Quick Time Events
Although the arcade game Dragon's Lair is made up of Quick Time Events (or QTEs), Sega officially coined the term with its Dreamcast adventure, Shenmue. Little did the company know that the rest of the video game industry was going to copy and abuse its idea. A QTE forces you to make a split second decision to save a video game character and/or trigger an action. One of the more famous ones from Shenmue forces you to quickly press a button to avoid getting hit with a soccer ball. In this case, failing doesn't ruin the story, but you can die in other games, such as the upcoming Bourne Conspiracy. On one hand, QTEs keep us on edge and adrenaline levels high. On the other, developers have overused this feature to the point that we groan whenever a button pops up on screen. Unless there's a way to innovate, the QTE needs to go.






Reader Comments (61)
Wow... Who the hell this bunch of garbage? The author tries to relate to the general gaming audience with facts that seem valid but fails miserably. Maybe this is why he is writing in such a crappy gaming site run by AOL. lol This is what I am forced to read when I log onto aim, LOL
this is so stupid wats wrong with unlocking characters it makes a challenge and where is slow motion i thought they would have that but yea this was a really stupid list i mean come on saving u need to save who wants to have to go through a whole game without being able to go on with there lives and come bak to where they were n stead of playng through wat they already did so u need saving these people really dont sound lke they play games at all they are probaly 40-50 yrs old get some people who know wat they are talking about
Seriously, if you are going to complain about having to unlock characters in a game, especially in SSBB where it was BY FAR much easier than SSBM, you shouldn't buy the game if you don't think you have the skills to do it. Otherwise, the list does point out overused things in a more humorous light than critical. Did seem kind of whiney though...
Geez I have more problems with the idiot commentors than the article. If people would actually read before they post there wouldn't be so many useless pages of comments. #8 is talking about being forced to do tutorials, not getting rid of them entirely.
Chris Buffa is retarded. I will never read another thing he writes.
Unlocking character in any game adds to the replay value, I don't see what the issue there is. Console exclusive characters... yea that is kind of dumb, however this pits the competition of consoles against each other. Exploding barrels... are you serious?
Stupid stupid list. i feel more stupid for reading everything i just read. video games are jsut that games. play em or dont. cripes.
yo stagemanagerlove the guitars for rock band and guitar hero are interchangable i think that is the only good thing.The drums take up too much space.
Another thing what is up with the tutorial thing?I like optional tutorials I like to do it as i go along that is why there is a thing called retrying a level
i agree with most of these but i mean how stupid is that ****ing darth vader yoda thing two different game systems for the charcaters that is probably the ***est thing ive ever heard