Post by Lair of the Shadow MaDaBa on Jul 9, 2010 1:33:47 GMT -5
Video games are, by and large, a form of interactive entertainment. Some would claim that they are designed solely to look pretty, or to waste your time while you could be making something of yourself, or training courses for terrorists...there's a critic for everything.
One thing that these critics claim is that video games are not considered works of art. Gamers, and certainly the crews of some of the best video games on the market, would vehemently disagree.
So let's say that there was a debate tomorrow between video game supporters and video game detractors. The topic is "Video Games as an Art Form". Here's your challenge--pick between three and five video games (whether on the market today or not) that are strong arguments that a video game can be a true piece of art.
Here are three of mine, in no particular order:
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (Nintendo GameCube)[/u]
Shadow of the Colossus (Sony PlayStation2)
And this one, you probably won't agree with.
Mirror's Edge (Sony PlayStation3, Microsoft XBox 360, Microsoft Windows)
One thing that these critics claim is that video games are not considered works of art. Gamers, and certainly the crews of some of the best video games on the market, would vehemently disagree.
So let's say that there was a debate tomorrow between video game supporters and video game detractors. The topic is "Video Games as an Art Form". Here's your challenge--pick between three and five video games (whether on the market today or not) that are strong arguments that a video game can be a true piece of art.
Here are three of mine, in no particular order:
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (Nintendo GameCube)[/u]
{Spoiler}Noah Antwiler (The Spoony One) made this claim last Halloween while naming his favorite scary video games. Love Spoony or hate him, if you've played this game, you know not to disagree with this.
Eternal Darkness is a game that, graphically, hasn't aged all that well. The trade-off is everything else: this game was created specifically to be ahead of its time. The gameplay, especially for a survival horror game, is tremendously easy to use and master. The story is scary and is executed in a way that you're begging to see what happens next while simultaneously wanting the part that you're playing now never to end. And, of course, the Sanity mechanic is like a gift from the future; the only reason it hasn't been duplicated is because Nintendo had it patented--they knew they had something special on their hands.
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem has all the qualities of art, in that it makes you ask questions as you play. What were the creators' motivations behind this? What inspired them to come up with it? More importantly, will they do it again?
Eternal Darkness is a game that, graphically, hasn't aged all that well. The trade-off is everything else: this game was created specifically to be ahead of its time. The gameplay, especially for a survival horror game, is tremendously easy to use and master. The story is scary and is executed in a way that you're begging to see what happens next while simultaneously wanting the part that you're playing now never to end. And, of course, the Sanity mechanic is like a gift from the future; the only reason it hasn't been duplicated is because Nintendo had it patented--they knew they had something special on their hands.
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem has all the qualities of art, in that it makes you ask questions as you play. What were the creators' motivations behind this? What inspired them to come up with it? More importantly, will they do it again?
Shadow of the Colossus (Sony PlayStation2)
{Spoiler}This is a game that you don't even really need to play yourself to enjoy--just watching someone else do it is good enough. In a case of "less is more", this game thinks outside the box by getting rid of all of the fillings: the minion enemies that you see in just about every action game ever? Gone. The cliched "every man's hero"? Not here. Normal "follow the blueprint" game design? Uh-uh.
Nope, the name of this game is simple: the love of your life is dead. To bring her back, you make a deal with the devil: in exchange for her resurrection, you must first kill sixteen gargantuan beasts with nothing more than your sword and your bare hands.
The only enemies in this game are these sixteen monsters, and none of them can be defeated by simply running up to them and slashing them until they die. With (just about) every single one, you must use your environment to figure out how to possibly topple them, like a puzzle game masquerading as an action title. The sizes of the Colossi range from the size of a boar to...well, let me put it this way: you know how, at the end of every big video game, you have to enter a huge castle or tower to beat it? Well, turns out, the Sixteenth Colossus isn't in the tower--it is the tower.
Oh, and I haven't gotten to all the things that make this a true masterpiece. Your only companionship is in the form of your trusted steed, Agro, who will help you (or, as programmed, may just not) in slaying some of the beasts. Even with Agro there, however, the massive and musicless world when you're not fighting a Colossus brings a feeling of true solidarity and loneliness. This only escalates when you realize that, for every Colossus that you beat, your appearance subtly changes and, by the time you reach the end of the game, it seems as though bringing your love's life back was at the cost of your own.
If you know what you're doing, you can pound this game out in about five or six hours. However, of all the times I've played it, I seldom got bored, and I never stopped staring in awe at these creatures or at the beautiful world I was in. If you can watch it again and again and not get tired of it...that's a defining characteristic of art.
Nope, the name of this game is simple: the love of your life is dead. To bring her back, you make a deal with the devil: in exchange for her resurrection, you must first kill sixteen gargantuan beasts with nothing more than your sword and your bare hands.
The only enemies in this game are these sixteen monsters, and none of them can be defeated by simply running up to them and slashing them until they die. With (just about) every single one, you must use your environment to figure out how to possibly topple them, like a puzzle game masquerading as an action title. The sizes of the Colossi range from the size of a boar to...well, let me put it this way: you know how, at the end of every big video game, you have to enter a huge castle or tower to beat it? Well, turns out, the Sixteenth Colossus isn't in the tower--it is the tower.
Oh, and I haven't gotten to all the things that make this a true masterpiece. Your only companionship is in the form of your trusted steed, Agro, who will help you (or, as programmed, may just not) in slaying some of the beasts. Even with Agro there, however, the massive and musicless world when you're not fighting a Colossus brings a feeling of true solidarity and loneliness. This only escalates when you realize that, for every Colossus that you beat, your appearance subtly changes and, by the time you reach the end of the game, it seems as though bringing your love's life back was at the cost of your own.
If you know what you're doing, you can pound this game out in about five or six hours. However, of all the times I've played it, I seldom got bored, and I never stopped staring in awe at these creatures or at the beautiful world I was in. If you can watch it again and again and not get tired of it...that's a defining characteristic of art.
And this one, you probably won't agree with.
Mirror's Edge (Sony PlayStation3, Microsoft XBox 360, Microsoft Windows)
{Spoiler}This game came out in 2008. Many ignored it because of its short runtime (the main story's done in about three or four hours) and what many considered to be a gimmick. What you call a gimmick, I call style. Its story is straightforward and its pathways sort of linear, and yet I still felt like I had more freedom than any time I played a Grand Theft Auto game.
You don't even need to like the game as a whole to admit that the graphics are f***ing GORGEOUS. Some games made two years ago have seemed to fade in quality to our spoiled eyes. Not this one; it almost seems like the graphics get better with age. The bright, sunny Dystopian city notwithstanding, the character models seem to be pixel-perfect (OK, something can be said about the bland policeman enemies) with each character looking as real as you or I.
The style of the game and the graphics go hand-in-hand. Parkour is a fascinating practice, combining speed and style with ingenuity and on-the-spot decision-making. That's the name of the game here: decision-making. Do I jump over the duct or slide under? Do I jump to the next rooftop or should I use this pipe to swing across? Do I wall-jump like Mario or wall-run like the Prince of Persia? How about both? All these things are choices that you will have to make in a manner of milliseconds as you're running away from police officers following a fascist order to kill you, simply because you don't agree with them. Hope you don't have asthma.
Even today, I love Mirror's Edge, if only because playing the game keeps your mind as focused as the real thing--twitch-reflexes combined with nimble body parts. Well, in my case, "body parts" means "thumbs", so it probably isn't the same. But still, I think this game is a wonderful work of art.
You don't even need to like the game as a whole to admit that the graphics are f***ing GORGEOUS. Some games made two years ago have seemed to fade in quality to our spoiled eyes. Not this one; it almost seems like the graphics get better with age. The bright, sunny Dystopian city notwithstanding, the character models seem to be pixel-perfect (OK, something can be said about the bland policeman enemies) with each character looking as real as you or I.
The style of the game and the graphics go hand-in-hand. Parkour is a fascinating practice, combining speed and style with ingenuity and on-the-spot decision-making. That's the name of the game here: decision-making. Do I jump over the duct or slide under? Do I jump to the next rooftop or should I use this pipe to swing across? Do I wall-jump like Mario or wall-run like the Prince of Persia? How about both? All these things are choices that you will have to make in a manner of milliseconds as you're running away from police officers following a fascist order to kill you, simply because you don't agree with them. Hope you don't have asthma.
Even today, I love Mirror's Edge, if only because playing the game keeps your mind as focused as the real thing--twitch-reflexes combined with nimble body parts. Well, in my case, "body parts" means "thumbs", so it probably isn't the same. But still, I think this game is a wonderful work of art.
helped $lim jinx NXT. Woops
