The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Shit, did you play Halo 3? Well, Halo 2 I guess. Yeah it's shallow, but there are some social and political issues that are discussed in the series.
In the paperback novels, maybe. If you're just playing the games and watching the boring, overwrought cutscenes, the story is clumsily presented and largely incomprehensible. I even read this forum post that claims to summarize the Halo universe, but there was pretty much no point in Halo 3 where I knew what my objective was or why. The cutscenes only interrupt the flow of the game and try (poorly) to explain sudden changes in the setting. Whatever social and/or political issues the game was supposed to have are fully drowned out by the action-focused gameplay, the terrible writing and poor voice acting.
I'm just saying that maybe Roger Ebert and his ilk might give games a chance if intellectually vapid titles like Halo were not considered to be the state of the art.
Quit trying to disguise your campaign to get people to think Halo sucks as it being somehow relevant to this argument. Seriously, you just come across as a pompous asshole who thinks he's superior because he doesn't like something popular. Ebert doesn't know two shits about video games. He's never played one. He only knows about them from the crappy movies that have gotten made from them. He and his ilk would not change their opinion no matter what game was popular because they won't play them and thus have no clue what they're about.
Rakai on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]XBL: Rakayn | PS3: Rakayn | Steam ID
Shit, did you play Halo 3? Well, Halo 2 I guess. Yeah it's shallow, but there are some social and political issues that are discussed in the series.
In the paperback novels, maybe. If you're just playing the games and watching the boring, overwrought cutscenes, the story is clumsily presented and largely incomprehensible. I even read this forum post that claims to summarize the Halo universe, but there was pretty much no point in Halo 3 where I knew what my objective was or why. The cutscenes only interrupt the flow of the game and try (poorly) to explain sudden changes in the setting. Whatever social and/or political issues the game was supposed to have are fully drowned out by the action-focused gameplay, the terrible writing and poor voice acting.
I'm just saying that maybe Roger Ebert and his ilk might give games a chance if intellectually vapid titles like Halo were not considered to be the state of the art.
Quit trying to disguise your campaign to get people to think Halo sucks as it being somehow relevant to this argument. Seriously, you just come across as a pompous asshole who thinks he's superior because he doesn't like something popular. Ebert doesn't know two shits about video games. He's never played one. He only knows about them from the crappy movies that have gotten made from them. He and his ilk would not change their opinion no matter what game was popular because they won't play them and thus have no clue what they're about.
Uh, no, I'm just explaining how I felt about Halo 3, since zombiemano asked. Great game, bad story, and I'm not surprised that non-gamers are unimpressed by it. I think they would be more impressed by our medium if their exposure to it included titles with more classical artistic merit. Why do people get so defensive whenever I point out that maybe Halo doesn't have the greatest story and presentation? Would you prefer if I used, say, Gears of War or Killzone as examples instead?
You can think Halo sucks. That's fine. You brought it up in an argument in which it has no relevancy just to rip it's story. Show me where non-gamers as you've labeled them are judging the medium around Halo. Hell, show me where they are judging it period. They're not playing it, or any other video game for that matter and thus it has no effect on their view on the medium. Their views are coming from crappy movies based on video games such as Doom. If a crappy Halo movie existed, then you would have a point, but it doesn't (at least not yet.) They would change their minds if a successful leap from the medium was made into a critically acclaimed movie. It just has yet to happen.
Rakai on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]XBL: Rakayn | PS3: Rakayn | Steam ID
You brought it up in an argument in which it has no relevancy just to rip it's story. Show me where non-gamers as you've labeled them are judging the medium around Halo. Hell, show me where they are judging it period. They're not playing it, or any other video game for that matter and thus it has no effect on their view on the medium. Their views are coming from crappy movies based on video games such as Doom. If a crappy Halo movie existed, then you would have a point, but it doesn't (at least not yet.) They would change their minds if a successful leap from the medium was made into a critically acclaimed movie. It just has yet to happen.
I'm conjecturing that people's chief exposure to gaming is currently by way of TV ads and media coverage for violent action titles such as Halo 3 and Gears of War. Putting myself in the shoes of someone who has never played a videogame, I would be turned off from them mainly because it seems as though they're all just mindless bug hunts. If games like Okami or Wind Waker, which come across as actual art on a more visceral level, got more mainstream exposure then people might be more inclined to give them a try, and would then see for themselves just how much real artistry goes into every video game.
I don't know how much more plainly I can put this. This is just my opinion on why Roger Ebert, and pretty much everyone else who doesn't play games, thinks they aren't art. I'm not trying to hijack this into a halo sucks thread, and again, I don't think Halo sucks.
The man is smart but out of touch and is experiencing a gigantic generational gap between he and his younger audience (if he even has one). He, like everyone ever, generalizes because it's easier then actually putting out an effort. I don't hate him because he's ignorant but he it doesn't change the fact that he is ignorant.
You brought it up in an argument in which it has no relevancy just to rip it's story. Show me where non-gamers as you've labeled them are judging the medium around Halo. Hell, show me where they are judging it period. They're not playing it, or any other video game for that matter and thus it has no effect on their view on the medium. Their views are coming from crappy movies based on video games such as Doom. If a crappy Halo movie existed, then you would have a point, but it doesn't (at least not yet.) They would change their minds if a successful leap from the medium was made into a critically acclaimed movie. It just has yet to happen.
I'm conjecturing that people's chief exposure to gaming is currently by way of TV ads and media coverage for violent action titles such as Halo 3 and Gears of War. Putting myself in the shoes of someone who has never played a videogame, I would be turned off from them mainly because it seems as though they're all just mindless bug hunts. If games like Okami or Wind Waker, which come across as actual art on a more visceral level, got more mainstream exposure then people might be more inclined to give them a try, and would then see for themselves just how much real artistry goes into every video game.
I don't know how much more plainly I can put this. This is just my opinion on why Roger Ebert, and pretty much everyone else who doesn't play games, thinks they aren't art. I'm not trying to hijack this into a halo sucks thread, and again, I don't think Halo sucks.
Then you should have chosen Okami as your example in your original post. If you feel that on that they are viewing video games as nothing but a bunch of sci fi shooters then you might have a point. It's just that your counterexamples were Mass Effect and Half-Life 2 which to someone who has played neither and knows little of video games will view them no differently then they view Halo. In fact, since Half-Life's story is much more subtle, it would appear even worse.
Rakai on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]XBL: Rakayn | PS3: Rakayn | Steam ID
The single thing he doesn't understand is that books, film, and radioplays all hinge upon emotional manipulation. The events in fiction are not real, are not happening, and have never happened. It is the artist who uses their medium to trick the audience into feeling some way. Fear, or being threatened is certainly one of the emotions best understood, and most often used in fiction throughout history. Games thus far have used this emotion to make you want to fight back, which is easily simulated. The new thing here is putting agency into the audience. If you don't move the controller, the worst thing to happen is the screen turning red or black. You are not physically injured. But through emotional manipulation, you fear the ending of the game, much like the ending of life.
But there is more to simulate and manipulate than fear. Shadow of the Collosus' ending is not a cutscene, although it may look like one. It's real purpose is to finally capitalize on the emotional misdirection that the game is designed upon. Anyone who has played the game should realize that the last user input before the credits roll is what the entire game was set up to do. Instincts that the game builds in the player over the course of the game are expressly countered by what the game makes the player do to win. There's no need for multiple endings, or losing directorial control of the story by giving the player too much freedom. The experience is unlike anything else I've seen in a game.
And there is simply no way to do that with film. Show me as many closeups of a protagonist's face when they struggle with an emotional decision. It will never come close to making me actually the one to struggle with my own emotions.
Honestly, we have a guy whose only insight into video games is The Super Mario Brothers Movie, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Street Fighter: the Movie, Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil, Pokemon, Wing Commander, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, Doom, BloodRayne, Silent Hill, and now Hitman. What do you expect him to say about video games? They have honestly not brought a single decent thing into the movie industry. While I do find a guilty pleasure in watching Mortal Kombat or Doom, they are terrible, terrible movies in themselves.
Yes, I do think it's true that if Ebert sat down with Okami or Shadow of the Collosus, he would be all like, "Holy shit, this is sweet!"
In Shadow of the Collosus, I actually cried when
your horse sacrificed himself to buck you to safety. Agro will forever remain my number one sidekick in any media, video game, movie, or television. I also cried when Shadow came back in Homeward Bound when we all thought he was dead.
So I tear up in emotional scenes sometimes, wanna fight about it?
I didn't tear up, but I did actually sit up and reach toward the screen, which I don't think I've ever done during a movie. Up until that point I was pretty sure I hated the game too. Then I realised that I loved it and it was fantastic and I just hadn't realised.
Then you should have chosen Okami as your example in your original post. If you feel that on that they are viewing video games as nothing but a bunch of sci fi shooters then you might have a point. It's just that your counterexamples were Mass Effect and Half-Life 2 which to someone who has played neither and knows little of video games will view them no differently then they view Halo. In fact, since Half-Life's story is much more subtle, it would appear even worse.
Anyone who plays or watches the opening scenes of Half-Life 2 will instantly recognize the Wells/Orwell influences and the Eastern Bloc architecture, and may be sufficiently intrigued to give it a closer look. Players who delve deeper will quickly find a story that is rich, well-realized, and expertly presented, moving along at breakneck pace. The setting is presented using carefully constructed moments and vistas, and is often used to communicate information about the story, like a really good movie might use its sets and backdrops. The characters are expressive, likeable, voiced by a fantastic ensemble cast, and give emotional weight to the events that unfold throughout the game. Not Sagan by any means, but I have no idea how you could possibly compare it unfavourably to Halo's wooden characters, sparse locales, and yawn-inducing cutscenes.
Mass Effect's appeal might be more limited, but if the viewer is a fan of space operas like Star Trek and BSG they too might be compelled to give it a try, although it is admittedly not the best example thanks to BioWare's wacky controls which would quickly frustrate most casual players.
I could give two shits about some over-paid jackasses opinion.
I'm my own movie critic. I don't need you to tell me Epic Movie sucked. I could tell.
So Ebert can suck a fuck.
I think we need to just not care about what that guy says.
If someone made a fantastic motion picture out of, say, Half-Life, or Okami, or Shadow of the Colossus, or Legacy of Kain, or Killer7, or Eternal Darkness (or...), and then showed it to Roger Ebert, he'd still hate it based solely on the fact that it's a game movie.
If we could somehow keep him in a vacuum and completely unaware that the movie is based on a game, he would do a fair review of the movie.
If, after it's published, we informed him that it's based on a game, he would retract his review and immediately have nothing good to say about the movie.
The man is stubborn and biased. He will have nothing to do with games no matter the quality. If you sat him down in front of Okami, even if you just let him watch while someone else played, he'd still hate it just because it's a game. The thing we need to do, is let him and people of his generation die off, and have critics of our generation who hold no bias against games become popular. Then game movies will become as ubiquitous and acceptable as comicbook movies are now (don't forget that nobody in Hollywood respected the genre of comicbook movies until the first Superman movie came out. And conservative minds refused to call comics art, too.)
It's just a product of the times. Roger Ebert is old, and all those new fascinating things that we love are threatening and scary to him. Eventually we'll have our Superman, and it'll all be an easy slope after that.
Roger Ebert proved how mercilessly stupid he is with his reviews of the first two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies, every single fact he cites is 100% wrong.
Games can have artful moments; I don't think that's in dispute here. But is art just individual moments, or does it have to be the whole experience? No matter how you break the argument down, it typically comes back to how one defines art, and whether one actually wants entire video games to be that.
I get a little leery when someone points to, say, Bioshock or Metal Gear Solid as evidence that games can be art. They certainly have high concepts behind them, but in defining the whole package you're lumping the good with the bad. In calling MGS art, you're saying the excessive narration and questionable plot devices are art. In calling Bioshock art, you're saying Frank Fontaine and an unnecessary escort mission are art.
Again, these games have moments, instances of brilliance that evoke emotion and draw the player into the scene, or whatever it is art's supposed to do, and it is fair and proper to call these moments artful; to say that the game contains art. I'm just not sure if that makes the entire game art itself.
VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
edited November 2007
the thing that drives me nuts is the amount of people that only look at the art design or story of a game for the art (especially when the don't even accept that). the gameplay can be considered art too, and that's how I look at them. it doesn't need to be art just because it looks like other types of art we know, it should gladly be accepted by everyone as a great new form.
I don't know what someone gains by pretending it's not valid. it's not trying to step on the toes of movies.
Then you should have chosen Okami as your example in your original post. If you feel that on that they are viewing video games as nothing but a bunch of sci fi shooters then you might have a point. It's just that your counterexamples were Mass Effect and Half-Life 2 which to someone who has played neither and knows little of video games will view them no differently then they view Halo. In fact, since Half-Life's story is much more subtle, it would appear even worse.
Anyone who plays or watches the opening scenes of Half-Life 2 will instantly recognize the Wells/Orwell influences and the Eastern Bloc architecture, and may be sufficiently intrigued to give it a closer look. Players who delve deeper will quickly find a story that is rich, well-realized, and expertly presented, moving along at breakneck pace. The setting is presented using carefully constructed moments and vistas, and is often used to communicate information about the story, like a really good movie might use its sets and backdrops. The characters are expressive, likeable, voiced by a fantastic ensemble cast, and give emotional weight to the events that unfold throughout the game. Not Sagan by any means, but I have no idea how you could possibly compare it unfavourably to Halo's wooden characters, sparse locales, and yawn-inducing cutscenes.
Ebert's assumption that most video games are mindless action with little worthwhile storytelling is basically correct. The best stories I've ever encountered in a video game are at best on par with the writing of a good Stephen King book.
This is also true of 90% of the movies he reviews.
This post. Bar a couple of exceptions.
Ebert is however a good film reviewer. Whether you agree with his reviews is besides the point- I don't with many of them, and I still find the majority well-written.
Anyone who plays or watches the opening scenes of Half-Life 2 will instantly recognize the Wells/Orwell influences and the Eastern Bloc architecture, and may be sufficiently intrigued to give it a closer look. Players who delve deeper will quickly find a story that is rich, well-realized, and expertly presented, moving along at breakneck pace.
I've never had the urge to lime one sentence, then salmon the one right after, but here it is. Truly a day to remember.
Anyway, yeah, non-gamer presenting an opinion about things he has no intimate experience with, what else is new. I do like the few movie reviews of the guy I've read, if only because he praised Grave of The Fireflies. At least, I hope that was him, otherwise I just came across an idiot.
Again, these games have moments, instances of brilliance that evoke emotion and draw the player into the scene, or whatever it is art's supposed to do, and it is fair and proper to call these moments artful; to say that the game contains art. I'm just not sure if that makes the entire game art itself.
This exact same thing can be said of movies, books, paintings, songs, and whatever else people want to call art. Just because people do shitty things with the medium doesn't mean the entire medium has to swear off of the "art" label.
Anyone who plays or watches the opening scenes of Half-Life 2 will instantly recognize the Wells/Orwell influences and the Eastern Bloc architecture, and may be sufficiently intrigued to give it a closer look. Players who delve deeper will quickly find a story that is rich, well-realized, and expertly presented, moving along at breakneck pace.
I've never had the urge to lime one sentence, then salmon the one right after, but here it is. Truly a day to remember.
Well, okay, the second bit is arguable. But I am playing through it again right now and, frankly, I can't think of many games with better presentation than this. Frantic action sequences lead gracefully into puzzles or exploration, and the player is consistently rewarded for succeeding with a breathtaking change in scenery, or an entertaining dialogue scene that advances the plot. The story, even if you aren't a fan, is at least written well enough that advancement really does feel like a reward, rather than an interruption. I rarely find myself getting bored or fatigued because they switch up the gameplay so frequently and rarely linger too long on any one area, and Valve further refines this carrot-and-stick formula in the Episodes, which are deliberately edited for pacing like a Hollywood thriller. This is the state of the art, and I think if Ebert were to try it he might change his opinion of our hobby.
Anyone who plays or watches the opening scenes of Half-Life 2 will instantly recognize the Wells/Orwell influences and the Eastern Bloc architecture, and may be sufficiently intrigued to give it a closer look. Players who delve deeper will quickly find a story that is rich, well-realized, and expertly presented, moving along at breakneck pace.
I've never had the urge to lime one sentence, then salmon the one right after, but here it is. Truly a day to remember.
Well, okay, the second bit is arguable. But I am playing through it again right now and, frankly, I can't think of many games with better presentation than this. Frantic action sequences lead gracefully into puzzles or exploration, and the player is consistently rewarded for succeeding with a breathtaking change in scenery, or an entertaining dialogue scene that advances the plot. The story, even if you aren't a fan, is at least written well enough that advancement really does feel like a reward, rather than an interruption. I rarely find myself getting bored or fatigued because they switch up the gameplay so frequently and rarely linger too long on any one area, and Valve further refines this carrot-and-stick formula in the Episodes, which are deliberately edited for pacing like a Hollywood thriller. This is the state of the art, and I think if Ebert were to try it he might change his opinion of our hobby.
I think you give too much credit to people entrenched in their outdated beliefs.
Houk on
0
mntorankusuI'm not sure how to use this thing....Registered Userregular
Ebert's assumption that most video games are mindless action with little worthwhile storytelling is basically correct. The best stories I've ever encountered in a video game are at best on par with the writing of a good Stephen King book.
This is also true of 90% of the movies he reviews.
This post. Bar a couple of exceptions.
I think this is true too, but, I don't think it really matters.
For a game, it's a lot easier for it to make me feel emotion than a movie. Because in a game, the events aren't happening to characters that you will see for two hours of your life. They are happening to a character (or characters) that you personally control, that you "are", often for days, weeks or even months before you finish a game.
Because of that, it's pretty easy for me to let less-than-perfect writing or storytelling slide when I really get into a game. Movies have a higher bar for storytelling because they don't have that advantage.
Again, these games have moments, instances of brilliance that evoke emotion and draw the player into the scene, or whatever it is art's supposed to do, and it is fair and proper to call these moments artful; to say that the game contains art. I'm just not sure if that makes the entire game art itself.
This exact same thing can be said of movies, books, paintings, songs, and whatever else people want to call art. Just because people do shitty things with the medium doesn't mean the entire medium has to swear off of the "art" label.
But the problem is still determining what art is, and why a gamer would want gaming to be considered that. Is there some societal merit that comes with being considered art, or is it just a semantic hurdle to clear? Do we want games to be called art just because we think that makes it more legitimate somehow? Would calling games art change the problems that the industry faces? Would that stop idiotic "experts" from blaming the latest homicidal rampage on Halo? Would we start cranking out shitty Psychonauts clones every other day instead of shitty Half-Life clones?
I'm not arguing games shouldn't be called art, although I do feel the term is imprecise at best and probably not the best way to describe a game's quality. I'm just asking why it matters so much. Art can suck, too.
Hitman game has bad writing though. It's like an R rated version of a bargain bin comic book except with better guns. I mean with that as source material what kind of movie can you make?
Again, these games have moments, instances of brilliance that evoke emotion and draw the player into the scene, or whatever it is art's supposed to do, and it is fair and proper to call these moments artful; to say that the game contains art. I'm just not sure if that makes the entire game art itself.
This exact same thing can be said of movies, books, paintings, songs, and whatever else people want to call art. Just because people do shitty things with the medium doesn't mean the entire medium has to swear off of the "art" label.
But the problem is still determining what art is, and why a gamer would want gaming to be considered that. Is there some societal merit that comes with being considered art, or is it just a semantic hurdle to clear? Do we want games to be called art just because we think that makes it more legitimate somehow? Would calling games art change the problems that the industry faces? Would that stop idiotic "experts" from blaming the latest homicidal rampage on Halo? Would we start cranking out shitty Psychonauts clones every other day instead of shitty Half-Life clones?
I'm not arguing games shouldn't be called art, although I do feel the term is imprecise at best and probably not the best way to describe a game's quality. I'm just asking why it matters so much. Art can suck, too.
Well the problem of "what is art" has been around as long as mankind has, and isn't gonna be answered anytime soon. Games are an expressive, creative medium where a creator can explore themes and ideas and allow participants to share those events. This tells me that art is possible in games. Whether gamers want it to be called art doesn't matter any more than whether or not movie-goers want to call film art. It IS art, or at least is capable of it.
And it is extremely important for games to fight for the classification of art, because without that games will forever be exposed to the risk of being deemed legally "obscene", which can lead to censorship, editing, or banning. So for that alone, it's not just semantics at all.
He's totally right about Le Samourai. If you enjoy playing the hitman games for the design aesthetic of being a lone wolf gunman who says very little and is extremely methodical, you'll probably like Le Samourai.
He's totally right about Le Samourai. If you enjoy playing the hitman games for the design aesthetic of being a lone wolf gunman who says very little and is extremely methodical, you'll probably like Le Samourai.
The Criterion edition is very good. Rent it.
Le Samourai is awesome, they should totally make a hitman style semi-RPG hybrid based on the concept.
Games in general could do with minimalist plots that are somewhat smartly written, as opposed to bad comic book/saturday morning cartoonwriting.
No, they shouldn't. They should leave it the hell alone, because Alain Delon's performance makes the film and it'd be boring as shit as a game.
Here's something that a lot of people seem to miss: Adaptations are shit 99% of the time, and that goes doubly for conversions between movies and film.
A lot of which people? Gamers have been screaming that since Ocean conversions at the start of the 90s.
The problem most conversions make is to either completely ignore the source or stick too closely to what only works in its own medium. Cue PA's "and then the harvester went out and brought back another load of tiberium" comic.
But the problem is still determining what art is, and why a gamer would want gaming to be considered that. Is there some societal merit that comes with being considered art, or is it just a semantic hurdle to clear? Do we want games to be called art just because we think that makes it more legitimate somehow? Would calling games art change the problems that the industry faces? Would that stop idiotic "experts" from blaming the latest homicidal rampage on Halo? Would we start cranking out shitty Psychonauts clones every other day instead of shitty Half-Life clones?
(Hope I clipped that out of the quote tree with the right tags intact, but anyway)
Thing with art is, it's really not up to us what art is. It's up to somebody fifty years or more likely a century from now. A century ago, books were just as prolific as they are now - any given week you could go buy a newly published book, likely several. However, a common representative selection of late 19th Century literature given today is unlikely to include so many as fifty books. What happened to the rest? What happened to the heaps and bins of tripe that human creativity has been crapping onto paper for the last millennium?
The old books, music, and even some of the very early film that we use as the hallmarks of the art form today have no relation to what was popular then. A lot of the most popular music is all but forgotten, or is considered a poor representation of its time, or inferior to the stuff nobody listened to but we remember so fondly now. What we consider to be the greatest music of past ages was very often poorly received in its own century.
We're already seeing this sort of thing in video games. There was a thread in this very forum not long ago about "bad graphics means better games, no exceptions." A lot of people do make arguments like that, and can typically cite a dozen games to prove it. Never mind that those games shared the shelves with some of the most unplayable crap ever to get released, the fact that no more than 10% of new games are as good as the 10% of old games I actually remember proves that the medium is getting worse.
When history hands down its verdict (and a lot of us will probably be glad we're dead and not around to care), that'll fix the industry's problems. By then it'll be too late, and the video game industry will be a different entity than it is today, and all the scholars studying the field will be talking about how much worse games are now - just look at the superior artistic merit of this exhaustive collection of seven games covering the first thirty years of electronic entertainment!
A century ago, books were just as prolific as they are now - any given week you could go buy a newly published book, likely several. However, a common representative selection of late 19th Century literature given today is unlikely to include so many as fifty books. What happened to the rest? What happened to the heaps and bins of tripe that human creativity has been crapping onto paper for the last millennium?
Actually, books were much less prolific a century ago. I wish I had the exact numbers (it was one of those one-line information bits on the bottom of a page of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, so unless I want to check every page of the book it'd be pretty hard to find) but iirc it was something like hundreds of thousands of books then versus millions of books now. Granted it was counting every unique book being published, including ones written a century ago, but the numbers were so disparate that even assuming every book from a hundred years ago was still in circulation there are many more now.
A century ago, books were just as prolific as they are now - any given week you could go buy a newly published book, likely several. However, a common representative selection of late 19th Century literature given today is unlikely to include so many as fifty books. What happened to the rest? What happened to the heaps and bins of tripe that human creativity has been crapping onto paper for the last millennium?
Actually, books were much less prolific a century ago. I wish I had the exact numbers (it was one of those one-line information bits on the bottom of a page of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, so unless I want to check every page of the book it'd be pretty hard to find) but iirc it was something like hundreds of thousands of books then versus millions of books now. Granted it was counting every unique book being published, including ones written a century ago, but the numbers were so disparate that even assuming every book from a hundred years ago was still in circulation there are many more now.
I've seen the numbers. It's on the order of several thousand books published per year. Now, granted, today's output is on the order of many tens of thousands of books per year, but this isn't so much due to an increase in output, it's an increase in the number of authors and readers.
The 19th Century saw many writer's clubs. There were enough writers in existence that they could congregate and talk about writing. It also saw the rise of magazines in the style of the old Reader's Digest (Not the current form, I'm talking about the hard-cover monthly they used to publish aside from the magazine as we know it) to carry much of it. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories were largely published this way in The Strand, and hundreds if not thousands of authors lay dead and forgotten in their pages.
He's totally right about Le Samourai. If you enjoy playing the hitman games for the design aesthetic of being a lone wolf gunman who says very little and is extremely methodical, you'll probably like Le Samourai.
The Criterion edition is very good. Rent it.
Y'know, I bought a copy earlier this week, just before this review came out.
Posts
Quit trying to disguise your campaign to get people to think Halo sucks as it being somehow relevant to this argument. Seriously, you just come across as a pompous asshole who thinks he's superior because he doesn't like something popular. Ebert doesn't know two shits about video games. He's never played one. He only knows about them from the crappy movies that have gotten made from them. He and his ilk would not change their opinion no matter what game was popular because they won't play them and thus have no clue what they're about.
I'm conjecturing that people's chief exposure to gaming is currently by way of TV ads and media coverage for violent action titles such as Halo 3 and Gears of War. Putting myself in the shoes of someone who has never played a videogame, I would be turned off from them mainly because it seems as though they're all just mindless bug hunts. If games like Okami or Wind Waker, which come across as actual art on a more visceral level, got more mainstream exposure then people might be more inclined to give them a try, and would then see for themselves just how much real artistry goes into every video game.
I don't know how much more plainly I can put this. This is just my opinion on why Roger Ebert, and pretty much everyone else who doesn't play games, thinks they aren't art. I'm not trying to hijack this into a halo sucks thread, and again, I don't think Halo sucks.
And I bet he does eat babies
Then you should have chosen Okami as your example in your original post. If you feel that on that they are viewing video games as nothing but a bunch of sci fi shooters then you might have a point. It's just that your counterexamples were Mass Effect and Half-Life 2 which to someone who has played neither and knows little of video games will view them no differently then they view Halo. In fact, since Half-Life's story is much more subtle, it would appear even worse.
But there is more to simulate and manipulate than fear. Shadow of the Collosus' ending is not a cutscene, although it may look like one. It's real purpose is to finally capitalize on the emotional misdirection that the game is designed upon. Anyone who has played the game should realize that the last user input before the credits roll is what the entire game was set up to do. Instincts that the game builds in the player over the course of the game are expressly countered by what the game makes the player do to win. There's no need for multiple endings, or losing directorial control of the story by giving the player too much freedom. The experience is unlike anything else I've seen in a game.
And there is simply no way to do that with film. Show me as many closeups of a protagonist's face when they struggle with an emotional decision. It will never come close to making me actually the one to struggle with my own emotions.
Yes, I do think it's true that if Ebert sat down with Okami or Shadow of the Collosus, he would be all like, "Holy shit, this is sweet!"
In Shadow of the Collosus, I actually cried when
So I tear up in emotional scenes sometimes, wanna fight about it?
Mass Effect's appeal might be more limited, but if the viewer is a fan of space operas like Star Trek and BSG they too might be compelled to give it a try, although it is admittedly not the best example thanks to BioWare's wacky controls which would quickly frustrate most casual players.
I'm my own movie critic. I don't need you to tell me Epic Movie sucked. I could tell.
So Ebert can suck a fuck.
If someone made a fantastic motion picture out of, say, Half-Life, or Okami, or Shadow of the Colossus, or Legacy of Kain, or Killer7, or Eternal Darkness (or...), and then showed it to Roger Ebert, he'd still hate it based solely on the fact that it's a game movie.
If we could somehow keep him in a vacuum and completely unaware that the movie is based on a game, he would do a fair review of the movie.
If, after it's published, we informed him that it's based on a game, he would retract his review and immediately have nothing good to say about the movie.
The man is stubborn and biased. He will have nothing to do with games no matter the quality. If you sat him down in front of Okami, even if you just let him watch while someone else played, he'd still hate it just because it's a game. The thing we need to do, is let him and people of his generation die off, and have critics of our generation who hold no bias against games become popular. Then game movies will become as ubiquitous and acceptable as comicbook movies are now (don't forget that nobody in Hollywood respected the genre of comicbook movies until the first Superman movie came out. And conservative minds refused to call comics art, too.)
It's just a product of the times. Roger Ebert is old, and all those new fascinating things that we love are threatening and scary to him. Eventually we'll have our Superman, and it'll all be an easy slope after that.
I get a little leery when someone points to, say, Bioshock or Metal Gear Solid as evidence that games can be art. They certainly have high concepts behind them, but in defining the whole package you're lumping the good with the bad. In calling MGS art, you're saying the excessive narration and questionable plot devices are art. In calling Bioshock art, you're saying Frank Fontaine and an unnecessary escort mission are art.
Again, these games have moments, instances of brilliance that evoke emotion and draw the player into the scene, or whatever it is art's supposed to do, and it is fair and proper to call these moments artful; to say that the game contains art. I'm just not sure if that makes the entire game art itself.
Now playing: Teardown and Baldur's Gate 3 (co-op)
Sunday Spotlight: Horror Tales: The Wine
I don't know what someone gains by pretending it's not valid. it's not trying to step on the toes of movies.
Good God, you speak his language.
This post. Bar a couple of exceptions.
Ebert is however a good film reviewer. Whether you agree with his reviews is besides the point- I don't with many of them, and I still find the majority well-written.
Anyway, yeah, non-gamer presenting an opinion about things he has no intimate experience with, what else is new. I do like the few movie reviews of the guy I've read, if only because he praised Grave of The Fireflies. At least, I hope that was him, otherwise I just came across an idiot.
Man how did that pass me by.
MKDS Friend Code: 476-802-986-689
AC:WW Friend Code:3823-1420-6253
Pokemon Friend Code: 3222 2050 0417
I think this is true too, but, I don't think it really matters.
For a game, it's a lot easier for it to make me feel emotion than a movie. Because in a game, the events aren't happening to characters that you will see for two hours of your life. They are happening to a character (or characters) that you personally control, that you "are", often for days, weeks or even months before you finish a game.
Because of that, it's pretty easy for me to let less-than-perfect writing or storytelling slide when I really get into a game. Movies have a higher bar for storytelling because they don't have that advantage.
But the problem is still determining what art is, and why a gamer would want gaming to be considered that. Is there some societal merit that comes with being considered art, or is it just a semantic hurdle to clear? Do we want games to be called art just because we think that makes it more legitimate somehow? Would calling games art change the problems that the industry faces? Would that stop idiotic "experts" from blaming the latest homicidal rampage on Halo? Would we start cranking out shitty Psychonauts clones every other day instead of shitty Half-Life clones?
I'm not arguing games shouldn't be called art, although I do feel the term is imprecise at best and probably not the best way to describe a game's quality. I'm just asking why it matters so much. Art can suck, too.
Now playing: Teardown and Baldur's Gate 3 (co-op)
Sunday Spotlight: Horror Tales: The Wine
And it is extremely important for games to fight for the classification of art, because without that games will forever be exposed to the risk of being deemed legally "obscene", which can lead to censorship, editing, or banning. So for that alone, it's not just semantics at all.
The Criterion edition is very good. Rent it.
Le Samourai is awesome, they should totally make a hitman style semi-RPG hybrid based on the concept.
Games in general could do with minimalist plots that are somewhat smartly written, as opposed to bad comic book/saturday morning cartoonwriting.
Here's something that a lot of people seem to miss: Adaptations are shit 99% of the time, and that goes doubly for conversions between movies and film.
The problem most conversions make is to either completely ignore the source or stick too closely to what only works in its own medium. Cue PA's "and then the harvester went out and brought back another load of tiberium" comic.
(Hope I clipped that out of the quote tree with the right tags intact, but anyway)
Thing with art is, it's really not up to us what art is. It's up to somebody fifty years or more likely a century from now. A century ago, books were just as prolific as they are now - any given week you could go buy a newly published book, likely several. However, a common representative selection of late 19th Century literature given today is unlikely to include so many as fifty books. What happened to the rest? What happened to the heaps and bins of tripe that human creativity has been crapping onto paper for the last millennium?
The old books, music, and even some of the very early film that we use as the hallmarks of the art form today have no relation to what was popular then. A lot of the most popular music is all but forgotten, or is considered a poor representation of its time, or inferior to the stuff nobody listened to but we remember so fondly now. What we consider to be the greatest music of past ages was very often poorly received in its own century.
We're already seeing this sort of thing in video games. There was a thread in this very forum not long ago about "bad graphics means better games, no exceptions." A lot of people do make arguments like that, and can typically cite a dozen games to prove it. Never mind that those games shared the shelves with some of the most unplayable crap ever to get released, the fact that no more than 10% of new games are as good as the 10% of old games I actually remember proves that the medium is getting worse.
When history hands down its verdict (and a lot of us will probably be glad we're dead and not around to care), that'll fix the industry's problems. By then it'll be too late, and the video game industry will be a different entity than it is today, and all the scholars studying the field will be talking about how much worse games are now - just look at the superior artistic merit of this exhaustive collection of seven games covering the first thirty years of electronic entertainment!
He's totally serious, I remember when he posted about it on the forum.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Actually, books were much less prolific a century ago. I wish I had the exact numbers (it was one of those one-line information bits on the bottom of a page of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, so unless I want to check every page of the book it'd be pretty hard to find) but iirc it was something like hundreds of thousands of books then versus millions of books now. Granted it was counting every unique book being published, including ones written a century ago, but the numbers were so disparate that even assuming every book from a hundred years ago was still in circulation there are many more now.
I've seen the numbers. It's on the order of several thousand books published per year. Now, granted, today's output is on the order of many tens of thousands of books per year, but this isn't so much due to an increase in output, it's an increase in the number of authors and readers.
The 19th Century saw many writer's clubs. There were enough writers in existence that they could congregate and talk about writing. It also saw the rise of magazines in the style of the old Reader's Digest (Not the current form, I'm talking about the hard-cover monthly they used to publish aside from the magazine as we know it) to carry much of it. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories were largely published this way in The Strand, and hundreds if not thousands of authors lay dead and forgotten in their pages.
Y'know, I bought a copy earlier this week, just before this review came out.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
0431-6094-6446-7088