Can Video Games be Art?

As I may or may not have mentioned, as a part of my University course on Media Production I am wanting to look into the discussion over whether video games can be seen, or more specifically "classed" as ART?

As I've started this blog dedicated to gaming, I feel that it's more than fitting to post any of my findings, as well as using it as a way of documenting my own theories (no matter how loose they may be).

So, best kick this off with a short, simple point.


1)
Art cannot survive without an audience, breading a culture of followers, creating inner circles and communities within the medium- not so much unlike the Gaming community.
At a rough guess, I'd say there is more information and sites dedicated towards gaming rather than art. And those that are solely for art (whether that be paintings, music or film) video games can have a large impact.

Originality it was games that were influenced by art, but as time progressed art began being influenced by video games. Things like this can range once again from paintings or "Fan-Art", musical pieces or even in cinema (although cinema often becomes more of a business, trying to make money rather than simply an expression of art.)

As time progressed since "Pong" hit the arcade, games had to rapidly develop new methods to expand, making game developers constantly need to "think outside the box", to be as creative as they could and push their limitations to the very edge.

Although games are more often than not viewed in the same way as cinema- mass production of a product to entertain masses- it still holds similar properties to more "Art House" cinema. Certain niches grow trough the market, and with it bubbles of inavitive creativity are able to grow. (RANDOM NOTE: If you type "inavitive" into google, the top sites, in fact the majority of sites are about video games)




-So. There's my first, mildly informative/mainly opiniated rant on the subject "Can Video Games be Art?". I hope it wasn't too painful for any readers out there. If anyone wants to expess any of their opinions on the matter, feel free to write whats on your brains below (it'll actually help!)

Do you want to join the army, but still not too keen on the whole "Getting Shot" thing? Well good news....

Any one out there thinking about buying Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 ?

Well then you must all now spend 3 minutes 50 seconds of your time watching this video...






...Stalking just got easier.

Feedback / mini "Reviews" for PRINCE of PERSIA and SKATE 2

Well feedback seems good so far for my first review. Well, not good as in "positive" but good as in "here's a list of problems"-- Which I think is great. Who needs positive feedback? Thats not helpful is it? No- I need to be told how crap I am to get better, right? RIGHT?!

Especially with feedback like "It sounds like it was written at 4am after 10 pints...." Which says to me that not only should I stop writing at 4am after 10 pints, but also that JFoundation is impressivly observant...

Heh, so I'll try another review sometime soon, making sure to follow the feedback-

* Dont get drunk before writing.
* Stop writing at 4am.
* Believing that I should read it back after I've written it. Or find an editor.
* Hold on to the feelin' instead of trying to be funny.

But the problem I have at the moment is I have no games I want to complete (modern games anyway). I recently bought Prince or Persia and Skate 2 for the PS3 and... Meh.


Prince of Persia- FUCKING TERRIBLE. Dialogue is horrible, slap googly eyes on the characters and they look like they belong in a pokeball and the old fashioned smooth free-running from the old games?
OVER.
The Prince's new claw slows things down hugely- instead of running up a wall you jump-claw-jump-claw, assuming you haven't fallen asleep before you reach your destination- assuming some more that you haven't stabbed a knitting needle through your year just to silence that TERRIBLE dialogue.
On top of this the camera angles change more than than Michael Jackson changed his.... Too soon? Anyway, it proves to be extremely irritating when you try to jump from a wallrun and the camera cuts to an "Uh-oh, you're falling down a hole!" above angle, as if the game itself is mocking you for almost failing. This then mean you have to guess your jumps towards the end of the wall and I can tell you now- Blind Faith, although a fine name for a disabled Christian rock band, is a terrible idea for a free-running game as it breaks flow.
I stopped playing, promptly.

Skate 2- is.... HARD. I'm slowly getting the hang of it, then it tells me to do a "Revert to pop shuvit" and I cant figure out how to revert. It's not on the trick menu and I presume its no longer the good ol' "R2 on a half pipe" like good old fashioned Tony taught me.....
Each time I play I find myself getting better, but then a simple sounding challenge comes along that makes me realise just how terrible I am.

On top of this, the camera angle is so low that when you pick up speed you hit that jump you've had your eye on, your characters monstrous arse takes up so much of the screen that it becomes no more than a guessing game. Then if you hit the jump you still have to time your ollie just right. It very quickly becomes a trial and error effort- the same jump over and over and over again until you finally nail it and move onto the next jump/trick/sequence that you have to try over and over until you ask yourself "Why am I still playing this?" It feels like more of a chore at times than a game.
"Easy to pick up, life time to master" -> But missing out totally on the "Easy to pick up." Its almost as if the game doesn't want YOU to play. This isn't for you, its ours.... It's an exclusive party. But for some reason, the more I play, the more I want in. Why?!

However, the developers seem to have foresaw this inevitable tediousness of the game by adding an incredibly addictive mini-game. "The Hall of Meat". Basically, every time you bail it shows you your fall in slow motion and gives you points on how much you managed to cripple your character. Beautiful. Now, every time you get frustrated when you can't get that "Boneless to 360 spoon fuck" you simply throw yourself off a building, curl into a ball and aim for a passing car. And if your friend isn't any good in 2 player, let their downfalls become an advantage and play them at this instead!

And of course the sexism is worth a chuckle- by simply making a female character the game awards you with the "Gender-Bender" trophy. Then subsequently the rest of the cast from the game still refer to you as a man. My breasts mean nothing to them.



So there we have it. That's my rambling opinions on my current gaming attempts. Almost like "mini-reviews"! And I've geniusly forgot to follow the feedback! (although its not 4am and I am relatively sober...)

So feedback is wanted, needed, longed for and stance a slim chance of being read/listened to for my next actual review.

GOODBYE (for now)

(Also apologies that this isn't as flashy as the last one- it was more of a free-flowing ramble. Like a female hiker once a month.)

[Prototype] GAME REVIEW (its my first- so I need all the feedback I can get)

[Prototype]

"Finally, a sand-box game that you can break trees"

-Horribly quoted from Jennifer Kettlewell

Most sandbox games tend to start with a tag line saying “Like GTA but…” and in this case, [Prototype] is “Like GTA but with a sword for an arm”.

Although its unfair to compare this game to GTA as they have nothing else in common (other than being set in “New “Liberty” York City) so its safer to say its more that Spiderman 2 (which is like GTA with web-slinging… I’ll stop that now). In either case not much credit can be given for level design as it’s just copy-pasted, not much freedom can be had from designing maps of ACTUAL PLACES.

Map aside (for the time being) the main character you play as is a living/dead, man/living swine flu time bomb, Alex Mercer. The game’s story starts with Alex waking up on an operating table with a convenient case of plot-progressing amnesia. As a result you then go through the game trying to unravel one of the most complex, straight forward plots ever encountered in a video game. The story is told so sporadically there’s a game mechanic built in which Alex has to munch on the brains of randomers just to get a glimpse into what may or may not have been the cause of his new big black phallic tendrils.

But nobody plays these games for the plot these days, right? If you want a good story, go read a book, or watch a film based on a book, or read the spoilers for films that were based on books (Jesus dies in the end, but comes back). But if you want to run up the side of a building, back-flip off, drop 50 stories and slice a man clean in half then you buy a game. This game in fact.

The free roaming aspect of this game is where the main fun is to be had, primarily down to its combat system. The infection in Alex’s body allows him to turn his arms into a wide variety of weapons: a huge blade, a whip arm with a blade tip and sharp claws to slice all you’re foes up (or any number of passing pedestrians) as well has huge arms and giant boulder fists to pound the crap out of any enemy, vehicle or cross-eyed granny that crosses your path.

Endless ours of fun can be had turning everything into a weapon. Picking up cars/trees/helicopters/people and throwing them into other people/tanks/giant mutant zombie things is more fun than seducing a siamese midget.

The actual Brownie points go into how you get around the grand city of perpetual disaster. The answer- any way you want. And first you can run, jump, skip and glide around the city by shooting blood out of your wrists, which is all good fun. But when you learn how to pilot tanks and helicopters- a whole new world of needless destruction is opened up to you. I wasted hours and hours just killing army men like they were unwelcome ants at a picnic of sugar and cocaine, waiting for the air support so I could steal one of they’re generous amounts of choppers and shoot the rest down with an array of missiles. Then to finish it off, fly over to their base and shoot until it was no more than a pile of rubble, resting neatly on the lifeless bodies of the brave men that risked their lives to save the United States of New York. Beautiful.

This said I couldn’t help but notice I had favoured the “dicking around” element over the actual story. The story is fine- it does the job and all- but all I ever wanted to do was run around, find a granny and throw her into the blades of a helicopter. So in the end, this game falls into that ever-growing “casual game” category for my money. Sure you can do the missions and sub missions and collect all the tasty information from eating people and run up buildings in a certain time- but in the end you won’t want to do all that. We’re too simple to do that. All we want to do is hear the screams of a crowd that tend to frown upon being wedged between a taxi and a wall. Hell, stick some boobs onto the side of the Empire State building and we’re happy for another 6 hours.

____________________________________________________________________________________

So to sum it (for all you lot out there skimming through this just to get a simple “yay” or “neigh”) (Which lets face it, is all of you) - it’s worth the money. Free roaming semi-hero games don’t get much better than this. It serves all your dicking about needs, and the story missions are too bad either. Well worth a look.

PROS-- Enough variety to keep you going a while. Plenty of variety in attacks, huge variety of weapons. Story missions not too bad. Killing randomers, taking on their form, accusing someone else of being you and watching the army kill them instead? NEVER tires of being fun.

CONS-- I found myself leaving it on pause and watching TV a fair bit. More of a “background game” to unwind with. Story is quite short. Side Missions get tedious and some feel impossible. The map is just a copy of Spiderman 2… Oh, and New York.