[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Spartan1065 Story is all that matters in video games, in fact in all forms of media without story there is nothing. Why would you skip something that deeply enriches your experience of the game?[/quote] Not true. Story can draw you in, but the gameplay of Asteroids, Space Invaders, and Super Mario Bros. are what made the games popular. Just like how the first of the recent Transformers movies had a -blam!- story, it had amazing computer graphics to make up for some of it's crappiness. Games can survive off of just gameplay and very little story. Games can survive off of just story with really crappy gameplay. Without a decent one of both, though, the game will have troubles. If a game has awesome gameplay [i]AND[/i] an awesome story, it becomes one of the greatest, funnest, most immersive and satisfying experiences of our time. Better than books, movies, etc. It gives us something meaningful and interesting while being highly interactive and entertaining. That's what Halo has done, and that's why we're all here. [b]To the OP:[/b] You can always and have always been able to skip cutscenes in Halo. All you need to do is press the A button. I've always done that when I'm just messing around, and it's always worked. In Reach, I'd expect you'd still be able to do that. But I'd definitely play through it once and watch the cutscenes before you do your speedruns. I suspect this to be the greatest Halo story and experience yet.