A Blog About Computer Games
By sweep 7 Comments
This is a blog, but also a forum post. Crazy, I know. But lets give it a stab shall we? Jolly good....
What makes a Game a game?
Having three lives? Checkpoints? Cheating the system by saving before a crucial part of the story, then turning off the console if you make a mistake? We are in effect tied down by the limitations we have imposed upon ourselves as gamers. Reality.
There are two sides to every story, and both sides in this particular tale are very transparent. On the one hand there is what would be considered realism within a game - an attempt at creating an familiar artificial environment in the context of a video game - a form of media which has so far proven hostile to any extremism and is consequently tied down to the surrealism of a pretensed scenario.
Games can be as realistic, but they arent a scratch on real life, and are therefore forever anchored to the limitations of a game.
Before this divide existed there were just games. Every game was clearly a game. Every title on the Sega Genesis was a game, pure and simple. Now things have become increasingly convoluted. The "Are Games Art" question has been thrown around a lot (often followed by the "Does anyone give a fuck" question, often to much more enthusiastic response). Games are art, they are expressive, they reflect society, they are "Interactive Fiction", they are everything that simply does not matter when at the end of the day you sit in front of your television and shoot dudes in the face with an MP5.
Is it possible to read into computer games too much? Pushing computer games as the next big media form of expression is all well and good, but have games arrived at a situation where they really deserve this elevation in society? As an avid gamer, game enthusiast and aspiring games developer - I love the games that I play and the experiences I share within them. But is that excuse enough to expose the games I love to unreasonable expectations?
In some cases yes, it is. There are times when games clearly deserve praise for their masterful and uncanny understanding of both the culture that surrounds computer games, and the mindset of the players. Flash games are often uncanny in their ability to manipulate and trick the player in ways that demonstrate a shockingly accurate insight into the mindset of the average gamer. (Dont shoot the puppy!!). Braid would fall into this category - and has seemingly become the figurehead for the art-brigade, representing all that gamers would like to promote. But for every Braid there is a 50 Cent: Blood In The Sand. Unfortunately.
Fortunately the line does not yet need to be drawn. We exist in a state where most players are happy to just play the games they choose and not worry about these factors. Thats great. Ignorance must be bliss...
Thats partly why I chose this topic for my first forum/blog. Because this addresses the entire gaming community, and this new Giantbomb feature is designed to expose blogs to... well... the whole gaming community. There will be people who respond positively, there will be some who dont really get what the hell is going on, and there will be others that wont bother to read because they are scared away by the WALL OF TEXT. Pussies....
So yeah. What do you guys think? Do we really require games to move beyond simply being games, should games be aspiring masterpeices that will one day sit in the Louvre, or are you quite happy, as I am, to allow the current state of events to continue where people just seem to do whatever the hell they want.
To all new and old readers - thanks for your time.
Love Sweep