If you want good 2D animation in a big-budget game which stands up to television animation all the way through - and not just in cutscenes - think again. It's simply not financially viable. By their very nature, most 2D cartoon games of old were reliant on a televisual standard of animation which didn't always apply constantly. The quality bar demanded of games now by presentational value is much higher than the pixellated 2D games of yore, unless you're going for a deliberately limited animation style.
I'm not saying it COULDN'T be done - Alien Hominid is an excellent shooter based on Flash animation, but don't expect animation to the standards you see on television, to which any big budget 2D game would be compared.
I personally would love to see one happen, and think a 2D game to a professional quality would be beautiful to see. It's just 2D is so much more limiting to file size in terms of animation (requiring frames for each seperate movement), and in todays high-resolution games pixel animation simply isn't an option outside of something which RELIES on that style for a clear design reason.
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