Many people think that QTE has massively appeared in the seventh generation of consoles. More advanced players remember how QTE began his way during the PlayStation 2 and Dreamcast. Both statements are correct, but only from the standpoint of the mass use of QTE in games.
However, the roots of the gaming element that are not loved by many are drawn from distant, almost prehistoric times, when the ball ruled slot machines, and on the console market the leading position was occupied by Atari 2600. The first home console from Nintendo , And pop -up arrows and buttons already existed ..
From animation to television games
► It all started with this machine.
In 1979, an arcade machine was released The Driver From the Japanese company Kasso. The game was revolutionary in the sense that instead of vector graphics or the simplest single -color sprites in it used a pre -recorded video. Now it is difficult to imagine, but two coils with a film spun in an arcade machine! The main goal of the game was to catch up with another car and not crash. At the corners of the machine, light bulbs flashed the direction, and a sound signal was warned of places where it was necessary to slow down.
Much later, the home version for the Laserdisk format (the ancestor of the CD, Video CD and DVD) will be released. In this version along the edges of the video, icons with arrows and brake sign surfaced. It was in The Driver that the rudiments of gameplay elements appeared, which will later receive the abbreviation QTE.
The Driver remained a forgotten rarity, so for a long time it was believed that the first game with QTE elements was Dragon’s Lair. Its creators are Rick Dire game designer, as well as animators Don Blut and Gary Goldman.
► Creators with their own person.
From an early age, little Don Blut "fell ill" with Disney cartoons. He sparkled the heroes of animated paintings from the screen to a notebook, and also copied drawings from all Disney comics that came to hand. At a young age, he already understood that he wanted to work as an animator and work at Disney studio. Luck smiled at him in 1959, when he was taken for the role of assistant assistant in " Sleeping beauty ". Gradually, he moved down the career ladder, working on animation of characters in cartoons "Sword in stone" , "Robin Hood" And "Winnie the Pooh".
► sometimes give less than a second to blow.
In the late 1970s, cardinal changes took place at Disney studio. Classical animation was rethought, the studio actively began to use outsourcing, emphasized the reduction of animation. Blut realized that he was no longer a place here, and decided to leave with a small team of colleagues, including his bosom friend – animator Gary Goldman.
Blut founded his own studio (and not one), where he took off the wonderful cartoons "Secret of rats" , "Anastasia" , "All dogs go to heaven" , "Earth before the beginning of time" , "American tail" and others. In 1982, Rick Dire, the main game designer of the young company Advanced Microcomputer Systems , I saw the "Secret of rats" Blut in the cinema. At that time, Dair was just looking for an animated studio for his Dragon’s Lair project, and all the mechanics were already thought out by the game itself and the first ranges were created. Dair contacted Blut, and Blut, along with his team, quickly agreed to draw all the animation for the game.
The game was released simultaneously for arcade machines and video players of Laserdisk format. The total costs of production Dragon’s Lair amounted to a million dollars, and this is taking into account strong savings. So, for example, all the characters were voiced by the animators and developers themselves.
► Dragon’s lair posters for various platforms.
In Dragon’s Lair, you controlled the brave knight Dirk, who should save the princess abducted by the dragon and, accordingly, defeat the dragon in his lair. The Dragon’s Lair gameplay came down to the quick and clear pressing of the buttons at the right time. Did everything right – showed the next video, moved forward. Mistaken – lost life, look at the video with your death.
► You will see this scene more often than the inscription "You Died" in the series Dark Souls.
The game was stunning success in the arcade halls and took the honorable first place in the Fruity Chance Casino sister sites – Part of Platypus B.V. Casinos top of the most popular games in 1983. Its popularity was due to first -class animation, as well as a complex, delaying gameplay, since the player required a lightning -fast reaction. There was also nonlinearity, because in the event of death you start not from the place where you died, but from a random location.
To date, Dragon’s Lair is considered a record holder for the number of reprints and various versions. Now there are more than sixty of them, and the last was the Steam version, where the animation was restored and stretched out to HD resolution.
A year later, Blut and Dair released Space Ace – A full -fledged successor of the traditions laid down in Dragon’s Lair.
► posters for various platforms.
The gameplay remained unchanged, but the setting changed with the fantasy fairy tale to space adventures in the spirit of Flash Gordon.
As for further games from Advanced Microcomputer Systems, the company ended sadly. They took up the development Dragon’s Lair 2, but they did not calculate strength, got into debt and went bankrupt. The game was published only in 1991 with support Leland Corporation and had limited distribution due to a small number of arcade machines produced.
The appearance of imitators and games-clones from other companies did not force itself to wait long. I picked up the idea of the faster SERN , He released in the same 1983, just a few months after the release of Dragon’s Lair, strange Cliff Hanger. The rush was due to the fact that Stern decided not to invent a bicycle and bought animation from the Japanese. The video sequence consisted of cutting the frames of the film directed by Hayao Miyazaki "Lupen III: Caliostro castle" and Shoji Yoshikawa paintings "Lupen III: The Secret Mamo".
The game has not achieved success in the Laserdates, and Cliff Hanger looks like a free abuse of the Lupin III franchise. All characters were renamed and so poorly voiced that in places, through the English voice acting, Japanese phrases are heard.
In the 80s, several more games were released from different American companies, but the Japanese from Taito , Data East and the Japanese unit Universal , released Ninja Hayate, Road Blaster, Time Gal And Super Don Quix-C. A high -quality video sequence for all games was created by the illustrious animation studio TOEI Animation.
► examples of QTE-CCECE from the listed games.
Super Don Quix-C and Ninja Hayate is, in fact, the good clones of Dragon’s Lair. Only the setting in Ninja Hayate has changed – with a fantasy fairy tale for Japanese folklore. Now the demon was abducted by the princess, and he had to fight with samurai skeletons, ninja, Tengu and other colorful characters.
► ninja hayate
► Super Don Quix-C
► TIME GAL
With the release of Time Gal in the genre of arcade interactive fun, small changes finally appeared. At certain points in the game, the screen froze for a short time, offering the player to guess the right way out of the situation.
► A clear example of a complex dilemma.
So you will not even guess that it is better – to retire, go on a break, pray to all gods or dodge. Time Gal, perhaps the most “anime” game of all of the above. We control the courage and a slightly extravagant girl who is forced to travel in time, always falling into funny troubles. The appearance of the heroine is inspired by an alien lamp from a comedic anime series Urusei Yatsura The first half of the 80s.
In turn, in Road Blaster, the main character's family was killed by a gang of scumbags, and he himself went on a great way to take revenge. The game was greatly influenced by the first two franchise paintings " Mad Max ". At each stage you participate in chases, and the purpose of the pursuit is to destroy enemy transport. In addition to the arrow, the sight was added, which needs to be put on an enemy car when the frame begins to blink.
► Road Blaster
In the first half of the 90s, QTE appeared in a rather unusual form. In 1990, the Danish company It launches a television program about the Hugo troll. In Russia, many know him under the name of Kuzya, and, of course, the transfer "Call Kuza" , which was shown to RTR from 1997 to 1999.
► And now we look like a nostalgic tear!
The plot of the game partly reminds of Dragon’s Lair, only now you are saving a troll family from tenacious paws of an evil witch. The essence of the interactive transmission is simple – you just need to get through to the live broadcast, put the phone into a tonal mode and start the game.
► collect the bags and click on the arrows in time to avoid a collision with the train.
As a gamepad, the player used the digital buttons of the phone, the icons of which surfaced on the screen. It seems to just sound, but in fact – a continuous minefield. It was very difficult to get through, almost unrealistic. I did not miss a single broadcast and occupied a home phone, calling it without stops. Neither me nor my friends were able to get on the air. And not surprising, because thousands of children throughout the country called the program, it was necessary to have a huge success to get through.
In addition, in those days, not everyone had phones with support for the tonal regime, and individual daredevils tried to call from the disk! The idea of playing a home phone is still amazing. What is the response level of the game? And if you call, for example, from Chelyabinsk to Moscow, what will be the quality of communication?
► “Hey buddy! So we will lose quickly!"
All games of the Hugo series are very diverse in terms of the scene: a trip on a motorcycle along mountain serpentines, flights on an airplane above the mountain, mountaineering, underwater swims along the river and much more. The ports of television games later appeared on different consoles and even on PC, and new games in the series still come out every year, however, already on mobile phones.
By the beginning of the 90s, interactive animated games for arcade machines have long ago outlived their. Despite the fact that with the release of the Sega CD, the number of FMV (Full Motion Video) of games has sharply grew, almost no standing or noticeable product came out, where the main gameplay element would be QTE. For the most part, the ports of hits from the 80s were released on the aforementioned Sega CD, Panasonic 3DO and even the first PlayStation.
QTE in the games of the 90s did not freeze, it was simply rarely used. Perhaps the most striking example of the town use of QTE will be the first part Metal Gear Solid. In one of the plot scenes, the Snayka is tortured, and the player should at this time with all his might be tanned by a specific button. The scene has become torture in every sense, because Kojima intentionally wanted the player to feel physical pain during its passage.
► MGS torture scene.
After passing, the finger will literally hurt … Of course, if the player withstands all the torture. If he does not stand and decides to give up, he will be shown a non -canonical bad ending in which an important character for the plot dies. This was the first case in the gaming industry, when QTE testing affects not only the ending, but also a fairly significant part of the plot.
From revival to hatred
It is possible that QTE would have remained outdated and rarely used game element if the magnificent had not been released in 1999 Shenmue From the Japanese game designer Yu Suzuki. Suzuki can quite be considered the “second father” of QTE after Rick Dire, since it was he who invented the term Quick Time Event and showed this technique in Shenmue in the form in which we know it today. Thanks to the brainchild of Suzuki, the Kinematographic Glass Planck sharply grew up in games.
► Cult SHENMUE.
Due to the incorrect pressing the button, the hero will not lose his life, but only catch a couple of cuffs or stumble during the chase, reducing the pace. In two years Shenmue II Suzuki added combined QTE, which are quick sequential presses of several buttons (occasionally – two buttons at the same time).
► In one of the scenes you need to show self -control and not press the button.
But massively QTE began to appear in games closer to sunset of the sixth generation of consoles. 2005 can be considered the starting point of popularization of QTE in video games. At first I was brightly noted Resident Evil 4 , Released in January 2005 on Nintendo GameCube. The Sinji Mikami Gam -designer used QTE in many episodes Re 4: from scenes like that when you need to escape from giant stone, to battles with bosses.
► QTE-Bitter in Resident Evil 4.
Two months later, the first part of the series was released God of War. Many important gameplay elements in it are tied only on QTE, whether it be a battle with a boss or raising a heavy door.
► compilation of QTE.
In the end of 2005, the French studio Quantic Dream and game designer David Cage revived the interactive cinema genre in their project Fahrenheit. The game for the most part consisted of QTE, and the player had to be on the alert all the time. Some QTE scenes were delayed for a few minutes!
► Fahrenheit classics.
Later Quantic Dream will release the sensational Heavy Rain , where to classical mechanics will add innovations like smooth pressing on analog sticks.
► A striking example is a scene where you need to carefully change the diapers and lull the baby.
Studio has also gone along Quantic Dream Telltale Games , which to this day annually issues interactive adventures that actively use QTE.
► QTE in Walking Dead.
And yet, in the past three years, Quick Time Event has been going through the best times. The abundance of KAT-scenes and a mini-game, where you need to quickly press on certain buttons, instantly recorded into the minuses of any major project of both dissatisfied players and critics. A fresh example – Sherlock Holmes: The Devil’s Daughter, criticized for a huge number of inappropriate QTE.
It’s not that QTE as a gaming element gradually dies, but large game designers use it less and less every year, and sometimes completely reject it. In July this year, producer Resident Evil 7 Masatika Kavat in an interview said that there would be no QTE in the new game, fans may not worry.
► the funniest failure of QTE in the history of video games.
* * *
You can understand the indignation of the public. Although it cannot be said that QTE is an absolute evil. These elements have already taken root so much that it is difficult to imagine individual mechanics in various genres without them. For example, take modern stealth explosions, because they often use QTE when you need to neutralize someone silently, getting from the back. And interactive cinema without QTE will completely cease to exist or go into indie, occasionally issuing unusual level projects Her Story.
► If the player refuses to kill the rat, the rat will kill the player.
But no matter how the developers try, and most of the players in recent years are skeptical of this element. Telltale Games games are no longer impressive like during the first season The Walking Dead , and to the shown gameplay Detroit: Become Human from Quantic Dream, the game public reacted more restrained.
► Players even release their musical parodies. For example Resident Evil 6 The guys sing about how tired they are stupid fucking one button.
Will QTE die, will finally take root, or will it have a third birth? Time will tell, but most likely there will be a golden mean. The developers will eventually abandon the frequent use of QTE in large projects, and the third and moderate degeneration, perhaps, will occur in an actively developing VR environment.