Both.
Cases in point: Borderlands, compared to Mass Effect.

Depends on the game, of course, but generally more intellectual.

Of course, I'm a biased source who can find Dynasty Warriors intellectually engaging, so I'm probably not the one to ask.

90% of games are intellectually engaging. Even button mashers require some amount of thought.

Ditto to Furbert. If it was purely mindless entertainment, it would be a fad that would eventually pass, like wrestling...oh wait...never mind.

Since gaming is a social thing now, it's an entirely different phenomenon from when I was a kid. My mother always thought gaming was anti-social. I remember when I couldn't get my sister's boyfriend and his best buddy to stop playing Mario Kart; I guess that showed her! Ha!

Gaming is all about interactivity, which is why its puzzles, much like its storylines, are never as deep as something you'd find in a (well written) movie, or in real life. I wouldn't say gaming is quite intellectual, not yet. Just don't tell that to the RPG crowd.

For a recent example: AC2 was intellectual in a condescending way. Expecting you did not know that... Leonardo da Vinci was an engineer as well as a painter, espresso was invented in Italy, and that swords are cool.

It highly depends on what game you are playing. Games like Portal require some thought while others require little, only to remember where shoot is on the controller.

It depends on the game.

An RTS is obviously going to be more intellectually-engaging than a hack-n-slash, but there are tactics involved in each game, no matter how slight they are or how ridiculous the game is.

Most everything can be considered "intellectually engaging", it all depends on what one takes of it. So, I don't really understand the question. Are you asking if games are supposed to be intellectually engaging? Most of them, sure. I'd say if you want extremes, look at Postal vs For The Glory. Yet, once you figure out For the Glory it can turn into mindless entertainment, and Postal can be fairly intellectually engaging if you care to look at it on that level.

I'd say both at the same time.

Spitfire175:
Shooters online are mindless.

RPGs nad RTSs require thinking. Just clicknig fast won't work with them.

Same with spelling, it seems...

a very definite both.

It really does depend on the game. Games like BioShock (probably the most intellectually-stimulating shooter I've ever played) and many RPGs, such as Final Fantasy VI and VII, and Dragon Age: Origins (if you want to make tough choices that actually take some thought without a generic good/bad slider, pick up Dragon Age). However, the online multiplayer frag-fests of Team Fortress 2 and Halo are pretty mindless. The only real thinking you need to do has to do with working as a team. While you may need to use your brain, games like this don't necessarily stimulate it intellectually.

Well here's one piece of PROOF that gaming can be intuecual.

When I was about 10 or something my mom asked if I wanted to drive the car a bit. I got into the drivers seat and instantly got really really nervose.

So when i was about 12-13 i really got into realistic driving games, you know GT5 is a great example, also the Dirt games where great. Sure Dirt isnt the most realistic game but its is still really realistic.

I played those games ALOT, like 27 hours a day (yes 27), and it was always in cockpit view.

So a bit ago when i was 13 my mom again asked if i wanted to drive the car abit. I said yes and sat right down into the drivers seat and i felt right at home, i drove around and thanks to my hours of playing simulations i knew when to brake and how hard and when to accelerate.

So yes, games CAN be intuecual.

well sometimes i find someone have an stimulating intellectualy descusion with them and belive well i guess some people are stupid good for nothing dips%$ts then try to talk to someone who says thier boining my mum so 50/50

Depends. Some games have given me headaches (mostly RTS, though Portal gave me a few headaches on a couple of the challenges), some are more target-fire-target-fire-target-fire-brain-death. Both are fine as far as I'm concerned - work gives me enough headaches, sometimes it's nice to come home and mow through people mindlessly.

sdepends which game.
FPS: mindless entertianment
RTS: intelectual

Evil Genius - World Domination Simulator

Tropico 3 - Dictatorship Simulator

Sims - CONTROLLING PEOPLE'S LIVES...BWAHAHAHAHA

TF2 - Spy - Stalking...like a panther...raawr!

I largely play tactical/stategic games, like the Total War series, so it's largely stimulating for me

Tekyro:

Spitfire175:
Shooters online are mindless.

RPGs nad RTSs require thinking. Just clicknig fast won't work with them.

Same with spelling, it seems...

Aye, very true. I just didn't bother to read the post this time, I was in a bit of a hurry. Thanks for pointing out the error.

I'd say it depends on the people playing more than the games itself, and that's true for any intellectual pursuit. I know plenty of people in my class who read the same material I did for our exams, and didn't grasp any of the intellectual points that I thought were bloody obvious. In the same vein, someone like me is a lot more likely to read deeper meaning into a game (whether it's there or not is up for debate) whereas someone who's only just in it for killstreaks and gore might consciously ignore anything deeper and get little to nothing out of it.

For example, I thought the story in Modern Warfare 2 was a quite obvious allegory for how the USA got into the War in Iraq, and so I thought the story was quite good and surprisingly intellectually engaging for a war game, but a lot of people didn't get the same message I did and, consequently, have called the story a pile of bullshit, maybe just because it's hard to think about the deeper context of a game when you're trying not to die every five seconds.

See what I mean? Some people are only in video games for mindless entertainment, and, if that's their prerogative, it's fine by me, but that doesn't make the game or gaming itself a mindless exercise; it just means that those people don't want to learn, or think about it. I mean, on even the most basic level, reading and mathematics have traditionally been a huge component of video games, back in the days of text-dialogue and health meters, but, beyond that, I find that video games are increasingly trying to offer more complex moral ideas and questions in their stories than I see in most mainstream media today, even if they're not always successful.

I think I would say a lot of games that I play are mindless... because I want them to be mindless.

But, the other games I play by myself are more intellectual and more about puzzles and strategy and thinking about everything Im doing while playing. Strangely, this can also apply to games that only seem like mindless violence... like God of War.

Im thinking about my attacks and what Im doing when I play that game. I thought I could just button mash when I played it at first... but that lasted only so long

Games I actually enjoy have a happy medium.

well FPS games can hep with hand eye co-ordination.

Rpg's can help with thinking ahead.

Games with money involved can help (a little) with being smart with your money. Like I can buy a crappy hand gun now or I can save up and get that awesome shotgun).

So yeah i think games can help you alot more than book can anyway.

I've heard books are printed with lead based inks aswell so that can damaged your health.

It definitely depends. And this isn't to say that mindlessness is bad, necessarily. After all, "Kindergarten Cop" might not be the smartest movie on the planet, but that doesn't make it any less awesome. Similarly, "Sonic the Hedgehog" or "Halo" may only be good for testing reflexes, with no challenging thoughts whatsoever, but they are still fun to play now and again. Meanwhile, there's games that are almost gut-wrenching in their emotional and intellectual complexity, like "Bioshock" or "Silent Hill 2." Like with everything, there's a rather broad spectrum, and it can't be shuttled off into one category or the other.

It depends. FPS: Mindless. RTS: Intellectually Engaging. A proper RPG: Intellectually Engaging. Fighting: Mindless.
The mindless games are more popular though.

Steven Johnson's "Everything Bad is Good For You" deals in part with this subject quite nicely. There, the author makes the point that the form more than the content makes video games intellectual.

As far as content goes, outside of our the rare Bioshock or Shadow of the Colossus, most games don't reach for intellectually challenging content. See, for example, the continued popularity of the Zelda and Mario series, which both basically boil down to "save the princess." However, a lot of game force us to think either by figuring out the game's logic (e.g. how can I exploit this enemy's AI pattern) or by making us perform nested-boxes and lattices of tasks (e.g. I've got to find this NPC so I can get the watering can, so I can grow a bomb plant, so I can knock down the bridge over the volcano...).

So we're (often) being challenged more on a problem-solving level than on a lit-analysis level. Of course, ideally, we'd get a good mix of both. XP

Silent Hill - Intellectually Engaging

Halo - Mindless Entertainment

NeutralDrow:
Depends on the game, of course, but generally more intellectual.

Of course, I'm a biased source who can find Dynasty Warriors intellectually engaging, so I'm probably not the one to ask.

Haha same, terrible game, but I now know ancient Chinese History back to front.

Depends on the game...For some recent and not-so-recent examples.

Int, Old: "The Longest Journey"

Int, New: "Dragon Age: Origins"

Mindless, Old: "Doom"

Mindless, New: "New Super Mario Bros. Wii"

It really depends on the game. For example;
Serious Sam? Mindless entertainment. Just plain ol' fun run and gun action.
Bioshock? Intellectually engaging. A look at an objectivist utopia gone horribly awry and what can happen when certain political theories and personal philosophies are taken to the extreme.

Macksheath:

Furburt:
It's both, and that's why I love it so.

This. Series like GTA are mindless fun, whereas Half-Life seems pretty thought provoking.

But GTA IV wasn't mindless! Or fun! ;)

... On topic: Yeah. The answer is both, clearly.

It can be either. It depends entirely on the game in question. The same can be said for films and books.

Masterstuffing:
'snip'

you got 69 posts lulz

um i try an make the games i play mindless but sometimes you have to think

Lets see what games can teach us:

Math
spelling and language skills
simple logic problems
organization skills
Hand eye co ordination

Not that all games can or do but a fair amount you can learn something. And you are probably more willing to learn since you are being entertained in the process.

RPGs are usually intellectually engaging for me, and even some FPSes. I even found GTA4 intellectually engaging, but that's probably because I look for that sort of thing everywhere.

I don't think games have purely been mindless fun since Galaga.

Abedeus:
Ninja Gaiden? 100% brain, 100% skill, 200% game for unholy demons from beyond the Void.

So, you have no standards? Cool.
It can be whatever you want it to be. Such is the nature of interactive entertainment.