Wayback Wednesday: Manipulating Cutscenes
This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m reflecting on manipulating cutscenes in basketball video games.
Cutscenes have been in basketball video games for decades. In early titles such as Double Dribble, the rotoscoped dunks spiced up the action in a game that otherwise had very limited animation. Tecmo Super NBA Basketball also added further detail through the use of cutscenes, though some gamers felt they interrupted the flow of the gameplay. That’s certainly a common criticism of Arch Rivals, which displayed a cutaway after every basket. In more recent games, there have been options to cut to a different angle on wide open dunks, or a three-pointer made with a Green Release.
The Courtside Comedy of NBA Live 2003 produced rather infamous cutscenes! And of course, the MyCAREER stories rely heavily on cutscenes to tell their tales. Those types of cutscenes tend to be more divisive compared to starting lineup introductions, instant replays, and championship celebrations, which are considered an essential ingredient in achieving authentic presentation. Over the years, we’ve found ways of manipulating cutscenes to portray specific scenarios, whether it’s for greater accuracy or simply for the sake of humour. Let’s take a look back…way back…
Needless to say, we can’t do anything with pre-rendered cutscenes such as the dunks in Double Dribble, or the championship videos in games such as NBA Live 99 and NBA Live 2000. They’re programmed sequences and video files, so outside of any modding, they won’t change. However, many games have real-time cutscenes that are rendered on-the-fly using in-engine models and textures. This allows them to be more dynamic, accounting for the chosen teams and players as well as any customisation. The aforementioned starting lineup introductions and championship celebrations are two of the most common examples of real-time cutscenes in basketball video games.
Obviously, this method is widely used across all genres. Real-time cutscenes were a key component of another game that’s a nostalgic favourite of mine: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The approach was beneficial from both a developmental standpoint and the experience of playing through the story. Since the game generates cutscenes in real-time, they didn’t have to be remade whenever there were changes to the plot. As a result, they can also reflect the equipment Link currently has equipped. Gamers soon discovered amusing ways of manipulating these real-time cutscenes, such as having Link wear the iron boots in scenes where he’s running at full speed.
Naturally, we’ve found similar ways of manipulating the cutscenes in basketball games to create some funny moments. Mind you, when it comes to the Courtside Comedy of NBA Live 2003, there’s already some wacky humour – intentional and unintentional – without our intervention! The example that I always like to bring up is the timeout cutscene wherein the small forward in the lineup isn’t paying attention, leading to him being chewed out by the player currently at centre. If you’re playing with the Washington Wizards, this can result in the hilarious scenario of Brendan Haywood – or better yet, Kwame Brown – scolding a distracted Michael Jordan!
It’s ridiculous, but inevitable when the roles in the cutscenes are cast according to the positions on the floor and order of the bench rather than the specific players involved. To that point, it didn’t take long for us to figure out that casting. With that knowledge, if you want to set up a screenshot of a player getting chewed out in NBA Live 2003, just make sure they’re in at small forward, the centre is the player you want shoving them, and then call timeout until that specific cutscene is triggered. Knowing that the centre for the home team stops to sign an autograph at halftime, or that the sixth man tries to surreptitiously steal the coach’s seat, will allow you to control those cutscenes.
While manipulating NBA Live 2003’s comedic cutscenes can set up entertainingly ludicrous scenarios, the exercise doesn’t always have to be about silliness. Observing the players that are cast in more serious cutscenes, such as championship celebrations and NBA Finals opponents reacting to their loss, allows you to change lineups so that the desired players appear in the roles you want them to. For example, in NBA Live 2005 through NBA Live 08, the player that holds up the Larry O’Brien trophy in the championship celebration is always the centre. If you want a specific player to be holding the hardware, make sure to put them at centre before the final buzzer sounds.
It had been some time since I’d seen the championship celebration in NBA Live 2004, so when I was simulating through LeBron James’ career in Dynasty mode and needed a screenshot of his title victory, I put him in at centre out of habit. As it happens, the centre doesn’t hold aloft the Larry O’Brien trophy in NBA Live 2004, but a couple of other shots during the cutscene do focus on them, which worked out quite well as far as getting a shot of LeBron raising his arms in triumph. I was happy enough with that screenshot, but if I wanted to try again and stage different shots, it’d just be a matter of paying attention to which players are placed where, and alter the lineup as necessary.
Speaking of Dynasty in NBA Live 2004, I’ve enjoyed manipulating the mode’s unique cutscenes. To get the featured image for that LeBron article, I traded him to the Los Angeles Lakers, edited his year of birth and years pro to place him on the brink of retirement, and simulated through to the 2004 offseason. With the necessary roster edits, you can quite easily set up the scenarios needed to trigger the various cutscenes such as players joining a team, re-signing with their current club, retiring, or winning an award. It’s been satisfying to discover the best ways of manipulating those Dynasty cutscenes to get some screenshots depicting events that I’m discussing in an article.
Content creation obviously provides a reason for manipulating cutscenes to illustrate a desired scenario, but it’s something that you can do for your own enjoyment as well. Perhaps you’d prefer to see your favourite player on the team holding up the Larry O’Brien trophy when you win a championship, or ensure that specific players interact during a cutscene. Going back to NBA Live 2003, maybe you just want to see a really ridiculous situation happen! Whatever the case, it’s handy to know how a cutscene plays out, and how it casts the players according to their position on the floor and on the bench. Simply placing players in different spots in the lineup is an easy solution!
That brings us to the MyCAREER story cutscenes. Much like other genres of games, manipulating these real-time cutscenes through character customisation is something that we’re actively encouraged to do. Once again, Ocarina of Time is a great example of achieving consistency between gameplay and cutscenes, though when it comes to MyPLAYER clothing, a game like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is probably more apt. After all, between the hairstyles and facial hair we can choose and clothes we can buy – not to mention how our decisions impact his physique – everyone can have their own version of Carl Johnson, even as we all inevitably fail to follow the damn train.
Moreover, just as many of us have enjoyed the juxtaposition of playing through the heavy moments in San Andreas’ story with CJ dressed in outrageous attire, so too have MyCAREER gamers often outfitted their MyPLAYERs in outlandish garb. It certainly detracts from the gravitas of meeting with the general manager and other such cutscenes when your player is wearing a silly hat, or shirtless, or otherwise inappropriately dressed for the occasion. Then again, the default outfit also sticks out like a sore thumb in those cutscenes! No doubt it’s why later stories have furnished our player with an extensive wardrobe that we’re mysteriously unable to access.
As with GTA: San Andreas and other games that include player customisation that’s reflected in real-time cutscenes, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with injecting a bit of silliness into your gameplay. It’s been an entertaining touch when YouTubers who do MyCAREER playthroughs dress their player garishly, but even if you won’t be showing off your MyPLAYER to anyone else, why not go crazy with their attire? Video games are meant to be fun, so if having your player display a bizarre fashion sense makes you laugh, I say go for it! It’s not as though some of the MyCAREER stories aren’t incredibly wacky in their own right, so you might as well dress the part.
Finally, as I briefly touched on earlier, modding is another way of manipulating the cutscenes in basketball video games. As far as I’m aware, no one has been able to modify the scene files from NBA Live PC to create brand new sequences, but we did discover that those assets are compatible between different games in the series. As such, we’ve been able to take presentation elements such as the pre-game introduction out of one game and place it into another, where it works flawlessly. Compatible or easily convertible files have been extremely useful for modding in general, and scene file swapping has allowed us to match presentation we like with gameplay we prefer.
Cutscenes will likely always be divisive. At their best, they enhance the presentation and immersion. At their worst, they’re intrusive and disruptive to the gameplay. Even when you’re open to the concept, their tone may not strike the right chord. I’ll admit to finding NBA Live 2003’s comedic scenes to be a bit too silly at times, as they weren’t quite the vibe I wanted to see in a sim game. They’re undoubtedly memorable though, and amusing to mess around with. Indeed, whether we’re being silly or setting up a specific scenario, for our own enjoyment or content creation purposes, manipulating cutscenes has been a way to get the most out of the presentation in basketball games.
The post Wayback Wednesday: Manipulating Cutscenes appeared first on NLSC.