: I don't know exactly what he's referring to, but I can guess that it may be
: the brawl between the Chief and Locke on Meridian. If that is the case I
: wouldn't want to have that experience for myself in gameplay. I don't know
: how that fight could have been left to the player had it not been in the
: form of timed actions and button mashing.

: He could have been referring to the introduction scenes for Blue and Osiris
: and I still can't see how that would have worked outside of giving free
: reign, which seems almost mindbogglingly impossible given the scale of
: that setting. The only reasonable method I could see is working is similar
: to ODST when we fell in the drop pods with limited use of the camera. That
: might have been a little weird considering the scale of the battle and the
: limited ways you could control the character throughout the scene. I'm
: totally fine starting off where we did and seeing the amazing scenes we
: did from a third-person perspective.

: I just don't see how it's a "cardinal rule" and not just his own
: personal take on it, which is totally fine. I've never felt like I've been
: robbed when someone I play as, whether a protagonist with a linear
: storyline or a character I've crafted myself, does something absolutely
: fantastic on screen.

: Some of the cinematics in Reach were weird and took me out of the experience
: entirely as it forced a first-person cinematic perspective that yanked the
: character model around for the sake of tension. The cutscene in the middle
: of "Winter Contingency" comes to mind where the camera shifts
: from first to third person rather abruptly. Then comes the action where
: Elite Zealots attack and you're tossed around like a ragdoll. The
: character begins to respond to the scene in first-person while you have no
: control whatsoever. Cutscenes like that make me yearn for whatever cool is
: going on that won't be animated in combat to be over so I can play. That
: just seems cheap.

Not to me. I thought the Reach cutscenes were masterful, and Bungie had a name for those first-person transitional scenes (I can't recall the name, but a dev mentioned it in a vidoc). I think they worked well. I don't think Lehto is talking about fisticuffs regardless, which FPS games, not being true fighting games, don't usually pull off as well in-game. (Reach had great assassination animations, though.)

I pretty much agree with his comments on Halo 5 (I liked the game). Several of the early cutscenes especially were missed opportunities for exciting gameplay. And given the enhanced movement of Spartans in the newer games, those platforms would've been really fun to navigate. Cutscenes are for actions that players can't easily do or to communicate plot points they can't afford to miss. I think several of Halo 5's cutscenes show us things we could've controlled ourselves.