Top Five List: Top Five Games As Art
Video games being regarded as "Art" seems to serve as a sort of validation for our hobby. If games are Art, then they serve some sort of higher social significance than the standard "they allow us to improve hand-eye coordination" argument we have all heard. Certainly, gaming is big business and a serious one, but can games be "Art"? What is "art", anyway? Having a bachelor's degree in art doesn't make me an expert by any means, but I was taught that art is anything anyone takes the time to call "art". A broad definition, but it works. It's not just how pretty a game looks, or if it is made to look like a painting. Art requires the person viewing to think, to maybe change their world view through the eyes of the Artist, who is regarded as a sort of seer, someone who can visualize and filter the world in ways we cannot.
We here at The Weekly Geek think that video games are the very definition of Art. Hit the jump for our Top Five Games As Art lists!
Frodo
In my list I try to look past the "ooh this game is pretty" sort of "games as art" mentality and think of them more as performance art pieces. In essence, video games are the ultimate performance art. Artist/Patron interaction is the closest it could be, it's the ultimate in audience participation. For me, the games have to be a completely fulfilling experience. They have to please not only my visual aesthetics, but auditory and tactile.
5. Animal Crossing - Sandbox games make great "Games as Art" entries, because the artist gives you the tools to create something within their predefined space, and you explore that space. Animal Crossing is the perfect example, with it's simple interface and gameplay mixed with almost unlimited possibilities. You can play this game a million different ways for hundreds of years and never have the same experience as someone else.
4. The Sims (series)- Another sandbox game, this one is the granddaddy of them all. No real structure or goals (except in The Sims 2). The Sims allows you to experience life any way you want. Perhaps you want to recreate yourself and try to win friends (finally!) or you want to pretend to be someone of the opposite sex and lock them in a doorless, windowless room until they pee themselves and die (awright!). Any game that allows you to take so much control over your experience is definitely art.
3. Shadow of the Colossus- I would be remiss if I didn't mention this game. The whole experience of Shadow of the Colossus is beautiful. From the seamless soundtrack, to the moody landscapes and the way that the camera angles up to reveal the colossi as you approach them... chilling. This game is basically perfect, even the frustrating play controls add to the idea that you are this frail human against insurmountable odds. You get knocked down, you stay down. The act of killing a colossus is even beautiful, with the idea that when you strike with your sword you must release the button instead of pushing it. It's that act that seems like such a cathartic release. Pain, anguish, hope and fear - all beautifully represented in this game.
2. Phoenix Wright - Not only does this game win points for bringing back one of my favorite genres, the text adventure, but it does so in such a unique fashion. A lawyer game? What the crap? The series had the possibility to be so horrible, but proved everyone wrong with a compelling storyline, interesting and often difficult puzzles and excellent user interaction. I hope they make these games forever. Phoenix Wright is able to take an aspect of life not often represented by games, litigation and the legal system, and whittle it down into a simplified form that is so incredibly entertaining, it's like watching your favorite episode of Law and Order but being able to actually interact with Lennie.
1. Electroplankton - The ultimate "Game as Art", Electroplankton was created by a japanese performance artist and presented as one of Nintendo's first non-games for the DS. You control a variety of weird characters in their own small spaces, and your interaction with them produces light, color, sound and motion. Playing with these "plankton" is comforting and joyful. The "game" itself is presented in a very curious, exploratory context. It almost becons you to touch it, to experiment and play. You could get lost just playing with the characters, with no driving storyline, no real goals and no score at the end. That, by my definition, is a game that is most certainly Art.
The Geek
5. Metroid Prime - First, MP is just plain pretty. But secondly, and more importantly, MP took a very unique approach to storytelling in a video game. While you were exploring, the story was really unfolding around you and away from you. You only learned of what was going on the planet through 3rd person narrative computer log entries.
4. Super Mario Bros. - Nintendo and SMB was the first real effort to take games beyond basic quarter eating arcade machines and little one-off Atari style games. While all on a very minor level as compared to what we're used to today, it had all the elements we look for and expect from games now; appealing visuals, a story, and a full soundtrack. It was the game that allowed games to move to the level to ever be considered art.
3. Final Fantasy Tactics - Pretty much all of the FF series qualifies as art but FFT has it in spades. Simple yet nice looking sprites in a time when everything was staring the hardcore pushing into polygons, one of the best soundtracks ever, and an amazingly serious and dramatic storyline despite being in a game with magic and demons and such.
2. Katamari Damacy - What can I say about this game that hasn't been said a million times before? If you can play this game and not recognize it as art, then you have no soul.
1. Shadow of the Colossus - The absolute pinnacle of "games as art". Hell, I say it even goes beyond that. It's not a game as art, it's art as a game. This isn't a game that is so well done that it is true art, this is a piece of art that just happens to be interactive in a way to make it like a game. The large, empty world. The amazing visuals. The inspired design of each colossus. You even are able to feel emotion from a giant lumbering beast when all you can see is the small tuft of fur on a shoulder to which you are clinging for dear life. And the ending. Oh, the ending. If this game cannot prove to anyone and everyone that video games can indeed be art, then art does not exist in this world.
Caspian
5. Okami - I haven't really had a chance to play it myself, but just watching this game is incredible.
4. Katamari - This game's art coupled with the music and the fun style of gameplay make this game a winner and very fun to view.
3. Grant Theft Auto 3 - GTA is not really given it's due for how great the art direction is. One of the best parts are the character sketch loading screens.
2. Paper Mario - Form what I've seen, the art exectution in this is wonderful. It really looks as if mario was cut from a piece of construction paper.
1. Final Fantasy XII - This is obviously the new kid on the block, but the art is so well done in this FF installment, that i bought the $20 strategy guide just for the limited edition conceptual art booklet included.
What say you?!