BaronSFel001 wrote on 2025-09-18, 15:38:

Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II deserves a place of honor: all greenscreen with B-list actors at best, but it IS LucasArts and the opening cutscene with the first real lightsaber duel since 1983 makes one want to get through the first levels ASAP to start Kyle Katarn wielding his.

Very true, almost forgot about that one. Very similar "B squad" feeling to C&C tiberian sun video. "Hey look, an actor I may have actually seen somewhere before " 🤣

https://youtu.be/lJnMaTx4yjI

god damn i love this type of intros

to think that the morons at EA lost the master tapes of RA2 and nearly RA1 makes me very angry

A few not mentioned yet, but I think are good:

Day of The Tentacle "Why don't you come over here so I can punch ya!" .. not as powerful as Full Throttle, but still is awesome.

The Legacy Realm of Terror - Quite spooky CGI intro

Alone in The Dark 1 - A little less spooky because of all the triangles

Test Drive 3 - Very nice photo of the Lamborghini in the forest with that funky sound track

Stunts - Nice twist (both figuratively and literally), also cool sound track

Bad:
Duck Tales - 0.1 FPS animations, and EGA with lousy beeper music

Sinbad - Too lousy beeper music, uninteresting intro

.. and just so you know I'm not against the PC speaker, I find Xenon 2's intro to be quite rocking even if it's just a few credit lines, but the PC speaker Bomb The Bass rendition is awesome!

I like my cutscenes with extra cheese. Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri doesn't disappoint.

BaronSFel001 wrote on 2025-09-18, 15:38:

Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II deserves a place of honor: all greenscreen with B-list actors at best, but it IS LucasArts and the opening cutscene with the first real lightsaber duel since 1983 makes one want to get through the first levels ASAP to start Kyle Katarn wielding his.

I just have to reiterate this point. The mid-1990s LucasArts Star Wars games were incredible for their cutscenes for all of us content-starved Star Wars fans.

In particular:

X-Wing (1993)
Rebel Assault (1993)
TIE Fighter (1994)
Dark Forces (1995)
Rebel Assault II (1995)
Jedi Knight (1997)

It's easy to forget with how Star Wars is everywhere these days, but back then we hadn't seen much anything of real quality since 1983.

but back then we hadn't seen much anything 

Yes, I also aggree. This was before even the slightest hint to any prequels and Starwars seemed to be history at this time. Seeing those X-Wing cutscenes running on my 486 was a blast. And reaching the next cutscene was one of the major reasons to put up with the games incredible difficulty.

(ironically, the in-engine footage of the new X-Wing - XWVM now looks better than the old cutscene...

X-Wing mod (XWVM)...Woahhh... )

Jedi Knight's followup expansion Mysteries of the Sith deserves a bad spot for having engine-prerendered cutscenes. I'm sure they were placeholders that couldn't get any acting replacing it on schedule, given the pressure to have a game out before Unreal. Definitely one of the lower points of LucasArts

For intros, my picks would be:

Diablo 2(the opening prison scene)
AoE 2(the 2 kings playing a game of chess)
Starcraft 1(the marine fighting the zerg)
Fifa 98(ok this one is something I fell in love with and is probably the most unique thing in the list. Even after so many years, the YooHoo gets me everytime. Not to mention the commentary.)

For cinematics(I would include in-game scenes) in general,

Max Payne(oh that comic strip thing was so cool for younger me)
Diablo 2(the cinematic in between the Acts, the angels and the monsters fighting)
Halo CE(when the flood is revealed)
Warcraft 3(Arthas turning evil)

leileilol wrote on 2025-09-20, 03:43:

Jedi Knight's followup expansion Mysteries of the Sith deserves a bad spot for having engine-prerendered cutscenes. I'm sure they were placeholders that couldn't get any acting replacing it on schedule, given the pressure to have a game out before Unreal. Definitely one of the lower points of LucasArts

Yes that was atrocious. Definitely lack of budget or time constraints.

Nobody talks about Crusader: No remorse? The intro was nice, and the cutscenes were good for it's time (some people might say that they're over-acted).

On the other hand... Megarace is not good (nor the cutscenes nor the game). Lance Boyle is over-acted, but not in a funny way like Ruby Rhod (The Fifht Element) but in a very creepy way. It reminds me of Joaquín Prat when it was hosting "El Precio Justo" (the spanish version of "The Price is Right", sorry for the local reference).