilot doesn't stick around for one of the Mercenaries and she gets left behind. Coolest quote-

"There's still a place in hell for your sorry carcass"

as she is watching the Dropship fly off. Then her mech gets blown to smithereens by like 50 missiles.

In fact, all the Mecwarrior games seemed to have really grim opening intros involving the main characters/factions getting ambushed, or making some heroic last stand...suffice to say the good guys in the cutscenes always seem to die

I really liked the ending cutscene for the Soviet Scenario in Command and Conquer: Red Alert. It really gave the game a sense of cohesion with Tiberium Dawn and the concept of using time travel to ensure a faction's existence/victory.

[Zanshin]

Originally posted by Miller
Tragically, yes. Or to be more precise: Tragically, Yes. The soundtrack was taken from the album The Ladder, by the crime-against-mankind prog rock group, Yes. Do not buy it, as it features the shrill, Jr. high school lyrics of... whoever the bozo who sings for Yes is. I'm not wasting the time to google him or dig out the copy of The Ladder I bought becuase the Homeworld soundtrack was so good. Must have been one of the musical fluke things, like suckmeisters Toto suddenly getting all excellent on the Dune soundtrack.

Thanks, Miller. Damn the luck.