Fallout 3 at E3 - NYTimes

Brother None

Brother None

This ghoul has seen it all
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The New York Times has a general article up concerning E3 and focusing on Fallout 3, entitled Even Games That Have Everything Are Still Missing Something:<blockquote>Much the same could be said of Fallout 3, another of my favorite games from E3. Like its esteemed predecessors, the third installment of the franchise is set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where you, the player, decide how to carve out your place in a horrible new version of America. Put simply, you can be a good guy or a bad guy and there will be plenty of heart-rending, suffering people to either assist or exploit.

That is, of course, what makes games distinctive among media: within the confines of the system it is the user who decides what happens next, whether that means turning left or right in Pac-Man or deciding whether to blow up a town for pay or save it in Fallout 3.

But merely providing choice is not the same as generating a deep emotional response.</blockquote>The author's contention is games aren't art (yet). What's your opinion? Were the original Fallouts? Will Fallout 3 be?

Link: Even Games That Have Everything Are Still Missing Something.

Spotted on Gamebanshee.
 
Just preconceived notions generating fallacious reasoning. Games are just as capable of eliciting an emotional response as movies, if not more so, since you're actually interacting with the characters involved rather than just watching them. It's true that there aren't many games with writing that's up to that task, and that's it's more difficult to do while integrating interesting gameplay at the same time, but that doesn't point to a fundamental problem with games.

Basically, he's an old phogey (or a young one, possibly) who doesn't "get" games and so feels compelled to contend that they're missing something that is present in more "traditional " media (books and movies, though I wonder if he has the attention span to read a book).
 
I think a certain amount of games can be considered as art.

Metal Gear Solid, Fallout, ICO, Shadow of the Colossus, I think they can all be considered art.

But in the end, art is in the eye of the beholder. The masses may think video games can't be art but they can't be right and they can't be wrong.
 
He's a snob, or just writes like one. He clearly likes classical music. He doesn't like games as much. Beethoven gives him the shivers. Listening to SHODAN's voice in a dark derelict spaceship does not. Therefore one is art and the other is not. Moreover, he's only talking about commercial mass-market games. Has he ever played an Orisinal flash game? I think a better question is, "Can mainstream press write non-generalizing non-bullshit articles about computer games as a broad phenomenon akin to playwriting or literature?" The answer is: "Not yet."
 
Who is he to say that the Fallout games don't elicit an emotional response to anyone?


Oh and I have one question....

Who the FUCK got an emotional response from staring at the Mona Lisa.

If they can't get a similarly emotional response from playing at least one of the billion games out there, they are marginalizing games irrationally, and are therefor biased and unprofessional as a critic, and should also commit suicide with a syringe and some draino, so that the world is a better place.
 
I know several people that have admitted crying during the adventure game King's Quest 4 in which Rosella is going to save her father, the King. So yes, (some) videogames can make you cry.
As for games generating a deep emotional response, whenever I look upon the two moons in Cyrodiil, I feel something. I also feel something very deep & emotional when I play Syberia or The Longest Journey or even Jade Empire.

As for the previews for Bioware's Mass Effect, they've all left me taken aback, in blazing trails, with much amazement and astonishments about the story, the setting and options in the game. The extended trailer, found on gamespot, does this to near perfection as well as the Mass Effect user made music on Youtube.
I've felt challenged and emotionally touched in BG2's desert town (athkathla?) when presented with some of the choices there.

To answer the question, Brother None: Yes, I do believe that some of the bests video games can be considered art e.g. the longest journey, post mortem, still life, syberia 1 as well as the gothic games and Ultima IV and maybe Ultima 7 could be considered art.
And yes, to me, at least, Fallout 1 can be considered art as well. (it's more a feeling I have as its been maybe 4-5 years now since I last played Fallout 1).

The question of what art is has been keeping art critics busy for a while ? Who gets to say why something is art and another thing is not art? Are the Harry Potter novels art? or popart? or fine litterature or pop culture? Can something be art without an art critic saying it IS art :?: Can a book, a game, a movie, or a play, still be art, if the masses enjoy it, and thus buy it, in bulk, it seems :?:

Let's examine some things closer to home: To me, Morrowind IS art, it puts the player down in this very different landscape, and tries to invoke feelings etc. in the player by using that landscape. And it does so well. To me, Oblivion isn't art, although it tries do the same thing as Morrowind, in my mind, Oblivion doesn't succeed. Why? Frankly, I feel absolutely nothing, the game's visuals are bland, generic, and uninteresting to. And thet look way too cinematic, and bloomy! for my taste. Mass Effect tries the same thing and succeeds. Why? Frankly, because Bioware's vision is clear. The wanted to make a cinematic game with photo-realistic visuals, and they did it. (or so it seems from the previews).

Is Mass Effect art? Maybe. Will Fallout 3 be art ?

Maybe...
 
Eh, I don't really consider games art. Art in my mind is mostly pictures, statues, ect. I can look at something well made and say it's a work of art, but I have a fairly shallow view of actual art. Something like a statue classifies as art in my head, but a finely engraved pistol/sword/piece of armor is a "Work of art", but I leave actual "Art" to things that sit around exclusively to be looked at. Arguably games/movies/music/books could fall into that category, but they don't for some reason.

It's a pretty stupid way to look at things I suppose, but since my life has never hinged on whether I call something art I've never bothered to really try to change it about myself. Things just generally get shuffled into "Good entertainment object, decent entertainment object, and bad entertainment object". If people consider books movies and music art though (And for someone who says music isn't art my favorite piece of music is Beethoven's 9th 4th movement which is pretty fucking arty) then by all means games should be included as well. Games haven't created anything as perfect as books, music, or movies have yet, but they're definately in the same vein.
 
"Art" is pretty difficult to define.

I took an art history/theory course as part of an electronic game design program a few years ago, and my instructor in that class defined art essentially as intent. If the creator of a work intends for that work to be seen as art, then it is art. I don't think I totally agree with that -- although "art" doesn't necessarily equate to "good art."

I am more inclined to define art by the response of the audience. If the work elicits an emotional response or has some meaning to the audience, then I would define it as art. I think I would limit the definition of "art" to human-created works; while there is undoubtedly an "artistic" beauty in all aspects of nature, the deliberate act of creation seems to me a necessary factor of "art."

Are games art? I think that the answer is undoubtedly "yes." Movie critics hail films such as The English Patient as being "art" and deride such films as The Fast and the Furious as pandering to the lowest common denominator and "not art."

I think both movies are terrible; The English Patient was one of the most boring films I have ever had the displeasure of watching, and The Fast and the Furious is a really stupid, generic action flick that does pander to the LCD. But I would say that both qualify as art. TEP may have greater "artistic merit" than TFF in the eyes of critics, but if I were forced to watch one of the two films again, I would probably pick TFF. I don't think that either film qualifies as particularly high in artistic merit according to how I evaluate such things, but another viewer with different experiences and expectations may evaluate them entirely differently.

When think of "games as art," I honestly have difficulty thinking of a Doom, Quake, Call of Duty, FIFA Soccer, Diablo, or hundreds of other titles in those terms. Perhaps they just feel so unoriginal and uninspired.

When I think of games that are iconic in terms of "games as art," I think of ICO, Okami, Psychonauts, Planescape: Torment, The Legend of Zelda, Gabriel Knight, Loom, Ultima VII, Thief, Deus Ex, Fallout, System Shock 2, Eternal Darkness, Sly Cooper, Wing Commander, Civilization, Knights of the Old Republic, and several others that I'm sure I'll remember later.

It would be easy to dismiss this as "game I like have high artistic merit and games that I don't like do not." But I don't think it's entirely true. My wife and I have had many hours of enjoyment playing Mario Party, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance and Bust-A-Move, but I don't really think of any of those titles as being outstandingly artistic.

It's hard to put my finger on exactly what criteria I (subconsciously) use in determining the artistic merit of a game. I don't think that it is any one or two specific factors, but the gestalt of the game experience.

Electronic gaming is a highly visual medium, and the visual presentation of a game is very important. This is not saying that "amazing graphics" are of vital importance; I've always maintained that the visual style and artistic design is far more important than technically proficient graphics. Your hyper-realistic flashy, shiny FPS graphics only look amazing until the next best thing that looks even closer to reality comes out -- look how bad PlayStation 1, Sega Saturn, and N64 3D games look now, as well as most mid-nineties PC games using early 3D accelerators.

Games like Okami, ICO, Psychonauts, The Curse of Monkey Island, Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, or Sly Cooper will all still look very good ten years from now (even if a bit low-res). In ten years, Final Fantasy X is going to look very dated with stiff, robotic-looking characters. Even Ultima VII's graphics have stood up relatively well over the years, especially when compared to other games of its time. The character portraits look terrible and the characters have very few frames of animation, but the overall visual design of the world still looks pretty good.

Game Design itself is an art form, and it is very tough to arrive at a well-balanced and consistent design throughout the entire game. It's a matter finding just the right balance so that the design and interface are just complex enough to achieve the desired depth of gameplay, but no more complex than that. Just as streamlining too much can undermine the integrity of the gameplay, so can making it overly complex, and I don't believe that one extreme is any worse than the other.

Perhaps artistry in games comes down to consistency of the design vision, more than any other aspect?
 
Eternal Dragon said:
Perhaps artistry in games comes down to consistency of the design vision, more than any other aspect?
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Probably a very good point, and a reason why simpler games like fl0w or The Way Home are easier to view as expressions of art, although studio-created games can also pull it off: Grim Fandango, wooo!
 
Per said:
Eternal Dragon said:
Perhaps artistry in games comes down to consistency of the design vision, more than any other aspect?
Click to expand...

Probably a very good point, and a reason why simpler games like fl0w or The Way Home are easier to view as expressions of art, although studio-created games can also pull it off: Grim Fandango, wooo!
Click to expand...
I'd say that a few other games manage it as well. Planescape: Torment and Fallout, for one. But some other games as well: Day of the Tentacle and the Monkey Island series come pretty close as well.
What those games have in common is a consistent art direction, but also a good story and great player interaction.

(Yes, Per, I know, 'myths of PS:T')
 
If 3 bricks on top of each other can be classified as 'Art', then any game can. I'd go further and state on top of the music/art elements counting as art (pictures are pictures, sound is sound - right?), gameplay itself is a valid art form imo - it's tangible and can produce as strong an emotional response as any painting, or piece of music can (Tetris, for example). No idea why he isn't getting a response from them, I get far bigger responses from most games, even shit ones, than I did looking at the Mona Lisa.

What defines art though is subjective, arguing what is (definitively) art and what isn't is folly - there is no valid definition, it's like debating how long a piece of a string is. He doesn't think games are art, fair enough he is entitled to his view - but his argument is shit.

Someone should make him play through the haunted house in VTMB, PST, or even SS2 as examples - if they don't produce an emotional response, I will eat my hat. Call me soppy, but parts of PST had me close to tears. He argues the interaction reduces his response, well scripted events aren't interactive - they are pre-set and timed to create a response, his reasoning just doesn't stack at all imo.

As a sidenote; he didn't, but many critics cite the collaborative nature of games/films as detrimental to them being art, i.e. there is no single artist responsible. Yet at the same time they hail massive paintings painted by teams of understudies to the 'greats', and music performed by an orchestra...
 
Dunno about art, but the first (and biggest) Polish science fiction magazine, "Fantastyka", classified Fallout as one of the few games that are good science fiction, and that's good enough for me.
 
One of the games that hit me both emotionally, and sent shivers down my spine was Phantasmogria. The portion where you're walking past the nursery at one point, and see a mist hovering over the crib. Later, you start to faintly hear a baby crying.

You come to find out the "bad guy" had killed his own child.


Creepy.

System Shock 2 got me as well.
 
I may get some flack for this, but i thought the first Suffering game for xbox was absolutely artistic as all hell.

Gameplay was... cliche to say the least.


But the story and art direction was pretty fantastic.
 
If art is defined as generating an emotional response, then games can be art. Games can go both ways, much in the same way that any other entertainment medium can.

I'd consider a game like Shadows of the Colossus to be art. Unreal Tournament is not.

Apocalypse Now is art. Transformers is not.

John Lennon was an artist, Justin Timberlake is not.

Ernest Hemingway created art, JK Rowling does not (don't hurt me fanboys).

And it's also opinion etc
 
Joe Kremlin said:
I'd consider a game like Shadows of the Colossus to be art. Unreal Tournament is not.

Apocalypse Now is art. Transformers is not.

John Lennon was an artist, Justin Timberlake is not.

Ernest Hemingway created art, JK Rowling does not (don't hurt me fanboys).

And it's also opinion etc
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I suppose that amateur sketches aren't art either, eh?
 
xdarkyrex said:
Joe Kremlin said:
I'd consider a game like Shadows of the Colossus to be art. Unreal Tournament is not.

Apocalypse Now is art. Transformers is not.

John Lennon was an artist, Justin Timberlake is not.

Ernest Hemingway created art, JK Rowling does not (don't hurt me fanboys).

And it's also opinion etc
Click to expand...


I suppose that amateur sketches aren't art either, eh?
Click to expand...
I'd doubt it. What this guy did is no different than me basing my view on movies on the top grossing films from this year. Fantastic 4 and Ghost Rider are hardly the best of what the genre has to offer.
 
Joe Kremlin said:
xdarkyrex said:
Joe Kremlin said:
I'd consider a game like Shadows of the Colossus to be art. Unreal Tournament is not.

Apocalypse Now is art. Transformers is not.

John Lennon was an artist, Justin Timberlake is not.

Ernest Hemingway created art, JK Rowling does not (don't hurt me fanboys).

And it's also opinion etc
Click to expand...


I suppose that amateur sketches aren't art either, eh?
Click to expand...
I'd doubt it. What this guy did is no different than me basing my view on movies on the top grossing films from this year. Fantastic 4 and Ghost Rider are hardly the best of what the genre has to offer.
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Thats pretty arrogant.
 
xdarkyrex said:
I suppose that amateur sketches aren't art either, eh?
Click to expand...
No, they aren't.
This isn't 'everything's relative' world anymore: if something is shit, it's shit. If something is simply a mainstream piece of entertainment instead of an art piece, it isn't an art piece. Simple as that.
 
Sander said:
xdarkyrex said:
I suppose that amateur sketches aren't art either, eh?
Click to expand...
No, they aren't.
This isn't 'everything's relative' world anymore: if something is shit, it's shit. If something is simply a mainstream piece of entertainment instead of an art piece, it isn't an art piece. Simple as that.
Click to expand...

Tell you what, you come up with a clear and simple definition of art that is all encompassing and that all people agree with, and I'll let that opinion has some merit.
otherwise its just as subjective "fuck-you" to everyone who disagrees and I'm going to see it that way,
 
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