Forget the idea of "ART", that whole philosophical debate is meaningless. And why are you comparing games to film so adamnently? It's a different medium with different potentials. Examples are too many to list. I'm talking about all the major games released this decade. I enjoy playing them, they make me think, they're entertaining. Are they as profound as films? No.
I think the main problem with games today, and actually someone else was touching on it in an above comment, is that they lack cohesion. I haven't played many games (if any) where all aspects come together to give a really complete experience. I mean, you have games like Final Fantasy with it's excellent characters, plot, music, and environments; and then you have this gameplay which is completely removed from everything else. And I think a lot of games have similar problems. However, I certainly don't think that the gameplay is what is holding games back from being brilliant. But it would be nice to see a kind of de-emphazise or reimagining of it. Personally, I would love to play a game where you spend a lot of time walking through environments not necessarily "doing" anything. And there are games that sort of do that.
But more importantly, I am really pleased with the games that are coming out. They definitely meet my qualifications of "art" and I get a lot out of them. Sometimes as much as films or music. Neither of those art forms are as successful at creating a world for you to exist and play around in.
you still haven't responded to my question, I guess you have no answer.
and just because you can Google facts about beatles songs does not mean you know anything about "music theory" if you really know what you're talking about explain the music theory behind this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sL0tYowbIxE&feature=related should be easy for you..
The only place I've ever encountered Hybrid's "Symphony" is on Sasha & Digweed's Northern Exposure Volume 2: East Coast Edition. Last song in the mix. The entire mix is worth listening to. Hell, every mix with the words "Northern" and "Exposure" in the title mixed by Sasha & John Digweed are definitely worth listening to. But yeah, that's the only place I've found that jem. Haha.
I would advice you to read the site of Jon Stromberg. You will enjoy it for sure! I discovered it a few days ago on Google. He is a sales manager and posts abouts events all over the world - and even interesting art ones!
Holy crap, a little late in my reply, no? Like I said, still working on the Olympics and it gets harder and harder to find internet time.
I heard right away when Steve Page was leaving. I can't say I was either surprised nor particularly disappointed. I love BNL, more than any other band, in fact. But I got the feeling for the last few years that Steve was wandering his own path - dare I say even getting lost a bit? I wish him luck in his solo career, but it'll be the rest of the Ladies I'll be following. His voice will truly be missed in that musical ensemble, but Ed has the chops to carry it, I think. Things change, life moves on, and I have a pile of BNL CDs to keep me company when I need some soul soothing.
Examples would be...? And there's that word components. There is not a single video game that is viewed as art by the general public right now. And being generous, that's almost 30 years of history. We had art within about 10 in films. And I do not doubt games have artistic components, I just believe that the overall product is not art. The idea of a spectacular decade is undoubtable, but quality does not equal art.
I don't doubt that. And I'm sure there were people like me then, too, but the most important thing is this: I don't think games are art YET. I haven't denied that they won't ever become art, because it's possible. The vast majority of developers and gamers share the view of the Lumiere Brothers. Games are seen as entertainment.
Halo remains one of the most critically acclaimed video games ever made, and it sequels share high stature. Transformers is considered, critically, mediocre, and its sequel has been roasted by critics. That really is a poor, poor comparison. And I have no idea what Pathologic is, but having played Shadow of the Colossus a great deal, I won't deny it has serious artistic connotations.
But I share the view of a certain developer. I am 75% sure it was Hideo Kojima, but there's always that 25%. Anyway, this developer said that he saw video games as more of a museum (I would say gallery or exhibition, but you get the point). Parts of games could be art: the visuals, the music, but not the gameplay itself or the overall product. This is my view concerning art in games. They can contain art, but right now I don't consider the package art.
They COULD. And extremely young is an exaggeration. They are young, but they are not extremely young. If we start from 1905 like you did, The Birth of a Nation was released in 1915. Widely considered by critics to be one of the first truly artistic films. That's 10 years for art. If we use 1980 for video games, that's 25 years for your examples. I have no doubt you could name some more, but has serious art in video games been created? Serious art in film was created with 10 years.
The first is an excellent, moody take on Brief Encounter. The second takes that simple story, detonates it, and then tries to focus tightly on a few slivers as they fly away. It takes a bare outline of a plot into several blind alleys, a few tangents, and one or two straight paths to foregone conclusions. I am amazed at how one great film lead to such a very different great one. The cinematic feat of the decade, I reckon...
what about David Alvarado - Blue (Smith & Selway Remix)?
Heard it for the fist time on James Holdons essential mix in 2002, and I think its a great track!
Sounds amazing. I hope to enjoy it as much as you have. I'll get back to you on what I think. Thanks.
btw, your list and comments show up all mushed together for some reason. Don't know if it's my computer or some other glitch. It doesn't happen on anyone elses so I'm assuming it's coming from your end.
Even if you don't think that videogames could've possibly hit any era past The New Wave you should at least offer later eras up as a voting choice for those who might.
Good, I'm glad you caught the 142 min version. That's the one I have on my list. Though the original is quite good, the 142 min version is definitely an upgrade.
...I guess Duffy scraped together enough finances and help to unveil his second masterwork of the decade...
I like how by printing that you refuse to type "LOL" you ended up typing it. LOL.
...I am afraid that Mr Bolton would go even bigger though...
Holy crap Facade, fuck YES.
I am really happy there is another person who treats videogames as some real kind of art; I've heard it suggested (somewhere or another; I can't remember where) that, after film as the leading 20th century art medium, videogames will be the leading 21st century art medium. I like of like the idea because it can sort of make a digital "art installation" so to speak that canb e viewed more than just in a single location and allows for more ambitiousness.
I sort of like how you are being quite critical of the gigantically young medium. Reminds me of looking at Piero Scaruffi's ratings of 1950s rock albums.
I see you're not too fond of Silent Hill 2, eh? I'm kinda curious if Silent Hill 1 would get anything higher. I believe that both do make great strides for videogames-as-art. The ending-scenes in Silent Hill 2, everything that takes place in the hotel, I find extremely emotionally powerful and artistically made. That said, I think Silent Hill 1 works better on a whole.
I've got a few suggestions though; some games that could be put into an art category.
-Pathologic (by Ice Pick Lodge, PC). One of the first company-produced games made not solely for entertainment but for the same intent as , like, Tarkovsky made movies (I've made the dumb crack "It's like 'Stalker' the videogame' Heheh). But the game is a little bit sloppily made and has an atrocious English translation and can be a bit dauntingly difficult (I find), but it is quite ambitious and a retranslation project is sort of in the works. The makers of the game really like Antonin Artaud, Albert Camus, Nicholai Gogol, and such. So despite its problems, I feel that it is a watershed of possibilities for the future. (Hilariously, this game won a Russian-Game-Award that basically amounts to "Weirdest game of the year").
-Chrono Trigger (by Square, SNES). This is the JRPG that people who hate JRPGs even like. I think it might be worth something. One of the first games with multiple endings where your actions effect later portions of the story. If you play through every single aspect of the game (instead of muscling through it) the characters really seem to grow and develop (at least as much as a videogame allows heh).
- Dance Dance Revolution (by Konami, various systems). Solely because it is a videogame THAT IS EXERCISE. Heh, that's gotta be worth something for extending the "scope" of videogames.
-Siren (by Keiichirō Toyama, PS2) Horror game, More convoluted weird-ass plot than Silent Hill, and also one of the most painfully difficult games I've ever played. Gameplay is very tense mostly because the characters you play often are not able to defend themselves, so they must run, hide, and distract the enemies. One of the most frightening parts has you play as a 6-year-old child, defenseless in a place where everyone is a zombie or slowly becoming one. Has an interesting style, worth a look, I'd say.
-Deus Ex (by Warren Spector, PC). This game is one of the most ambitious I've seen, but oftentimes falls flat on its face. Although everyone else loves the hell out of it, so might want to give it a shot.
-Killer 7 (by Suda51, PS2). I haven't actually played this but I've seen it listed as some kind of art-piece deconstruction-of-videogames thing, so... Maybe? I think it certainly does look very interesting though.
The same sort of thing was told to people who wanted to make film as art. The Lumiere Brothers themselves never thought of their invention as more of a scientific recording tool or a trivial little thing.
Halo is totally not art. To say "well is Halo art?" in this discussion is like going "Well is Michael Bay's Transformers art?" while talking about movies. Have you ever played a game that people actually call art?
Here's a place to start: http://db.tigsource.com/games/facade . Shadow Of The Colossus is another place to look, or the Russian game Pathologic.
Games will totally change from what they are now; videogames are an extremely young medium where not much has been said or done yet and everyone talking about videogame art is really hoping for the future here; consider how things changed between 1905 and 1925; the space between stupid little penny arcade frivolousness to things like The Passion of Joan Of Arc.
I'm afraid there's no set guidelines for my ratings other than my own subjective views. I'd be happy to elaborate my views on certain films if there's something you're interested in hearing my opinion on though. :D
Indeed! It was my first Res album and I still love it to this day. I think he finds their more song-oriented material less impressive. Maybe in comparison to Not Available. But, come on now, very few bands can pull off such an outstanding collection of perverse pop tunes (except maybe Butthole Surfers). So catchy too!
And if you are even the slightest bit interested but don't know what "running it" entails be sure to ask. It's really not hard at all.
Forget the idea of "ART", that whole philosophical debate is meaningless. And why are you comparing games to film so adamnently? It's a different medium with different potentials. Examples are too many to list. I'm talking about all the major games released this decade. I enjoy playing them, they make me think, they're entertaining. Are they as profound as films? No.
I think the main problem with games today, and actually someone else was touching on it in an above comment, is that they lack cohesion. I haven't played many games (if any) where all aspects come together to give a really complete experience. I mean, you have games like Final Fantasy with it's excellent characters, plot, music, and environments; and then you have this gameplay which is completely removed from everything else. And I think a lot of games have similar problems. However, I certainly don't think that the gameplay is what is holding games back from being brilliant. But it would be nice to see a kind of de-emphazise or reimagining of it. Personally, I would love to play a game where you spend a lot of time walking through environments not necessarily "doing" anything. And there are games that sort of do that.
But more importantly, I am really pleased with the games that are coming out. They definitely meet my qualifications of "art" and I get a lot out of them. Sometimes as much as films or music. Neither of those art forms are as successful at creating a world for you to exist and play around in.
you still haven't responded to my question, I guess you have no answer.
and just because you can Google facts about beatles songs does not mean you know anything about "music theory" if you really know what you're talking about explain the music theory behind this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sL0tYowbIxE&feature=related should be easy for you..
I enjoyed Zissou and Rushmore much more than The Royal Tenenbaums.
Thanx! Altered! :D
The only place I've ever encountered Hybrid's "Symphony" is on Sasha & Digweed's Northern Exposure Volume 2: East Coast Edition. Last song in the mix. The entire mix is worth listening to. Hell, every mix with the words "Northern" and "Exposure" in the title mixed by Sasha & John Digweed are definitely worth listening to. But yeah, that's the only place I've found that jem. Haha.
It wasn't Askura Alexander Shkuratov's "Destruction of a Russian Space Station," was it?
I would advice you to read the site of Jon Stromberg. You will enjoy it for sure! I discovered it a few days ago on Google. He is a sales manager and posts abouts events all over the world - and even interesting art ones!
Holy crap, a little late in my reply, no? Like I said, still working on the Olympics and it gets harder and harder to find internet time.
I heard right away when Steve Page was leaving. I can't say I was either surprised nor particularly disappointed. I love BNL, more than any other band, in fact. But I got the feeling for the last few years that Steve was wandering his own path - dare I say even getting lost a bit? I wish him luck in his solo career, but it'll be the rest of the Ladies I'll be following. His voice will truly be missed in that musical ensemble, but Ed has the chops to carry it, I think. Things change, life moves on, and I have a pile of BNL CDs to keep me company when I need some soul soothing.
Examples would be...? And there's that word components. There is not a single video game that is viewed as art by the general public right now. And being generous, that's almost 30 years of history. We had art within about 10 in films. And I do not doubt games have artistic components, I just believe that the overall product is not art. The idea of a spectacular decade is undoubtable, but quality does not equal art.
I don't doubt that. And I'm sure there were people like me then, too, but the most important thing is this: I don't think games are art YET. I haven't denied that they won't ever become art, because it's possible. The vast majority of developers and gamers share the view of the Lumiere Brothers. Games are seen as entertainment.
Halo remains one of the most critically acclaimed video games ever made, and it sequels share high stature. Transformers is considered, critically, mediocre, and its sequel has been roasted by critics. That really is a poor, poor comparison. And I have no idea what Pathologic is, but having played Shadow of the Colossus a great deal, I won't deny it has serious artistic connotations.
But I share the view of a certain developer. I am 75% sure it was Hideo Kojima, but there's always that 25%. Anyway, this developer said that he saw video games as more of a museum (I would say gallery or exhibition, but you get the point). Parts of games could be art: the visuals, the music, but not the gameplay itself or the overall product. This is my view concerning art in games. They can contain art, but right now I don't consider the package art.
They COULD. And extremely young is an exaggeration. They are young, but they are not extremely young. If we start from 1905 like you did, The Birth of a Nation was released in 1915. Widely considered by critics to be one of the first truly artistic films. That's 10 years for art. If we use 1980 for video games, that's 25 years for your examples. I have no doubt you could name some more, but has serious art in video games been created? Serious art in film was created with 10 years.
Wow, am I late in noticing this!
The first is an excellent, moody take on Brief Encounter. The second takes that simple story, detonates it, and then tries to focus tightly on a few slivers as they fly away. It takes a bare outline of a plot into several blind alleys, a few tangents, and one or two straight paths to foregone conclusions. I am amazed at how one great film lead to such a very different great one. The cinematic feat of the decade, I reckon...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
what about David Alvarado - Blue (Smith & Selway Remix)?
Heard it for the fist time on James Holdons essential mix in 2002, and I think its a great track!
Sounds amazing. I hope to enjoy it as much as you have. I'll get back to you on what I think. Thanks.
btw, your list and comments show up all mushed together for some reason. Don't know if it's my computer or some other glitch. It doesn't happen on anyone elses so I'm assuming it's coming from your end.
You know how I feel about the Coens. Hell, I loved INTOLERABLE CRUELTY. But this... this is shit. No idea what everyone's seeing in it.
Omg how embarrassing!!!!!
Even if you don't think that videogames could've possibly hit any era past The New Wave you should at least offer later eras up as a voting choice for those who might.
What all pictures i can attach to my bedroom wall to make it look good?
flooring
Good, I'm glad you caught the 142 min version. That's the one I have on my list. Though the original is quite good, the 142 min version is definitely an upgrade.
...I guess Duffy scraped together enough finances and help to unveil his second masterwork of the decade...
I like how by printing that you refuse to type "LOL" you ended up typing it. LOL.
...I am afraid that Mr Bolton would go even bigger though...
Holy crap Facade, fuck YES.
I am really happy there is another person who treats videogames as some real kind of art; I've heard it suggested (somewhere or another; I can't remember where) that, after film as the leading 20th century art medium, videogames will be the leading 21st century art medium. I like of like the idea because it can sort of make a digital "art installation" so to speak that canb e viewed more than just in a single location and allows for more ambitiousness.
I sort of like how you are being quite critical of the gigantically young medium. Reminds me of looking at Piero Scaruffi's ratings of 1950s rock albums.
I see you're not too fond of Silent Hill 2, eh? I'm kinda curious if Silent Hill 1 would get anything higher. I believe that both do make great strides for videogames-as-art. The ending-scenes in Silent Hill 2, everything that takes place in the hotel, I find extremely emotionally powerful and artistically made. That said, I think Silent Hill 1 works better on a whole.
I've got a few suggestions though; some games that could be put into an art category.
-Pathologic (by Ice Pick Lodge, PC). One of the first company-produced games made not solely for entertainment but for the same intent as , like, Tarkovsky made movies (I've made the dumb crack "It's like 'Stalker' the videogame' Heheh). But the game is a little bit sloppily made and has an atrocious English translation and can be a bit dauntingly difficult (I find), but it is quite ambitious and a retranslation project is sort of in the works. The makers of the game really like Antonin Artaud, Albert Camus, Nicholai Gogol, and such. So despite its problems, I feel that it is a watershed of possibilities for the future. (Hilariously, this game won a Russian-Game-Award that basically amounts to "Weirdest game of the year").
-Chrono Trigger (by Square, SNES). This is the JRPG that people who hate JRPGs even like. I think it might be worth something. One of the first games with multiple endings where your actions effect later portions of the story. If you play through every single aspect of the game (instead of muscling through it) the characters really seem to grow and develop (at least as much as a videogame allows heh).
- Dance Dance Revolution (by Konami, various systems). Solely because it is a videogame THAT IS EXERCISE. Heh, that's gotta be worth something for extending the "scope" of videogames.
-Siren (by Keiichirō Toyama, PS2) Horror game, More convoluted weird-ass plot than Silent Hill, and also one of the most painfully difficult games I've ever played. Gameplay is very tense mostly because the characters you play often are not able to defend themselves, so they must run, hide, and distract the enemies. One of the most frightening parts has you play as a 6-year-old child, defenseless in a place where everyone is a zombie or slowly becoming one. Has an interesting style, worth a look, I'd say.
-Deus Ex (by Warren Spector, PC). This game is one of the most ambitious I've seen, but oftentimes falls flat on its face. Although everyone else loves the hell out of it, so might want to give it a shot.
-Killer 7 (by Suda51, PS2). I haven't actually played this but I've seen it listed as some kind of art-piece deconstruction-of-videogames thing, so... Maybe? I think it certainly does look very interesting though.
I'm rambling , though, great list!
The same sort of thing was told to people who wanted to make film as art. The Lumiere Brothers themselves never thought of their invention as more of a scientific recording tool or a trivial little thing.
Halo is totally not art. To say "well is Halo art?" in this discussion is like going "Well is Michael Bay's Transformers art?" while talking about movies. Have you ever played a game that people actually call art?
Here's a place to start: http://db.tigsource.com/games/facade . Shadow Of The Colossus is another place to look, or the Russian game Pathologic.
Games will totally change from what they are now; videogames are an extremely young medium where not much has been said or done yet and everyone talking about videogame art is really hoping for the future here; consider how things changed between 1905 and 1925; the space between stupid little penny arcade frivolousness to things like The Passion of Joan Of Arc.
So you just wait, I guess.
I'm afraid there's no set guidelines for my ratings other than my own subjective views. I'd be happy to elaborate my views on certain films if there's something you're interested in hearing my opinion on though. :D
haha, i forgot about that. DIG WHILE YOUR SHOVEL IS SHARP!
Thanks for the review. Now let me get back to digging!
Indeed! It was my first Res album and I still love it to this day. I think he finds their more song-oriented material less impressive. Maybe in comparison to Not Available. But, come on now, very few bands can pull off such an outstanding collection of perverse pop tunes (except maybe Butthole Surfers). So catchy too!