Debate: Are Games Art?

After The Washington Post, Newsweek's sister publication, made an earnest effort to show that the brilliantly conceived BioShock is art to a Pulitzer Prize winning writer, Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal said that art in games isn’t in the story.  It’s in the gameplay.   

Here’s what happened.  Post tech columnist Michael Musgrove gave Michael Dirda, the Post’s book columnist, the game to review.  But Dirda got stuck on level three, so he felt he couldn’t see the art within the game.

Two things here.  Dirda should have noticed that the game is art within the first hour of play.  You can tell that with the Mona Lisa and you can tell that with a David Foster Wallace book.  You don’t need to finish the game to know it’s art.  Art strikes immediately.  I’d have been more impressed if the game was given to Wallace or another literary genius than a critic, especially a book critic.  Remember, book critics for decades wouldn’t accept movies as art.  Ask the great social critic David T. Bazelon.

Secondly, I don’t believe that the art in the gameplay should be thought of as separate from the art of the story in a game.  You don’t separate the various elements of a movie to consider one art and that other not art.  So why should that point of view be the litmus test with games?  While I understand that the thoughtful Croal is coming from a gamer’s point of view (and Croal is a very good gamer – and writer), the art of the BioShock story is just as important as every other piece of the puzzle that makes the offering many cuts above most games that have been released in the last five years. 

I know these words may be distilling into a blog post ideas I have that really could fill a book.  Maybe sometime down the line in the right forum, a magical place where I can spew for thousands of words, I’ll have the video games as art debate.  And I’ll bring in everyone from David Foster Wallace to Nick Tosches to explain whether or not certain games can be art.  I know some are.  BioShock is.  I feel it. I see it. I hear it. I even taste it.

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/levelup/archive/2007/09/18/the-question-of-whether-games-are-art-revisited.aspx

Nintendo Head: No Wii Sports Sequel?

Say it ain't so, Mr. Iwata.  In an interview with 1101 that's quoted by Gamasutra, Nintendo games chief Mr. Iwata says that there won’t be a sequel to Wii Sports anytime soon.  Here’s what the Japanese game guru had to say: “We're not going to take such an easy way, not by including seven new sports in the game since Wii Sports has five. We're not closing our doors to the possibility of a sequel, but it's definitely not coming out soon.”

“If you start making such decisions without thinking, you start doing the easy stuff. You disengage yourself with the pursuit of true entertainment.”

“The reason why Nintendo isn't doing the easy is because our goal is clear. Our mission is to surprise people in a good way, and this became very clear as we made Nintendo DS and Wii. You can't open up a new market of customers if you can't surprise them.”

I’m the first person to disdain the sequel: it’s ruining video games as entertainment.  But Wii Sports helped get the Wii off the ground and flying into the stratosphere.  A new version is what people are chomping at the bit for.  I can’t believe there won’t be a second Wii Sports.  I’m still thinking that sometime around next Christmas (not this coming one), there will be a new Sports offering.  They may not even call it Wii Sports II, but it will be simple and cute and addictive and sporty. 

http://www.1101.com/iwata/2007-09-13.html

http://www.1101.com/iwata/2007-09-12.html

Two Cents: Monster Hunter Freedom 2

You could probably spend a year playing Monster Hunter Freedom 2, especially if you're the kind of person who loves doing everything in an RPG, including putting clothes on swine.  There is so much to do in the game in addition to fighting monsters that if you have the slightest bit of ADD, you’ll never even finish the training level (which is required before you set out on your Monster Quests).

Me, I like this kind of thing; it helps me escape. To me, the games rings of depth, and I like reading all the information and backstory I’m given: believe me, there’s a ton.  All this learning and knowledge can be frustrating to those who just want a game in which fighting’s the main thing.  But this particular RPG is so big in Japan, folks hold conventions for it to swap information and commiserate about the difficulty of the game.

Yeh, the makers have some kind of butt fetish: most every boss I’ve dealt with dies by being slashed in the posterior region.  You can’t just go kill an enemy, either.  You have to have the right stuff in your arsenal to annihilate the beast, usually a mix of things.

There are some problems with the camera angles here and there shouldn’t be.  But you do have awe-inspiring graphics to temper that pain.  All in all, though, if you have the patience to get into the game and take your time learning what you need to do, you’ll be rewarded with lengthy game play that indeed does make you feel like a hero/craftsman when you fell a flying octopus and then (if you choose) use part of it to make the skin to make a new weapon.

Again, don’t go into this game lightly, folks.  It’s difficult, one of the most difficult ever made for the PSP.  (One more thing: the game’s been out for a while, but the Web site, which should feature some quests and games, isn’t finished yet.  Wish it was.)

http://www.capcom.com/monsterhunter/

ARRR! Talk Like A Pirate Day

Avast! With all the hoo-hah about Halo 3, you might think there's nothing else happening in the gaming world.  So forget about Halo 3 (at least until next week) and know that Sony Online Entertainment PR folks thought this up  for the upcoming Pirates of the Burning Sea MMO -- International Talk Like A Pirate Day.  So if you’re in Seattle on Wednesday, “the event, sponsored by local video game developer Flying Lab Software, will feature the local pirate group, SeaFair pirates who will be offering free tours of Seattle’s waterfront to guests on their pirate ship, The Moby Duck, hands on play-time with the soon to be released Pirates of the Burning Sea video game, a chance to mingle with the development team behind the game, face painters and much more!”  It’s from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the Seattle Aquarium.  (Donna, better drive down from Vancouver: it’s Pirates!)

http://pirates.meetup.com/111/calendar/6376562/

http://www.burningsea.com/page/home

Three Yappers Spew About EA's Wii Games

The pull-an-answer-out-of-your-butt analysts are at it again, and this time, they're spewing about Electronic Arts’ recent forays into casual games on the Wii.  Crackpot Michael Pachter takes the EA party line about EA’s 68,000-selling flop for the Wii, Boogie, saying you have to give this game some time, adding that sales should pick up at holiday time.  I’ll be surprised if that happens: Boogie’s just not a terrific game, more of a tentative first-time-at-bat than a homerun of a hit game.  Analyst Colin Sebastian says that EA’s Wii Playground (kind of like Wii Sports) will be more successful, and from what I’ve played, he’s right.  Still, I don’t see it as an out-of-the-park hit (but I’d love to be proven wrong).  Analyst Ben Schacter seems like the most patient of the bunch (and probably the most right), saying, "EA is the first to admit that they didn't foresee the strength of the Wii (no one did). They have refocused their efforts, but it takes time and we won't see the results until next year." 

Actually, he’s wrong about one thing: Nintendo foresaw the strength of the Wii.  And that’s why they’re the top dogs in the game industry right now – and for the foreseeable future.

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/sep2007/id20070917_401279.htm?chan=innovation_game+room_top+stories

Pop Culture Alert: The Halo Blitz

By Scott Jones

While Harold was busy globe-trotting in Croatia last week, lounging ocean-side in a Speedo and sipping Flirtinis, I was back in gloomy, old New York City, sitting in a darkened hotel room in Times Square playing Halo 3.  You know this is a big game, and that the marketing of H3 is a kind of gaming culture phenomenon - not necessarily in a good way.  It's so big that if casual games as a whole had the budget for marketing that Halo 3 does, they just might rule the game industry.

Dropping Tomorrow: Castlevania Goes Mobile

It's almost time for blood-dripping vampires to emerge from down the hall and for Halloween to parade into your minds and souls.  The first of a bunch of GameBreak Halloween-themed stories is about the new Castlvania mobile game.

While Castlevania: Order of Shadows isn’t going to change your soul or your life, it’s a generally enjoyable side-scroller with some of the better graphics I’ve seen in a mobile offering. 

I tested it out on some fancy Verizon phone where you can rotate the screen around to give you a widescreen feel.  You’ll have half a level to get used to whip slashing vampire hunter Desmond Belmont, half a level before life gets freaky and creepy.  One of the cool things about this game beyond the graphics are the 18 original tunes that make up the creepfest’s soundtrack, some of which you’ll be humming as you go about your day.

Yeh, I wish the buttons on a cell phone were bigger or my fingers more dexterous since I sometimes hit the wrong button to whip, say, a floating eyeball with a worm body.  But with seven nasty, angry bosses, a couple of which are smart-enough-to-kill-you-in-an-eye’s-wink, and some RPG-ish elements, Order of Shadows is one of the generally satisfying games that’ll get you in the spirit of Halloween, less than six weeks away.  Having said that, it doesn’t offer anything really completely new.  Because of that, I’d say for Castlevania diehards like me (and perhaps you) only.

http://www.konamimobile.com/gamedetail.aspx?rkw=castle&tss=7

Lights, Camera, ActionTrip

Back in Croatia last week, I met Uros Jojic, the Serbian-based editor in chief of ActionTrip.  Uros has been through all the bombings in Serbia in the past decade or so, seeing people – real people – blasted with missiles so that their bodies did the horror ballet, flying high and dead into the trees.  Like me after watching the Towers come down during 9/11, Uros has a cynically optimistic view of life in general.  Games like WarCraft helped him cope after witnessing all the carnage.

Jojic’s site, ActionTrip, features an on the ball blog and some insightful web comics that recall the more inspired days of Heavy Metal magazine.  You can also take a poll about the hottest video game gals (where are the women from Soul Calibur, though?).  But the best thing: Uros, the wordsmith, is lewd and crude in an over the top, humorous way.  I like the writing and I’m bookmarking the site.  You should, too.

http://www.actiontrip.com/#news

Jam Session: Unlockable Songs Free!

The other day, I wrote a story for you on UbiSoft's Jam Session, kind of a Guitar Hero for the DS.  Over the weekend, I saw in a circular that Best Buy has three special extra songs to unlock if you buy it there, including Jimi Hendrix doing “Wild Thing.”  Thing is, every game has those songs, according to Kotaku’s Flynn DeMarco (who found it out from DS Fanboy).  And you can unlock ‘em.

“Pushing in Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, and Right during Free mode will net you three new songs:

• Brad Paisley - "I'm Gonna Miss Her" (Gross: why was this song included?)

• Jimi Hendrix - "Wild Thing"

• Tom Petty - "Needles and Pins"

For those of you set up with left handed controls you can use X, X, B, B, Y, A, Y, and A on the letter pads instead. I have tested this out myself and it work just fine so go and enjoy yourself two great new songs and one rather questionable one. (I'll let you decide which one that is for yourself.)”  There are also some ghostly hidden messages in the game (check the second link).

http://kotaku.com/gaming/oldie-but-a-goodie/konami-code-unlocks-hidden-jam-sessions-songs-300301.php

http://www.www.dsfanboy.com/2007/09/13/konami-codes-and-secret-messages-in-jam-sessions/

GameStop Goes Casual

Finally, they've seen the light.  GameStop, the ginormous video game store chain, is giving up a portion of its real estate to casual gamers. Says The Dallas Morning News, “(T)he age of the casual gamer is at hand. These are the people more interested in diversions such as Wii Sports, Guitar Hero and Cooking Mama, and less enthralled by epics such as Halo 3 and Metroid Prime.

“To cater to those casual fans, GameStop is creating special sections for music games, more clearly marking games for kids and, this holiday season, adding greeters at its store entrances.

"We have had to change a lot of things as the causal gamer has evolved," chief operating officer and vice chairman Dan DeMatteo.”

Nothin’ wrong with that!  Don’t worry, hardcore fans.  They’ll still stock Halo 3 and Stranglehold.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/ptech/stories/091507dnbusgamestop.35a99d8.html