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Denver, 3:47 PM
Sat Dec 5
35 posts in the last 24 hours
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06/15/09
06/15/09
06/15/09
For me, WoW is one of the absolute best-looking games on the market. It doesn't have next-gen shader technology, HDR lighting, or super high res textures. What it does have is absolutely fucking incredible art design.
Taking the boat into Howling Fjord for the first time after WotLK came out was one of the most visually beautiful moments I've ever seen in a game.
It's like, something like Crysis is a really great looking game. Amazing lighting and textures and all of that, but that's really where it stops. I'll sit there for a few minutes and think to myself "Wow, this is really realistic", but that's really just being impressed by the technology, it doesn't make the game world any more interesting to me.
WoW just has such a unique, diverse aesthetic that you can't help but want to explore every inch of that world. It's a real testament to the importance of art design when a game like (Strictly speaking) graphical dinosaur like WoW does far more for me visually than all the fancy Crytek lighting in the world ever could.
06/15/09
"It's a real testament to the importance of art design when a (Strictly speaking) graphical dinosaur like WoW..."
06/15/09
06/15/09
A room full of star wars memorabilia
A room full comic books
A room full anime pvc figures
are just as effective.
12/31/08
I don't see how jumping on top of and crushing to death an innocent crab is any better than shooting somebody. Miyamoto's games are just as violent as any, but simply portrayed much more innocently.
Another thing I must say: Despite my frustration towards people who know so little about games, I like the way it is now. I like the inclusiveness of the games media, and I love the culture.
Deep down, I don't ever want hardcore gaming to become as mainstream as novel or film.
12/31/08
12/31/08
12/31/08
By that definition, paintings, sculptures, theater and books are worse than video games? Since you just look at them and don't interact with them. Is the upcoming Dante's Inferno 'better' than Dante's Commedia del Arte? Is Macbeth worse than GTA?
The trick to all art is that one form of art does engage you in some ways other forms of art can't. Compare poetry and literature. One has verse, rythm and gives a snapshot of an emotion. Literature has more scope, allowing the author a bigger palette to work with: plot, character building, development etc.
Of course, both can switch places and in that way innovate.
Video games can do that, but, in order to be better, can't encompass all of the arts, without comprimising some aspects and enforcing others. MGS can emulate movies, but it takes away the interaction. Mario can invoke the speed and rythm of music through it's platforming, but is a bit thin plotwise.
Two things hamper video games at the moment:
One, they still have the steepest learning curve of all media, both to make and to participate in. Making a game is harder than, for instance, making a movie. Instead of relying on real world physics or physicality, you have to make it yourself. Playing games requires a intuitive grasp of the controller layout and conventions, moreso than watching a painting. While other art forms have made it easier to get into over the ages, gaming has raised the bar.
Two, any authorial power the creator has is reliant on the participant. Imagine showing the Mona Lisa to someone and that person decides to paint in a moustache.
That's basically the same as what happens in some video games.
But, in the end, I'd have to agree with Mr. Lanchester: video games are becoming less art media, but more like art tools. They're more like portals to worlds in which you create your own art.
TL;DR, maybe?
12/30/08
12/30/08
There are art houses if I need art. If I want to have fun, there are video games. Don't make my video games NOT FUN by making them art. That is all.
12/30/08
12/30/08
Whenever someone tries to make an statement validating art in terms of quality, I immediately become suspicious. I truthfully do not think it is a question of what is "better" in terms of what medium can do more. If you want to follow that logic, then the "Sistine Chapel" is a far inferior work than "The Adventures of Pluto Nash" because the pictures in "Pluto Nash" move and talk and the Sistine Chapel's pictures do not.
Each Medium offers a sensory experience that isn't superior or inferior to another: its just different.
12/30/08
The way I read it, he's essentially saying that games are often better than films like, say, Die Hard 4 in regards to mindless entertainment value; however, there has arguably been no game that can provoke the same sort of thought as a Bergman film.
12/30/08
I think Team Ico's works have often come tantalizingly close, but they tackle a relatively shallow scope of thought, compared to some other artistic cornerstones.
Did I mention that the Lanchester article is really quite good? It's well worth the time.
12/30/08
In my opinion, a game will only be art to me if it can make me put the controller down, look at it and think about what I'm feeling at the moment.
And as contrived and spewed out the mouth of a hundred raving fanboys that it is, so far only Ico and Shadow of the Colossus have made me do that. At points in those games, I just stopped and looked at it, lost in whatever emotion i was feeling from it.
It doesn't have to be popular to be art.
12/31/08
12/30/08
12/31/08
Some of the most highly praised art, are pieces that were commissioned by someone, (Michelangelo as just one example). Meaning the artist got paid to make the art. Just because few artists actually live off of the sales of the art they create, doesn't mean they don't want to.
12/30/08
12/30/08
12/31/08
12/30/08
I dunno, if Shadow of the Colossus isn't art after almost bringing me to tears at the end of it (something a movie has never done) then I don't know what is.
I'll say that not all games are art, but ones that put you IN the character's body is.
12/30/08
sorry.
I would add Braid and Persona to that list. I would also say that the Katamari games function at least as well as experimental interactive art as any I've seen around.
Also, on an apples/apples basis, blockbuster games have become far, far, far more artistic than blockbuster films. And fantasy RPGs are a lot more involving than fantasy films since LotR faded into the sunset.
It's way more complicated than comparing Gears of War to Brothers Karamazov and will only get more so as people find ways to tell the story in the context of pleasurable interactivity.
Also, I agree; when you are the main character, you get a window into yourself like any good art will give you.
12/30/08
Looking over my favorite books, I can't imagine how some of them could be translated into game form. Could a game ask the same questions, explore the same sort of narrative conundrums as Kundera's Immortality? Or Nabokov's Ada, or Ardor? Marquez's Hundred Years? Will we ever have a Brothers Karamazov? It's difficult for me to fathom a game being able to encompass themes as complex as these titles, but I'm sure that there are people who are much brighter and more creative than I diligently working at it this very moment.
12/30/08
12/30/08
12/30/08
Wait...I'm seeing sixteen ass flaunting Master Cheif's running around on matchmaking...
Ugh...pass. Violence will do.
12/31/08
12/13/08