The Electronic Wireless Show podcast episode 201: the best cinematics in games

We enter the new pod-century on the Electronic Wireless Show podcast a man down, as Matthew won't be here for a few weeks. Not to worry, though, as myself and Nate are ever ready to hold down the fort. This week we're talking about our favourite cinematics in video games, a fitting subject because last weekend I saw the greatest piece of cinema yet conceived by man: Michael Flatley's Blackbird.

I do spend quite a lot of time explaining Blackbird to Nate, but after that we do talk about some cutscenes and cinematics in games (as well as litigating the difference between the two, and Nate tries to remember the first time he saw a cutscene in a game that was in-engine rather than being pre-rendered). And today the Cavern Of Lies is a Cavern Of Justice, after we received a troubling missive from one [squints] Brond Coatwear?

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You can listen above, or on on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, or Pocket Casts. You can find the RSS feed here, and you can discuss the episode on our Discord channel, which has a dedicated room for podcast chat.

Music is by Jack de Quidt.

Music is by Jack de Quidt, who has excellent taste in cinema.

Links
Thanks to listener Cormac for sending in this week's theme, and for citing Age Of Empires IV as an example - which Nate agrees with.

I've been playing Soulslike Steelrising for review and the cutscenes in it are some of my favourite bits. This is partly because you get close-ups of Aegis and the other robots in them, and I think the robots are cool, and partly because it's set in France so occasionally someone will say a couple of words in French so you don't forget.

Nate says Steelrising sounds like a rip off of Iron Harvest, but that Iron Harvest also has good cutscenes.

Remember Red Alert and Command & Conquer? They had good cutscenes - at least, we think they did. Certainly that Tim Curry one is memorable, and, it turns out, was done on the first take.

I loved the cinematics from the pre-WOW Warcraft games, especially Warcrafts II and III.

Nate says the train ride in Half-Life 2 is an example of the sort of semi-interactive cutscene you see quite a lot these days.

With in-engine cutscenes comes the possiblity for hilarious glitches, like this one from Dragon Age Inquisition, where an intimate scene is interrupted by a big lizard.

Recommendations this week are the film Good Luck To You, Leo Grande, and the carbonated Rio replacement beverage P.O.P. Soda (if you can get over the BrewDog thing)