|
|
View previous topic :: View next topic
|
| Author |
Message |
leroyhacker
Joined: 20 Dec 2006
|
 Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 8:30 pm |
  |
|
| Broco wrote: |
I agree with everyone who's saying I focused too much on movie-like aspects of games as opposed to other sides of them. That's a pitfall I am completely aware of, and I went ahead and stepped right in it anyway. Actually I myself sometimes think that maybe story is something games shouldn't even be striving for, that things like Tetris and Ikaruga -- and while we're at it, chess! -- represent the pinnacle of the medium. The thing is that, when discussing the potential of games, movies are pretty much the whole motivator; comparing games with them is what gives us the feeling that games are somehow lacking, that we need to do better. |
You've nearly pinpointed the reason why most conversations about what games could be are so useless and make me so angry-it almost always comes down to movies. Why should they be held up as the ultimate art form? Is it just because games also have moving pictures and sounds? Why should the ultimate potential of games as a medium have anything at all to do with narrative?
People should spend more time comparing games to visual arts like painting and sculpture, or performance arts like dancing and music, and most of all, architecture. I think it's worth pointing out here that the original game creators at Nintendo were originally designers that created things with their hands.
Maybe the real issue is that people want more profound emotional expression in their games and have a hard time imagining emotional expression without narrative? Or maybe some people are more affected by different modes of expression than others, and some are more satisfied with abstract form, in music, while others want more meaning, through words or realistic images.
The problem isn't that there aren't any Messiah games, the problem is that people don't realize that we already have games worthy of great respect because they want games to be things that they're not.
By the way, I want to clear up some aspects of the historical record on Citizen Kane. Citizen Kane didn't do a single thing to increase the respectability of movies upon its release. The status of Citizen Kane as a monumental achievement is more an effect than a cause of the increased stature film-making gained as an art form. |
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
 |
leroyhacker
Joined: 20 Dec 2006
|
| Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 8:48 pm |
|
|
| Koji wrote: |
You focused on videogames that deliver a film-like experience, but there are much simpler games like the bit Generations, which are much more focused and more designed than most overly complex games that are released nowadays, which are diluted in all the content that's shoved into a preexisting frame: a game genre.
|
Perfectly said.
Thank you for bringing up the bit generations games. You're exactly right, they have far more design than most games. To connect to what I just said above, these are examples are truly great games that don't get much attention because they have nothing to do with the cinematic paradigm many people want gaming to be.
Orbital and Coloris were the two most perfect games I played last year. Orbital had, in the design of its forty stages, more creative expression than nearly any other videogame I've played for the past few years. And in Coloris, there is great artistic creativity in every aspect, from the tileset and animations to the sound design. That game is artistically designed through and through, but the conception of videogames as a narrative medium completely devalues these types of creation.
And then one could bring up Rhythm Tengoku for a completely different type of non-narrative design. |
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
leroyhacker
Joined: 20 Dec 2006
|
| Posted: Sat Jan 20, 2007 2:10 am |
|
|
| Koji wrote: |
| I only have one observation to what you're saying, leroyhacker, and it's that narrative is very tightly linked to videogames, in that videogames cannot be without narrative, as time and progression is an essential characteristic of the very medium. Yet you're right in that it's not necessarily the ultimate aspect by which a videogame should be designed around. But don't mistake narrative with story, as even a very abstract game can have a very emotional narrative. Katamari Damacy is not the most abstract game ever, but the progression that's built as your katamari gets bigger is (or was for me) very powerful, with a stupendous climax. This is a very linear kind of narrative, though, and, certainly, non-linear kinds would explore the medium much better, but more abstract ways of achieving narrative can be very stimulating, like abstract forms of visual art are in comparison with figurative art. |
I think we are basically in agreement here.
Where I say narrative I mean storytelling in the general sense as a sequence of events. I do not mean emotional expression, because my very point is that there are plenty of forms of artistic emotional expression that do not involve story telling, such as music. [One can try to attach stories to many pieces of music fairly successfully from the 19th century on, and in some cases even the composers did this, but one cannot do this for Bach's keyboard works, for example.]
You seem to be pointing out that games can offer powerful methods of storytelling not available in traditional media-this is certainly true. You make a good case for Katamari, and I would cite A Mind Forever Voyaging as another example. I was also pleased with Contact in this regard. I cannot deny that gaming presents untapped potential for storytelling.
My gripe is just that so many, both in the mass gaming culture and among many who are very interested in games, focus completely on the literary and cinematic potentials of games, rather than on other aspects of what games are and what games could be.
I see this as one reason for why so many people are getting tired of Zelda. Each game tells a similar story, in the same way. The true design in the game is not in the story or cinematics but in the design of the environments and dungeons. And each game(I haven't played WW though) offers new dungeons as well as new ways to interact with them. This is where the creativity in the game is, and this dimension of gaming is something that cannot be discussed from the literary point of view on gaming.
I think one problem underlying this bias towards certain aspects of gaming is that most game designers long for the profit and cultural significance of Hollywood and the foremost advocate among game developers of gaming as a medium related to music and abstract art is a complete idiot. |
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
