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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.
They are, but they really don't have to be, that's the frustration. As far as I can think, every game that's been adapted into a film has missed the point one wya or another. I personally didn't mind Silent Hill too much, but I can absolutely see why so many didn't like it. They nailed the atmosphere and visual style, but cocked up the story and its delivery. Then you get a guaranteed no-brainer action film like Doom should've been, about a portal to hell being opened up and zombies.. and let's make it about a virus and do everything we can to remove anything about the game that people enjoyed.
darleysam on
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mntorankusuI'm not sure how to use this thing....Registered Userregular
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.
They are, but they really don't have to be, that's the frustration. As far as I can think, every game that's been adapted into a film has missed the point one wya or another. I personally didn't mind Silent Hill too much, but I can absolutely see why so many didn't like it. They nailed the atmosphere and visual style, but cocked up the story and its delivery. Then you get a guaranteed no-brainer action film like Doom should've been, about a portal to hell being opened up and zombies.. and let's make it about a virus and do everything we can to remove anything about the game that people enjoyed.
Mortal Kombat is the only one I can think of that actually got it right. But, it was a long time ago.
Mortal Kombat was awesome.
mntorankusu on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
It makes me laugh that people defend this asshole by saying things like "Well, he only had to review bad videogame movies so far" or "Well he's a good film reviewer". First of all, he's not, but that's debatable and not the point. The point is that if you've only reviewed movies, even videogame movies, you need to shut the fuck up about actual video games until you have a god damn clue. This guy has no clue.
Ebert has been, throughout the last thirty or so years, been one of the most important voices we have in terms of film scholarship. He's the guy who dared to rate movies on how entertaining they were, rather than their esoteric corrolation to Jean Luc Goddard or Akira Kurosawa or whatever random pre-1975"master" most critics pull out to justify how some random unmemorable art film is better than Raiders of the Lost Ark. He knows about the masters, yes, and makes the connection, but he also knows that there's art in pleasing the audience. He often rates movies on whether they succeed at what they're trying to do, as opposed to comparing the film's quality compared to, say, Schindler's List or Remains of the Day. This was a big difference between him and Siskel, as Siskel was more of a "critical" critic, and Ebert the more populist. Roeper is, well, frankly, he's kind of a dolt who seems like he has seen a lot of movies, but hasn't studied them, but he keeps Ebert on the air, so whatever.
That said, he's of the wrong generation to truly understand or appreciate video gaming. They weren't designed for his sensibilities. My parents don't understand video games, either, but they pretend to be interested for my sake.
Ebert is also one of the best writers among film critics that we have. Pick up one of his review compilations at the bookstore and you'll see, the guy is entertaining. When I read his reviews, however, I never forget that he's human and has failings. He loves nudity in movies (he wrote Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, by god); he has a hard time admitting that that's why he likes certain movies because he enjoys being taken seriously by conservative culture and not being at the center of moral outrages, so it's sometimes labored when he reviews them.
Er, not that loving nudity is a failing. Heck, that's the first thing I look for when deciding on what film to see!
Anyway, I think that Ebert does have a point that, until something changes, like the public viewing games differently, or games taking more logical or realistic approaches to gaming (and we're on the way in both regards), they will not be considered by the public to be "real" art. I, too, would like to see his reaction to Mass Effect.
Miyamoto has said that he does not think games are art. Either way, I don't really care. I've never been interested in the concept of what defines art. It all just seems far too subjective to me.
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.
He did. Actually, he loves most of movies from Studio Ghibli.
I do like bringing up this response from N'Gai Croal after the Ebert vs Clive Barker thing from a while back.
edit: Miyamoto may say that, but while I consider games to be as legitimate a form of artistic expression as any other medium, I wouldn't class Mario as having the same goals as a game like BioShock, Half-Life 2 or Mass Effect.
I find that the film and video game industries are both vastly different and strikingly similar. But I don't think this gives Ebert any authority in saying that video games will never be art. I have a hard enough time listening to what movies he thinks are art.
There are three primary types of movies: movies that do something that has never been done before, movies that are highly pretentions because they force you to make connections and understand the big picture by having you understand something so very insignificant, and films that are entertaining. There can be a combination of all of these or just two.
I know it seems redundant to say this, but 2001: A Space Odyssey is the perfect example of all of these (at least, it's entertaining to me).
With video games, the art comes from how you interact with the world--how you play the game. I can understand why Ebert doesn't get this because I doubt he plays video games. I really would like to keep video games and movies separate because I love both so very much and I don't want them tainting one and other.
edit: Miyamoto may say that, but while I consider games to be as legitimate a form of artistic expression as any other medium, I wouldn't class Mario as having the same goals as a game like BioShock, Half-Life 2 or Mass Effect.
Well, I was mainly posting it because people were saying things like "He does not know shit about video games, so opinion is meaningless." I'm definitely not trying to paint Miyamoto as some infallible person, but he has the same in opinion and knows a great deal about games.
Also, why can't a game like Tetris be considered art? Why does it have to have a story before people start considering it art? It seems people are trying to define art the same way it is defined in movies/books, but a video game is neither. Why can't be it be defined on its own merit?
edit: Miyamoto may say that, but while I consider games to be as legitimate a form of artistic expression as any other medium, I wouldn't class Mario as having the same goals as a game like BioShock, Half-Life 2 or Mass Effect.
Well, I was mainly posting it because people were saying things like "He does not know shit about video games, so opinion is meaningless." I'm definitely not trying to paint Miyamoto as some infallible person, but he has the same in opinion and knows a great deal about games.
Also, why can't a game like Tetris be considered art? Why does it have to have a story before people start considering it art? It seems people are trying to define art the same way it is defined in movies/books, but a video game is neither. Why can't be it be defined on its own merit?
Maybe Tetris isn't art but is science, considering all the calculations going on some sites trying to determine stuff like perfect placement of blocks, endless games, and the sort?
I wouldn't say Tetris can't be considered art. I don't like saying "This game is art, this one isn't" just because one has a story or pretty, elaborate visuals, and one doesn't. They're both games.
I just meant that I'm not surprised Miyamoto doesn't consider games to be artistic, because I don't really see those kinds of values represented in his games. If you had someone like Ken Levine or Gabe Newell telling you that games will never be as emotionally involving as a film, or can't bear artistic merit, I would be more surprised.
edit: I'll clarify a bit. I don't like when someone says "Okami is art, look at those graphics". Well, no. I would say that its visuals contribute largely to its artistic merit, but that doesn't mean there's a line where one game is artistic becuase it looks like that, and another isn't because it doesn't. That's just design, leading to art.
Art is kind of subjective. I, for example, certainly don't consider most graffitis to be art, while some people do. I don't consider Pollock's "throw paint around"s to be art. Again, some people do. Which makes it even more stupid for Ebert to say that no game can be art ever based on some dogma he invented.
Djiem on
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VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
edit: Miyamoto may say that, but while I consider games to be as legitimate a form of artistic expression as any other medium, I wouldn't class Mario as having the same goals as a game like BioShock, Half-Life 2 or Mass Effect.
Well, I was mainly posting it because people were saying things like "He does not know shit about video games, so opinion is meaningless." I'm definitely not trying to paint Miyamoto as some infallible person, but he has the same in opinion and knows a great deal about games.
Also, why can't a game like Tetris be considered art? Why does it have to have a story before people start considering it art? It seems people are trying to define art the same way it is defined in movies/books, but a video game is neither. Why can't be it be defined on its own merit?
yess, this is how I view it. it's an experience, visual, aural, and it also responds to input. but no matter how nonexistant the story, the game can be made to get a reaction from you, emotionally. that's enough for me to call it art.
comic books deal with the same shit. in a way, TV does too. people, in general speak, don't call TV art, but it is. the word art has nothing to do with the quality.
So Roger Ebert (who is a critic I enjoy) is ignorant of video games. Everyone is ignorant of something. Everyone tries to make him sound like Hitler for saying some ignorant shit about video games. Who cares what he thinks? The man knows film, he doesn't know games. Why listen to him?
What's funny / stupid is that Ebert actually gave the Hitman movie 3 out of 4; so it's not just because his only exposure to video-games is bad adaptations of them.
I have been reading about Ebert this and Ebert that and it has been welling up in me that I should write an e-mail to him. Not "I HATE YOU DIE!" or "You SUXXORZ" or even "You are an uninformed douche." No. I cannot exactly tell you right now what I am going to write, but I hope he will at least take my e-mail into consideration. I think that it will be rather long, and I will spend the better part of the Saturday writing it.
It is not like I am making a declaration here, but I would really like for this "Ebert loves not Videogames" discussion to either end or, at least, shift planes on which we are currently moving in terms of debating the issue.
Your two cents covers the ticket to get into Crazy Town.
Seriously, he's just an old dude who is a convenient jumping-off point for a discussion about lack of critical recognition of video games outside the industry. Don't spend time writing him an e-mail he'll glance at and delete. It's not really necessary to change his mind in the first place.
What's funny / stupid is that Ebert actually gave the Hitman movie 3 out of 4; so it's not just because his only exposure to video-games is bad adaptations of them.
He's merely saying that what makes a good video game (a medium he doesn't really understand) and what makes a good movie (which he does understand) are different things.
Which is completely true.
He liked Hitman enough to give it 3 out of 4 because it doesn't completely dwell on what made the game successful (which was the assassination gameplay).
Like it or not, even the best-plotted and characterized video games (Max Payne 2, as an example) have stuff in them that is based on artificial factors (health restorers, powerups, guns lying around in strange locations) that really don't fly in movies. In those original sniper games where you could take out someone from 200 meters and the guy standing next to the dead man doesn't even notice his friend's head has an extra oriface, that would take you out of a movie and say "what the hell?"
Ebert knows movies, he doesn't know video games. Let's give the guy some credit when he sees something in a video game movie that doesn't make much sense to him and assumes that it's video game logic talking. House of the Dead anyone? No? Dead or Alive? Still nothing? Fine, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. Eat it, bitches!
Well, that's not fair. You're not bitches. But I am the product of a younger mentality than Mr. Ebert that would call someone "bitches" like that. Doesn't mean I can't appreciate the man for what he's an expert at. I don't expect Slash to teach me about classical music, but man can he dominate on rock guitar.
Well, that's not fair. You're not bitches. But I am the product of a younger mentality than Mr. Ebert that would call someone "bitches" like that. Doesn't mean I can't appreciate the man for what he's an expert at. I don't expect Slash to teach me about classical music, but man can he dominate on rock guitar.
I've never been a fan of that mentality.
"Sure he's a raving douchebag when it comes to this, but look at him over here!"
His views on video games demonstrate a lack of thought and consideration, which brings everything else he does in to question.
Artificial factors (health restorers, powerups, guns lying around in strange locations) that really don't fly in movies.
Hahaha.
You have obviously not watched the same films I have.
"If we run fast enough and are plot critical, of course all their bullets will conveiniently miss us!"
"They have hacked into our subnet mainframe server! They are now in control of our entire coms and weapons systems"
Pretty much the entirety of Swordfish.
Every secure server on the Internet has a backdoor, and cracking those is a simple matter of knowing the right nerd who knows the personal history of the security programmer and can therefore guess what the backdoor's password is.
Either that, or launch a green-binary-on-black screensaver for a few seconds. It will always grant you access.
Artificial factors (health restorers, powerups, guns lying around in strange locations) that really don't fly in movies.
Hahaha.
You have obviously not watched the same films I have.
"If we run fast enough and are plot critical, of course all their bullets will conveiniently miss us!"
"They have hacked into our subnet mainframe server! They are now in control of our entire coms and weapons systems"
Pretty much the entirety of Swordfish.
Honestly, without a wink-and-nod to inform the audience how meta you were being, I don't think anyone would notice that your hero conveniently finds a shotgun in a locker room. Movies are pretty inconsistently logical.
There are people out there that get no emotional rush or have no connection to the videogames that they play. That doesn't mean that they're out of touch, or that you should call into question all other emotional ties they have in their life. My dad, for instance, has probably played 2 hours of videogames in his entire life. He's an art collector, and watches oodles of movies. At no point would he say that videogames are art, because he has no connection to the medium, and no amount of playing will ever create one.
Ebert has said that his weakness is science-fiction movies. That's why he gave A.I. a great review despite it being awkward at best. He has a connection to sci-fi.
I, on the other hand, have played hundreds of hours of videogames, and 90% of the time, I have no emotional connection to the game because I usually don't care about the "DARKNESS HAS SWEPT OVER THE LAND" storyline. Okami has good design, and it's artistic, but I don't think the game on a whole should be held up as an example of high art in videogames.
I don't think videogames are art. You might, because you might have a lifelong emotional attachment to them. Hell, they practically raised an entire generation of children. Or maybe you just have a broad definition of art, whatever, I don't care. For me, they were, and continue to be, a fun diversion, like.. Monopoly.
Your two cents covers the ticket to get into Crazy Town.
Seriously, he's just an old dude who is a convenient jumping-off point for a discussion about lack of critical recognition of video games outside the industry. Don't spend time writing him an e-mail he'll glance at and delete. It's not really necessary to change his mind in the first place.
I think this is the sole problem with the whole debate.
Ebert - "Games aren't art"
Videogame defenders - "Games can be art because and look at that and we think you are uninformed"
But nobody ever said, or at least I cannot recall anyone ever saying, the following words:
*hands the controller*
"Here, have a go"
It is true that, as a critic, it is his job to have an informed opinion, but it is not exactly surprising that he has a bad one. He is, after all, a movie critic and if he sees a bad game-to-movie adaptation then he will not exactly go out of his way and burn through hundreds of games just to apologize to the gaming public that he was wrong. He is jaded. Have you ever been jaded by something?
I hate rap and hip-hop and I believe only the worst things about them. It has been so for a long time. But on the off-chance that I have had the pleasure to watch Samurai Champloo (WAIT! Come back, hear me out!) and I have experienced the positive side of those genres. The same thing is with "Raw, Raw, Fight da Powah!" Now, I still think that rap and hip-hop sucks, but it is mostly because of the lyrics that are mainly of the aggressive or bling-bling or "You don' love me" variety; however, I do not dismiss them as an appealing art form to other people. I would love to find an artist who sings about stuff that elevates, that bursts with emotion, that paints a canvas full of happiness. Sure, you can sing about the bleakness of reality, but that is not my cup of tea. If I want bleakness, I turn on the TV and watch news for five minutes, sometimes less.
This is why I like the "Raw, Raw" song. It is about motivating you to, literally, do the impossible, it invigorates to overcome your limits, to kick reason to the curb. It does not do the "Oh damn, my neighbourhood bloody sucks" spiel and makes you all moody and unpleasant to be with.
I admit that I am not a disco tiger and I am not fond of parties where this genre might have the most presence, but if there is a song from this very genre, which I hate and despise, that manages to change my opinion about it, then I sure as hell welcome the change.
There is one hidden side to my confession here and that is the fact that my change came from anime. I like anime. I am not a basement dweller with anime-girls pillows (I admit that the idea is pretty neat), but that does not stop from enjoying something that is simply good. The reason I am making this connection is because I was, more or less, forced to perceive it. I did not seek these anime based on whether they had connections with either rap or hip-hop. Up till then, I was quite happy being blissfully unaware of the potential these genres had. This is why I am quite positive that this is exactly the case with Roger Ebert - that he does not want to see, hear, and play games because he already knows about a small portion of it, and that small portion is enough for him to form his opinion that he thinks games cannot be art. He might have given other reasons, sometimes even valid ones, but the only reason he needs to shove them to the side is that he hates gaming - "a low-brow pastime of the youngest" (not his quote, but it is not a large stretch of the imagination to think that he would, indeed, say this).
Until he sits down and plays a game that we think is representative of the medium and what it can be, then nothing will change. I do not feel that he should agree with us as I respect other people's opinions. I do, however, think that if you try to be a judge of the whole filmmaking industry after seeing a few bad slash-fics, then I cannot idly sit by.
If he is willing to be challenged on our terms, if he is willing to ask us to show him the one game that we think is a great game, if he is willing to play it from the beginning to its very end, and if he is willing to, then, write what he thinks about the game, and I have to stress that, what he thinks about the game - I will respect that.
We, as a community, should reach out to him with a message of peace: "Give us a chance to prove ourselves and please play this game. Here, we will set everything up for you - just have fun."
If he says the game is great and there is untapped potential in this medium - I will respect that.
If he says the game is bad and his opinion has not changed - I will respect that.
But what I would respect the most is that he went out of his way to ask the fans of the medium he berated whether he is basing his opinion on "Wild College Girls" or "The Aviator" because I know that Ebert, for all the flak he is getting throughout the community, is not basing his opinions on his wild imagination, but exactly on "Wild College Girls - Hollywood."
And the one game I would consider a representative of the medium? Shadow of the Colossus. It basically challenges all the views he has expressed up 'till now on every conceivable level. I do not think that it is a 10/10 game. I think it is art. Even more, I think it is great art because only great art cannot be fully dismissed, no matter how much you hate it or what elaborate essays you write about it.
What Rogert Ebert needs to experience now is great art. We know he loves great art and maybe, just maybe, he will at least understand our position and why we stand so vehemently by the interactive medium.
This, basically, is my e-mail.
I hope there are no mistakes in the text. I tend to make mistakes when I am passionate (yes).
For myself, if movies and books are art then so are games. In select cases they have all managed to create an emotional connection with me that made them into something special. Of course, there are as many definitions of art as there are people, but this is the only one that actually matters to me. Semantic nitpicking like "well, you're CHANGING the narrative, so it's not art!" seem rather arbitrary and inconsequential in comparison.
I would honestly like to have a real and fair discussion with Ebert about games, the ones he has played and dismisses as 'low art', and why. I really get the impression that a lot of the games we'd tout about as good examples (just as one might suggest something like The Godfather or Schindler's List instead of Armageddon as a good example of a quality film), are ones that he's never seen nor heard of.
I think he played Call of Duty or Medal of Honor. And then some RPG. He played them specifically to experience the ir artistic value, and he said they had none, because (iirc) they felt more like really well crafted *games* (in the puzzle/brain occupier/monopoly/risk sense) than works of art.
I'd say it's at least true of a good number of games that come out. Doesn't mean it applies to a medium though. Also, constant combat, while fun and varied, isn't an overly artistically sound narrative device. RPG's are better about this but you're still ultimately spending the game switching between a couple different modes, and that's repetitive and inherently inhibits attempts at plotting and characterization. Oh sure, there is character development in games, but it's incredibly binary- it's never convincing when an RPG character turns evil, or is depressed or in love the way you can observe all these things in a nuanced fashion on, say, The Sopranos.
I think the main solution for that is to sort of strip down game plots, inject them with mood, and then go from there. Because that's what a lot of games seem to be missing- mood. There are infinite different things that you can convey by shooting the exact same object/location in a film, that doesn't seem to entirely translate to games. A city is just going to look, well, impressive, but sterile. That's changing this generation, even wtih the jaw dropping vistas in Halo 3, and definitely in GTA IV. They could stil go a lot further with the efect of perception in games though, imo. I think games should also embrace the opportunity to be non linear narratives- for example, an assassin game where you're just given a bunch of unrelated contracts at once, but some of the stuff will end up having bigger, plot driving consequences but others won't, but the way in which it all unfolds should be organic. i.e someone wants you dead, they send different people to different parts of the city. I'd say the crucial part to get right is to strike the balance between you being able to interact with the game world, and the game world NOT revolving around you more than basically necessary.
Personally, I think that while games can benefit miles from good, tasteful writing, their potential is ultimately different, but still exciting. I think Shenmue managed to create a sentinental portrait of a small but busy Japanese town in a way that not many movies really could.
I think that there is definitely one thing that needs to be done to make games feel more realistic. It must be something on the level of moving from 2D to 3D, from VHS to DVD, from black and white to colour.
We need to get rid of that bloody game over screen.
EDIT: And make plots better. How could I forget about plot?
I think that there is definitely one thing that needs to be done to make games feel more realistic. It must be something on the level of moving from 2D to 3D, from VHS to DVD, from black and white to colour.
We need to get rid of that bloody game over screen.
EDIT: And make plots better. How could I forget about plot?
Meh, plot is overrated.
I mean, plots as they are now do tend to suck. But Portal's "plot" was "think with portals!". It had maybe 4 events total. The environment made it, not the sequence of events being super-interesting in and of themselves.
Same with SoTC, actually. The plot was "kill these 16 things", but it was atmospheric and not really designed to keep you interested with plot elements.
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They are, but they really don't have to be, that's the frustration. As far as I can think, every game that's been adapted into a film has missed the point one wya or another. I personally didn't mind Silent Hill too much, but I can absolutely see why so many didn't like it. They nailed the atmosphere and visual style, but cocked up the story and its delivery. Then you get a guaranteed no-brainer action film like Doom should've been, about a portal to hell being opened up and zombies.. and let's make it about a virus and do everything we can to remove anything about the game that people enjoyed.
Mortal Kombat is the only one I can think of that actually got it right. But, it was a long time ago.
Mortal Kombat was awesome.
He's just a loud retard.
That said, he's of the wrong generation to truly understand or appreciate video gaming. They weren't designed for his sensibilities. My parents don't understand video games, either, but they pretend to be interested for my sake.
Ebert is also one of the best writers among film critics that we have. Pick up one of his review compilations at the bookstore and you'll see, the guy is entertaining. When I read his reviews, however, I never forget that he's human and has failings. He loves nudity in movies (he wrote Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, by god); he has a hard time admitting that that's why he likes certain movies because he enjoys being taken seriously by conservative culture and not being at the center of moral outrages, so it's sometimes labored when he reviews them.
Er, not that loving nudity is a failing. Heck, that's the first thing I look for when deciding on what film to see!
Anyway, I think that Ebert does have a point that, until something changes, like the public viewing games differently, or games taking more logical or realistic approaches to gaming (and we're on the way in both regards), they will not be considered by the public to be "real" art. I, too, would like to see his reaction to Mass Effect.
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He did. Actually, he loves most of movies from Studio Ghibli.
I do like bringing up this response from N'Gai Croal after the Ebert vs Clive Barker thing from a while back.
edit: Miyamoto may say that, but while I consider games to be as legitimate a form of artistic expression as any other medium, I wouldn't class Mario as having the same goals as a game like BioShock, Half-Life 2 or Mass Effect.
There are three primary types of movies: movies that do something that has never been done before, movies that are highly pretentions because they force you to make connections and understand the big picture by having you understand something so very insignificant, and films that are entertaining. There can be a combination of all of these or just two.
I know it seems redundant to say this, but 2001: A Space Odyssey is the perfect example of all of these (at least, it's entertaining to me).
With video games, the art comes from how you interact with the world--how you play the game. I can understand why Ebert doesn't get this because I doubt he plays video games. I really would like to keep video games and movies separate because I love both so very much and I don't want them tainting one and other.
Send a pm my way if you're interested.
What can a game like Shadow of the Colossus be called other than art?
Well, I was mainly posting it because people were saying things like "He does not know shit about video games, so opinion is meaningless." I'm definitely not trying to paint Miyamoto as some infallible person, but he has the same in opinion and knows a great deal about games.
Also, why can't a game like Tetris be considered art? Why does it have to have a story before people start considering it art? It seems people are trying to define art the same way it is defined in movies/books, but a video game is neither. Why can't be it be defined on its own merit?
Maybe Tetris isn't art but is science, considering all the calculations going on some sites trying to determine stuff like perfect placement of blocks, endless games, and the sort?
I just meant that I'm not surprised Miyamoto doesn't consider games to be artistic, because I don't really see those kinds of values represented in his games. If you had someone like Ken Levine or Gabe Newell telling you that games will never be as emotionally involving as a film, or can't bear artistic merit, I would be more surprised.
edit: I'll clarify a bit. I don't like when someone says "Okami is art, look at those graphics". Well, no. I would say that its visuals contribute largely to its artistic merit, but that doesn't mean there's a line where one game is artistic becuase it looks like that, and another isn't because it doesn't. That's just design, leading to art.
yess, this is how I view it. it's an experience, visual, aural, and it also responds to input. but no matter how nonexistant the story, the game can be made to get a reaction from you, emotionally. that's enough for me to call it art.
comic books deal with the same shit. in a way, TV does too. people, in general speak, don't call TV art, but it is. the word art has nothing to do with the quality.
SEMPERFI MOTHERFUCKER
Most games don't have artistic value.
A slightly bigger percentage of movies has artistic value.
It is not like I am making a declaration here, but I would really like for this "Ebert loves not Videogames" discussion to either end or, at least, shift planes on which we are currently moving in terms of debating the issue.
My two cents.
Seriously, he's just an old dude who is a convenient jumping-off point for a discussion about lack of critical recognition of video games outside the industry. Don't spend time writing him an e-mail he'll glance at and delete. It's not really necessary to change his mind in the first place.
Those are all wonderful.
He's merely saying that what makes a good video game (a medium he doesn't really understand) and what makes a good movie (which he does understand) are different things.
Which is completely true.
He liked Hitman enough to give it 3 out of 4 because it doesn't completely dwell on what made the game successful (which was the assassination gameplay).
Like it or not, even the best-plotted and characterized video games (Max Payne 2, as an example) have stuff in them that is based on artificial factors (health restorers, powerups, guns lying around in strange locations) that really don't fly in movies. In those original sniper games where you could take out someone from 200 meters and the guy standing next to the dead man doesn't even notice his friend's head has an extra oriface, that would take you out of a movie and say "what the hell?"
Ebert knows movies, he doesn't know video games. Let's give the guy some credit when he sees something in a video game movie that doesn't make much sense to him and assumes that it's video game logic talking. House of the Dead anyone? No? Dead or Alive? Still nothing? Fine, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. Eat it, bitches!
Well, that's not fair. You're not bitches. But I am the product of a younger mentality than Mr. Ebert that would call someone "bitches" like that. Doesn't mean I can't appreciate the man for what he's an expert at. I don't expect Slash to teach me about classical music, but man can he dominate on rock guitar.
I've never been a fan of that mentality.
"Sure he's a raving douchebag when it comes to this, but look at him over here!"
His views on video games demonstrate a lack of thought and consideration, which brings everything else he does in to question.
Hahaha.
You have obviously not watched the same films I have.
"If we run fast enough and are plot critical, of course all their bullets will conveiniently miss us!"
"They have hacked into our subnet mainframe server! They are now in control of our entire coms and weapons systems"
Pretty much the entirety of Swordfish.
Every secure server on the Internet has a backdoor, and cracking those is a simple matter of knowing the right nerd who knows the personal history of the security programmer and can therefore guess what the backdoor's password is.
Either that, or launch a green-binary-on-black screensaver for a few seconds. It will always grant you access.
Honestly, without a wink-and-nod to inform the audience how meta you were being, I don't think anyone would notice that your hero conveniently finds a shotgun in a locker room. Movies are pretty inconsistently logical.
I saw a tshirt recently that said "I am Banksy". Considered getting it, except I really don't like caption tshirts.
Ebert has said that his weakness is science-fiction movies. That's why he gave A.I. a great review despite it being awkward at best. He has a connection to sci-fi.
I, on the other hand, have played hundreds of hours of videogames, and 90% of the time, I have no emotional connection to the game because I usually don't care about the "DARKNESS HAS SWEPT OVER THE LAND" storyline. Okami has good design, and it's artistic, but I don't think the game on a whole should be held up as an example of high art in videogames.
I don't think videogames are art. You might, because you might have a lifelong emotional attachment to them. Hell, they practically raised an entire generation of children. Or maybe you just have a broad definition of art, whatever, I don't care. For me, they were, and continue to be, a fun diversion, like.. Monopoly.
It's all a matter of opinion anyway.
I think this is the sole problem with the whole debate.
Ebert - "Games aren't art"
Videogame defenders - "Games can be art because and look at that and we think you are uninformed"
But nobody ever said, or at least I cannot recall anyone ever saying, the following words:
*hands the controller*
"Here, have a go"
It is true that, as a critic, it is his job to have an informed opinion, but it is not exactly surprising that he has a bad one. He is, after all, a movie critic and if he sees a bad game-to-movie adaptation then he will not exactly go out of his way and burn through hundreds of games just to apologize to the gaming public that he was wrong. He is jaded. Have you ever been jaded by something?
I hate rap and hip-hop and I believe only the worst things about them. It has been so for a long time. But on the off-chance that I have had the pleasure to watch Samurai Champloo (WAIT! Come back, hear me out!) and I have experienced the positive side of those genres. The same thing is with "Raw, Raw, Fight da Powah!" Now, I still think that rap and hip-hop sucks, but it is mostly because of the lyrics that are mainly of the aggressive or bling-bling or "You don' love me" variety; however, I do not dismiss them as an appealing art form to other people. I would love to find an artist who sings about stuff that elevates, that bursts with emotion, that paints a canvas full of happiness. Sure, you can sing about the bleakness of reality, but that is not my cup of tea. If I want bleakness, I turn on the TV and watch news for five minutes, sometimes less.
This is why I like the "Raw, Raw" song. It is about motivating you to, literally, do the impossible, it invigorates to overcome your limits, to kick reason to the curb. It does not do the "Oh damn, my neighbourhood bloody sucks" spiel and makes you all moody and unpleasant to be with.
I admit that I am not a disco tiger and I am not fond of parties where this genre might have the most presence, but if there is a song from this very genre, which I hate and despise, that manages to change my opinion about it, then I sure as hell welcome the change.
There is one hidden side to my confession here and that is the fact that my change came from anime. I like anime. I am not a basement dweller with anime-girls pillows (I admit that the idea is pretty neat), but that does not stop from enjoying something that is simply good. The reason I am making this connection is because I was, more or less, forced to perceive it. I did not seek these anime based on whether they had connections with either rap or hip-hop. Up till then, I was quite happy being blissfully unaware of the potential these genres had. This is why I am quite positive that this is exactly the case with Roger Ebert - that he does not want to see, hear, and play games because he already knows about a small portion of it, and that small portion is enough for him to form his opinion that he thinks games cannot be art. He might have given other reasons, sometimes even valid ones, but the only reason he needs to shove them to the side is that he hates gaming - "a low-brow pastime of the youngest" (not his quote, but it is not a large stretch of the imagination to think that he would, indeed, say this).
Until he sits down and plays a game that we think is representative of the medium and what it can be, then nothing will change. I do not feel that he should agree with us as I respect other people's opinions. I do, however, think that if you try to be a judge of the whole filmmaking industry after seeing a few bad slash-fics, then I cannot idly sit by.
If he is willing to be challenged on our terms, if he is willing to ask us to show him the one game that we think is a great game, if he is willing to play it from the beginning to its very end, and if he is willing to, then, write what he thinks about the game, and I have to stress that, what he thinks about the game - I will respect that.
We, as a community, should reach out to him with a message of peace: "Give us a chance to prove ourselves and please play this game. Here, we will set everything up for you - just have fun."
If he says the game is great and there is untapped potential in this medium - I will respect that.
If he says the game is bad and his opinion has not changed - I will respect that.
But what I would respect the most is that he went out of his way to ask the fans of the medium he berated whether he is basing his opinion on "Wild College Girls" or "The Aviator" because I know that Ebert, for all the flak he is getting throughout the community, is not basing his opinions on his wild imagination, but exactly on "Wild College Girls - Hollywood."
And the one game I would consider a representative of the medium? Shadow of the Colossus. It basically challenges all the views he has expressed up 'till now on every conceivable level. I do not think that it is a 10/10 game. I think it is art. Even more, I think it is great art because only great art cannot be fully dismissed, no matter how much you hate it or what elaborate essays you write about it.
What Rogert Ebert needs to experience now is great art. We know he loves great art and maybe, just maybe, he will at least understand our position and why we stand so vehemently by the interactive medium.
This, basically, is my e-mail.
I hope there are no mistakes in the text. I tend to make mistakes when I am passionate (yes).
There is no TL;DR.
I'd say it's at least true of a good number of games that come out. Doesn't mean it applies to a medium though. Also, constant combat, while fun and varied, isn't an overly artistically sound narrative device. RPG's are better about this but you're still ultimately spending the game switching between a couple different modes, and that's repetitive and inherently inhibits attempts at plotting and characterization. Oh sure, there is character development in games, but it's incredibly binary- it's never convincing when an RPG character turns evil, or is depressed or in love the way you can observe all these things in a nuanced fashion on, say, The Sopranos.
I think the main solution for that is to sort of strip down game plots, inject them with mood, and then go from there. Because that's what a lot of games seem to be missing- mood. There are infinite different things that you can convey by shooting the exact same object/location in a film, that doesn't seem to entirely translate to games. A city is just going to look, well, impressive, but sterile. That's changing this generation, even wtih the jaw dropping vistas in Halo 3, and definitely in GTA IV. They could stil go a lot further with the efect of perception in games though, imo. I think games should also embrace the opportunity to be non linear narratives- for example, an assassin game where you're just given a bunch of unrelated contracts at once, but some of the stuff will end up having bigger, plot driving consequences but others won't, but the way in which it all unfolds should be organic. i.e someone wants you dead, they send different people to different parts of the city. I'd say the crucial part to get right is to strike the balance between you being able to interact with the game world, and the game world NOT revolving around you more than basically necessary.
Personally, I think that while games can benefit miles from good, tasteful writing, their potential is ultimately different, but still exciting. I think Shenmue managed to create a sentinental portrait of a small but busy Japanese town in a way that not many movies really could.
We need to get rid of that bloody game over screen.
EDIT: And make plots better. How could I forget about plot?
Meh, plot is overrated.
I mean, plots as they are now do tend to suck. But Portal's "plot" was "think with portals!". It had maybe 4 events total. The environment made it, not the sequence of events being super-interesting in and of themselves.
Same with SoTC, actually. The plot was "kill these 16 things", but it was atmospheric and not really designed to keep you interested with plot elements.