Since you are currently browsing The Escapist it would be natural of me to assume that you think that games are and can be art. You probably also agree with me that games are an immature artform that has yet to meet it's golden age. Other artforms have matured over decades and centuries and none of them reached their highest point quickly.
Game developers often don't like to acknowledge that they can learn a lot from their peers in other artforms. But I think they can and should if gaming is ever gonna be accepted by the general public as art. So I decided to share with you four movies I love and what I think the games industry can learn from them.
The Matrix
A revolutionary masterpiece that more then any other creation describes the Internet age. The movie is essentially about freedom, which is what the Internet is about. Probably the most philosophically relevant movie of the last 10 years it dives more deeply into themes that the videogames only scratch the surface. Another important part of the movie was naturally the special effects. But they themselves weren't important, it was how they are used to further express the themes of the movie.
The first time Morpheus and Neo speak Morpheus told moviegoers worldwide of something they had never heard before, they were told that the world they lived in was a conformist nightmare, that something was wrong with it. The idea of freedom from the current rules of society was once again born in the minds of people. No game so far can brag to have reached depth even close to this, an almost spiritual experience that tells us so much about ourselves.
Critics went bananas over Bioshock, copies were placed on Ayn Rand's grave and somehow we celebrated our own depth. But the game has two grave failings that hold it back from being a serious work of art. Firstly it doesn't really dive deeply into the subjects presented, sure it shows them, parades them in front of our eyes. But does it really provoke deep thought about financial systems and social structures? Hardly. Secondly it doesn't expand on it's own ideas, it just shows the ideas of others. Ken Levine might have read Atlas Shrugged, but he doesn't have anything more to say about it. Maybe I am being unfair, most game designers focus on telling a story, not philosophizing. But how can gaming ever been taken seriously as an artform if we don't try to tell the world something?
Kill Bill (Volume 1 & 2)
Both movies were insane trips through the land of awesomeness. The story of Beatrix Kiddo a member of the “Deadly Vipers Assassination Squad” who goes on a journey of revenge against her former squadmates and master after they kill her husband and unborn child. The movie is extremely stylized and exaggerated but manages to never feel weird.
What really makes this movie is it's style, sexiness and the way it catches you on unawares. So many times it just left me flabbergasted (when she enters Bill's house in the ends of two) by Tarantino's creativity. This is actually one of gamings strongest points, there are a lot of extremely creative game developers out there (Hideo Kojima, Sudo 51, Tim Schaefer) that make highly stylized games. Fellows like these are definitely on the right path and I expect great things in the year's to come. To be honest Grim Fandango would be number 6 on my list if it was a movie. I want more of this in game.
But sexiness in game's is often pathetic. In my eyes Uma Thurman in Kill Bill was and is the sexiest thing ever, I am aware that sex appeal is something highly subjective most game seem to go for voluptuous (thank god for spellcheck) instead of graceful. There is naturally technical limitations here, an actor/actress will always look better then a computer rendered imagine (technology might be able to create satisfactory animations in a few years). Alyx Vance is the constant example for sexiness in a game and a good one at that. What really gives her the wow-factor is her body language and brilliant voice acting. But comparing her to Thurman standing above a room of slaughtered people yelling at them she pales in comparison. I don't really have anything to say that Colin Rowsell didn't already say in his brilliant article: A Wink is as Good as a Pixelated Nipple.
Goodbye Lenin
This is definitely my favorite movie and if you haven't seen it (which you probably haven't) you sure have missed out on something special. The story is about a family in East Berlin during the year of 1989-90. In the beginning the mother in the family (a idealistic communist) sees her son protesting against the government and suffers a heart-attack from the shock and later falls into a coma. She wakes up after the wall has fallen and the doctor says she cannot experience any shocks or she will die. So her two grown children spend the next months fooling her that the wall never fell.
It focuses a lot on the son and how much he cares about his mother, but also what the fall of communism meant for the people living under it and how lost many of them felt afterwards. The movie induces much more emotion then any game I have ever played and is incredibly heartwarming. Games aren't completely incompetent at pulling at our heartstrings, both Mass Effect and Half-Life 2: Episode 2 made me shed tears and I know that quite a few FF games stirred quite a few cold souls. But rarely do we feel anything strong but grief in games, this is quite natural since most games are about destroying things. But what about a game where I take care of my mother, where I sacrifice myself to save others, where I just try to wrap my head around the world. Sure, games let us live out our fantasies in crazy worlds, but what about games that focus on human emotion. Even the most emotional games don't focus on emotion, it might be a big part of the experience but not the central theme. Maybe instead of just providing escapism games can tell us something about ourselfs.
Jurassic Park
Rich Scotsman creates dinosaurs, dinosaurs eat Americans, best movie ever made.
What can games learn from this? Having dinosaurs eat people fits into every possible situation and always is awesome.
In conclusion
I don't want every game to be about philosophy or craziness or emotion, but I want more games like that. I also want dinosaurs in every game, no exceptions.
Since you are currently browsing The Escapist it would be natural of me to assume that you think that games are and can be art. You probably also agree with me that games are an immature artform that has yet to meet it's golden age. Other artforms have matured over decades and centuries and none of them reached their highest point quickly.
Game developers often don't like to acknowledge that they can learn a lot from their peers in other artforms. But I think they can and should if gaming is ever gonna be accepted by the general public as art. So I decided to share with you four movies I love and what I think the games industry can learn from them.
The Matrix
A revolutionary masterpiece that more then any other creation describes the Internet age. The movie is essentially about freedom, which is what the Internet is about. Probably the most philosophically relevant movie of the last 10 years it dives more deeply into themes that the videogames only scratch the surface. Another important part of the movie was naturally the special effects. But they themselves weren't important, it was how they are used to further express the themes of the movie.
The first time Morpheus and Neo speak Morpheus told moviegoers worldwide of something they had never heard before, they were told that the world they lived in was a conformist nightmare, that something was wrong with it. The idea of freedom from the current rules of society was once again born in the minds of people. No game so far can brag to have reached depth even close to this, an almost spiritual experience that tells us so much about ourselves.
Critics went bananas over Bioshock, copies were placed on Ayn Rand's grave and somehow we celebrated our own depth. But the game has two grave failings that hold it back from being a serious work of art. Firstly it doesn't really dive deeply into the subjects presented, sure it shows them, parades them in front of our eyes. But does it really provoke deep thought about financial systems and social structures? Hardly. Secondly it doesn't expand on it's own ideas, it just shows the ideas of others. Ken Levine might have read Atlas Shrugged, but he doesn't have anything more to say about it. Maybe I am being unfair, most game designers focus on telling a story, not philosophizing. But how can gaming ever been taken seriously as an artform if we don't try to tell the world something?
Kill Bill (Volume 1 & 2)
Both movies were insane trips through the land of awesomeness. The story of Beatrix Kiddo a member of the “Deadly Vipers Assassination Squad” who goes on a journey of revenge against her former squadmates and master after they kill her husband and unborn child. The movie is extremely stylized and exaggerated but manages to never feel weird.
What really makes this movie is it's style, sexiness and the way it catches you on unawares. So many times it just left me flabbergasted (when she enters Bill's house in the ends of two) by Tarantino's creativity. This is actually one of gamings strongest points, there are a lot of extremely creative game developers out there (Hideo Kojima, Sudo 51, Tim Schaefer) that make highly stylized games. Fellows like these are definitely on the right path and I expect great things in the year's to come. To be honest Grim Fandango would be number 6 on my list if it was a movie. I want more of this in game.
But sexiness in game's is often pathetic. In my eyes Uma Thurman in Kill Bill was and is the sexiest thing ever, I am aware that sex appeal is something highly subjective most game seem to go for voluptuous (thank god for spellcheck) instead of graceful. There is naturally technical limitations here, an actor/actress will always look better then a computer rendered imagine (technology might be able to create satisfactory animations in a few years). Alyx Vance is the constant example for sexiness in a game and a good one at that. What really gives her the wow-factor is her body language and brilliant voice acting. But comparing her to Thurman standing above a room of slaughtered people yelling at them she pales in comparison. I don't really have anything to say that Colin Rowsell didn't already say in his brilliant article: A Wink is as Good as a Pixelated Nipple.
Goodbye Lenin
This is definitely my favorite movie and if you haven't seen it (which you probably haven't) you sure have missed out on something special. The story is about a family in East Berlin during the year of 1989-90. In the beginning the mother in the family (a idealistic communist) sees her son protesting against the government and suffers a heart-attack from the shock and later falls into a coma. She wakes up after the wall has fallen and the doctor says she cannot experience any shocks or she will die. So her two grown children spend the next months fooling her that the wall never fell.
It focuses a lot on the son and how much he cares about his mother, but also what the fall of communism meant for the people living under it and how lost many of them felt afterwards. The movie induces much more emotion then any game I have ever played and is incredibly heartwarming. Games aren't completely incompetent at pulling at our heartstrings, both Mass Effect and Half-Life 2: Episode 2 made me shed tears and I know that quite a few FF games stirred quite a few cold souls. But rarely do we feel anything strong but grief in games, this is quite natural since most games are about destroying things. But what about a game where I take care of my mother, where I sacrifice myself to save others, where I just try to wrap my head around the world. Sure, games let us live out our fantasies in crazy worlds, but what about games that focus on human emotion. Even the most emotional games don't focus on emotion, it might be a big part of the experience but not the central theme. Maybe instead of just providing escapism games can tell us something about ourselfs.
Jurassic Park
Rich Scotsman creates dinosaurs, dinosaurs eat Americans, best movie ever made.
What can games learn from this? Having dinosaurs eat people fits into every possible situation and always is awesome.
In conclusion
I don't want every game to be about philosophy or craziness or emotion, but I want more games like that. I also want dinosaurs in every game, no exceptions.