I have about a nice a system and I can expect to have, but is it just me or do cutscenes seem sluggish?? I always feel like I am watching the animation at about 4/5 speed, almost full/regular speed, but not quite. The thing is that since I originally started playing this game on a K6-2 450, to a Duron 980, to my current rig (Athlon 1400), cutscenes have always seemed about the same -- sluggish.

Well, they do look a bit "slow" when people are involved, but otherwise they seem to be just fine. They are prerendered, so there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. If they are skipping, or are very slow, or are not matched up with the audio, it's usually a sound card issue.