Art as Human Expression and Philosophy in Video Games
Up there with the console versus PC debate (a topic I’ve promised not to go into… at least today) is the games as art debate. Are video games art? Even if most of them are not, is it possible for them to be? Usually the argument goes like this: not all games are art but many games are. They have detailed graphics, complex gameplay, and evoke emotional responses. These things (visuals, experience, emotion) are all things most art does. Therefore, they are art.
But to really answer this question, I think we need to consider what art is. In high school, we learned the pat, dictionary definition, usually similar to the one I just talked about for video games. But just about everything fits into that definition, including Picasso’s abstract work, and he went gone on record saying what he did with abstraction wasn’t art.
Inescapable Nihilism
(Although I have always intended my blog posts to act in this manner, this may be the first entry where it really… matters. That is to say, these are intended to be commentaries, not reviews, so spoilers are sure to abound sooner or later. Read at your own risk.)
“Now “Iron Man” and even more so “The Dark Knight” move the super hero genre into deeper waters. They realize, as some comic-book readers instinctively do, that these stories touch on deep fears, traumas, fantasies and hopes” (Rogert Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times).
I can’t really pin down the exact moment during the movie when I realized I was not watching a comic book movie but an actual film. I would imagine this happens to most of you who have seen it. With most comic book adaptations, specifically Spider Man and X-Men, you sort of get the sense as you watch the movie that you are just watching a recreation. You get your heroes and your villains, re-imagined for the modern age, and they galavant around onscreen for a few hours until the super hero defeats them in some pat way and the movie is over. This was especially true of the later movies in the Spider Man and X-Men series. Those films were simply crammed with characters, and the characters existed purely because they existed in the comic. But they were great. We didn’t really need anything else in our superhero movies. We didn’t think there was anything else to get from our superhero movies.
Then you watch The Dark Knight.
Do I Hate RPGs?
The very first RPG I ever played was Super Mario RPG. To date, it remains one of my favorites games of all time, mostly because it did two things very well: character progression and story. I say character progression, as opposed to development, for a reason. There was no variety in the type of progression the characters took. The end party for anyone who played the game more or less consisted of the same characters with the same equipment, the same spells, and the same tactics. The game was very linear, but I loved it. And it was pretty much the last truly linear RPG I ever played.
The other RPGs of my gaming career have been much more open. They include games like Saga Frontier, Final Fantasy VIII, Diablo II, and Pokemon. Compared to Super Mario RPG, these games blew the notion of “character development” right out of the water, and if individual characters in the game had linear progression, you could bet you had non-linear party progression instead. So while most of the RPGs I play offer stories, very few of them offer linear character growth.
Evidently, I missed the train with Super Mario RPG, because character customization is essentially a hallmark of the RPG genre. And I love it. I love turning the open template that is your starting character into something specialized and unique. The skeleton-raising summoner. The mage who calls down giant fire storms. The monk who has way more health than he should and beats down monsters with his fists.
Doom 3 (PC)
Doom 3 is certainly a masterpiece. It is a technological marvel with stunningly moody lighting. The controls are simple. The monsters are wonderfully ugly. As an atmospheric, first-person shooter, there is really nothing wrong with Doom 3. You set down on Mars, shoot some demons for awhile, and it all looks good and plays fine.
Yet, halfway through the game, I was struck by the thought that I was not doing anything very new. Now, I was not expecting Half Life, and anyone who sits down to play Doom 3 is probably not expecting much more than a shooter. This is no Portal, and certainly no Halo. And we do not want it to be. But at this stage in video game development, should we be happy with a game that is, essentially, fifteen years old?
Indeed, as a remake of the original Doom, Doom 3, is pretty damn near spot-on. You acquire the same weapons, fight imaginative remakes of the same enemies, and pick up PDAs in place of the much-aligned keycards. The problem? That is about as far as it goes, and I really would have expected a Doom sequel, especially one coming out ten years after the last one, to do something a little bit more than the same thing it did in 1993-4.
The Problem with World of Warcraft
I apologize for the missing posts. My best friend got married, and I decided to take a week off. I am back though! Now allow me to introduce a potential new format for my blog.
On Fridays I will feature an editorial-type essay about video games (or anything else that might interest me). I will not split up my essays again either. If I write five pages, you will just have to suffer through five pages. Or you can not read it at all. Jerk.
Tuesdays will feature a game or movie review. The tricky thing about my reviews is that they will be aimed at people who have already experienced the content I am discussing. You might still enjoy the read if you aren’t familiar with it, but I aim for discussion rather than simple review.
Now, on with the show. This week I am talking about everyone’s favorite (to hate?) MMORPG, World of Warcraft.
World of Warcraft is in trouble.
Nerdgasm
There is probably no higher compliment for a multiplayer party game to receive than this: even today it is just as fun with friends as it was for me the day it came out. It is somewhat indicative to note, however, that the same thing was true for the other Smash Bros. games as well. In other words, if you got bored with them, you will get bored with this one, and if the gameplay was somehow endlessly addicting, it will be so here as well.
Nintendo’s design philosophy with the Smash games seems to be thus: to make it better, make it bigger. (At least they have Mega Man beat in this regard.) This is all well and good, of course, but as I play the game both with my friends and by myself, I can not shake the suspicion that I have done all of this before, and that I was suckered into buying a game I have already played.
