I've always said that I hated them. And I kind of do. But sometimes, they're tolerable, and it took playing the Dead Space 3 demo to finally realize why. No, not because they were tolerable in Dead Space 3. Because they were AWFUL. In a way that was AWFULLY reminiscent of the climbing while stuff is falling apart sequences in Uncharted. Beyond the superficial similarities, both usages of QTE were, in the service of some form of realism, slooooooow. Inexorable, endless... molasses-y. With slow animations and sluggish output to your tedious input.

I think that's what generally makes QTEs hard for me to take. Rather than immersing me, they get in the way of my fun. The generally snappy God of War QTEs don't bother me too much. Hell, even Dragon's Lair didn't bother me that much. 'cause Dirk was movin'!

There are other factors at play, like having random button presses instead of logical ones, and the whole...

Oh, I just remembered the most irritating thing about the Dead Space 3 QTEs! Sometimes you had to press a button, and other times, you had to jam on it repeatedly. But it was totally unclear that you had to do that! Aaaarrrrgh!

In conclusion, the relation between speed and tolerability in regards to the QTE might have been a totally obvious point to make, but yeah... it was kind of an epiphany for me.

They suck

That reminds me, I should crack open my copy of Ninja Blade...

I don't really like or hate them. Mostly on a case to case basis.

They're one of the modern disliked gaming conventions that I don't feel that strongly about, probably because the few games I've played with them (RE4 and God of War) seem to do them pretty well. What other games are considered to have bad QTEs?

I didn't mind them in Shenmue, Resident Evil 4 or God of War.

HATED them in Soulcalibur III.

So...I guess I don't mind them overall? The QTE events just felt really out of place in the one fighting game they were in. Felt totally fine in the action/adventure games, though.

Quiet Telemarketer Environmentalist?
Quaint Turtle Eggs?
Queazy Timesplitter Earthnuts?

ohhh...

Quick Time Events..
had me puzzled there for a second with the fancy acronym....
I guess I have to send myself an FYI to get with the times ASAP...

***
I have not experienced to many of them myself - RE4 come to mind and they were done well....

@GameDadGrant

Quick time events in fighting games?

@chrisbg99

I know, right? Totally ridiculous, but they were there. In the story mode, which is (as one might guess) another completely pointless feature of a fighting game. Soulcalibur III was a complete mess IMO.

When I first heard this game was a PS2 exclusive, I was bummed. But then I played it, and I think the GCN is better off without it, lol.

I think the worst offense is in Bayonetta. You have a fraction of a second to react to it... and they're totally unexpected during cutscenes. It's really frustrating when trying to go for a good rating for that particular section or level and you screw it up because you didn't press a button fast enough.

Bad as a rule, but there are exceptions.

Asura's Wrath proves they can be fantastic and actually make you enjoy the game more.

Every other game ever just proves they're a terrible idea.

I'm fairly certain that I've never played a game with a QTE in it (outside of like Mario Party since it has a couple of minigames that might quality as a QTE or fishing in Zelda and Pokemon, but I don't think those really count).

I don't know how I've managed to avoid them for as long as I have, but since I haven't I guess I don't really have any strong feelings about them one way or another.

Playing God of War right now and I don't find them compelling at all. Fundamentally I think they are just an accessibility trick for newer gamers. It lets them feel like they are doing something cool when really they are just pressing a button when prompted. For people who actually play games and want to get fulfillment by getting better at the game it is just unnecessary.

They don't really ruin games for me but they do cheapen them to an extent. There's rarely any finesse to it just 'press the indicated button quickly' or the ones which I really hate 'press this button repeatedly'.

I didn't mind them in Resident Evil 4, and the knife fight was pretty cool. I know some people had serious trouble with the timing on them though. I vaguely remember one of my playthroughs just randomly dying on the running away from the rock part like 10 times in a row even though I never had any problems on my other playthroughs. That was kind of annoying.

They're alright in God of War, but the ones with the pressing the right button quickly annoy me because I have no freaking clue which random symbol is where on the Sony controller. At least in the newer games they put them on the screen in a position analogous to their position on the controller.

I do sort of think of them as a last gen trend though. Like, it was neat for awhile, and now we should be past that?

I think if you work those kind of motions into a fluid battle system, it's a lot better. No More Heroes did that pretty well.

I don't think I mind them usually. I remember poop in Resident Evil 4 though with a knife fight that I did not enjoy.

My enthusiasm for them has greatly diminished over time. At first, they seemed like a way to engage the player during cutscenes, something I appreciated after years of just watching CGI characters wiggle their heads. But, yeah, after RE4 the shine started going off. Now they feel more like a cheap way of forcing the player to stay over-engaged with the cutscenes. And then, when you have to watch the whole cutscene over because you missed a QTE because you weren't paying rapt attention with controller at the ready? That's terrible. Not fun.

So I guess I'd say, while I don't resent that developers experimented with QTEs as a possible solution to the Too Much Cutscene problem of modern games, in the end I think they don't really work and I don't like them. At least not from the perspective of 2013.

It depends on how well the Event is managed. If I have to repeat something because I missed one, that's bad game design but if I continue onwards after missing it but it just affects the game in a different way then that is a good use of them.

I can think of far more examples of them ruining a game than improving it. My favorite example is Tomb Raider Anniversary: in the original game, when the T-Rex showed up out of nowhere, it was surprising, a "holy shit!" moment. But in the remake? They telegraph the shit out of it and they have you do a bunch of QTEs that destroy all the tension. After all, QTEs often mean "push a bunch of buttons at the right time and you can take away 25% of that life bar instead of chipping away at it".

kriswright said:

Now they feel more like a cheap way of forcing the player to stay over-engaged with the cutscenes. And then, when you have to watch the whole cutscene over because you missed a QTE because you weren't paying rapt attention with controller at the ready? That's terrible. Not fun.

It's funny you mention this, because after playing through Resident Evil 4, I was so used to just having the controller ready to press a button during a cutscene, even if I *wasn't* playing Resident Evil 4. It kind of ruined my experience when I played through Metal Gear Solid 3...I kept darting my eyes around the screen, looking, searching and anticipating for the QTE button prompt to jump up so I could get Snake to react property at the right time to avoid...I dunno, something? But of course, Metal Gear Solid 3 doesn't have interactive cutscenes, so I kind of missed out on the scenes because I was so busy being on the edge of my seat expecting the game to want me to push a button.

There is some "irony" here, but I'm not sure what it is.