the be all end all video game thread

Little Big Planet. That game rules for all ages. Hot Shots Golf is a good one if you can get them into a golf game.

 

Anything Lego. Lego Star Wars, Lego Batman, Lego Indiana Jones, and I think they just came out with a Lego Harry Potter. They usually get decent reviews and, from what I'm told (I should admit, I've never personally played one), they're a good mix between adult and kid.

 

That Batman game sounds right up my alley.

Good call, my kids love that stuff. I'll go check it out.

I generally play the GTA stuff, maybe some Gran Turismo, NBA Live, that kind of thing. I'm thinking about trying one of the WW2 shooters, but honestly, I would fucking LOVE a Castlevania game on this. Do they make one for it, or do they plan to? I've had Castlevania on every game system since the first Nintendo.

 

Apparently there is one due sometime this year.

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/action/lordsofshadow/index.html?tag=result%3Btitle%3B0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/action/lord ... Btitle%3B0</a>

 

I sometimes felt like I was the only one that liked the 2 PS2 Castlevania games. I can't wait for the new one.

 

Alright fartheads (and I mean that in the nicest possible way), if you could please help me out here, I would be very appreciative. I would even try to bribe you with tits and stuff but believe me when I tell you - no one wants to see what I have to offer.

My more-mature-than-most 11 year old has taken a sudden interest in war games. Since they are not my forte, I know little about them. Do you have any that you would suggest? We would prefer them for the PS3 but we have a Wii too so if you have them, we'll take suggestions for that too. The only things I really want to try and steer clear of is sex and drugs. I know my thinking is kind of warped on this: blowing someone's head off is okay but watching someone fire up a doob is a no-no. I can explain this further if you want but now is not the time.

Also keep in mind that our PS3 is not connected to the network so that is of little consequence. I know there is at least one war game out there that you can only play online but it escapes me which one that is.

Thanks in advance for your help, gang. That is IF you help. Fartheads.

 

Modern Warfare 2 hands down. The best combat game, ever.

I would avoid everything on the Wii.

 

I know I'm late to the party, but I just got a copy of Batman: Arkham Asylum, and holy shit is it awesome. I was amazed at how smoothly the gameplay flows, and how well done the story is. Alot of times, third person games get stuck in the mechanics of executing the moves and navigating the environment, but this one is smooth as hell. All the little elements that tie it together, like the jokers incessant ramblings, and the Riddlers puzzles and trophies were very well done. It's easily the best superhero game I've ever played.

 

Penny Arcade has a bit today about Roger Ebert's comments that videogames can never be art.

 

Yeah, Roger Ebert is blowing smoke, mostly. He doesn't consider video games 'art' and he never will. One basis of his argument is that video games have rules and you can 'win' at them, so that means they're not art, just as chess and football are not art.

The problem with this is that Ebert hasn't ever played video games. He hasn't seen how they've evolved. Yes, it used to be that you 'beat' a game. Now, however, it is more akin to finishing the game, much like finishing a movie. When I finished Final Fantasy XIII, I didn't feel as if I'd beaten it, I felt as if I had finished the story. It is the same with a lot of games now (i.e. Heavy Rain). You don't necessarily beat it so much as finish it.

Their point in the first two frames are true, though. It is an old person's job (seemingly) to denigrate and hate everything about the next generation.

Hell, my generation gave the world Britney Spears, N*Sync, and The Spice Girls. What right to I have to bitch about Twilight and Miley Cyrus? That doesn't mean that I WON'T bitch, though. That is how it works. One generation hates the next generation's 'things.' In this case, Roger Ebert hates our video games, even if they are (to some extent, and in only some cases) becoming interactive movies.

Truth be told, it doesn't matter what Roger Ebert thinks about video games. They aren't his cup of tea. Movies are. I'll take his opinion into consideration when it comes to films, but when it comes to video games, I really don't give a fuck what he thinks.

 

I would consider video games more as a form of literature more than art.

Art requires interpretation- paintings, music, etc.

Literature sometimes require interpretation, but not necessarily.

 

I disagree with your interpretation requirements, but that's not on topic. We need to bring back the Art Thread from RMMB.

Anyway, I view video games along the lines of an interactive movie. There is room for both a visual aesthetic as well as written elements such as plot, pacing, dialogue, character development, etc. I would submit examples like Silent Hill, Resident Evil, CoD, yada yada.

It might be a stretch to consider something like Pong as an artform, though I believe you could actually make the argument.

Even if you remove one of the two elements (written and visual) I feel you still have enough to consider it an artform. You can have an entirely text-based game like Zork that is very compelling in terms of story. You could also have one that's just cool images and design without any kind of story to it. Through in sound and music and that's another entire element.

 

If he's only playing single player he'd be better off with the first Modern Warfare.

 

The question of whether "video games are art or not" is irrelevant and arbitrary. It completely depends upon the definition of "art". More importantly, games don't NEED to be art to be great. In fact, sometimes games aspiring to "art" turn out to be horrible unplayable shit.

This is a pretty good article on the subject.

Personally, I've never understood the obsession stupid video games journalists have with these meaningless "games are(n't) art" discussions. What does it matter, anyways? It's not the main criteria myself or anyone else judges games on.

Games are fun because it's fun to beat another human being in a competition, solve a difficult puzzle, execute some crazy moves/sequences with finger dexterity, interactively maul someone to death, etc. That's pretty awesome, and I don't see why some pretentious people can't be satisfied with it.

I will, however, say that atmosphere, or creating a unique world can add an awful lot to a video game. Of course, that's a lot more specific/different than something being "arty".

Edit-

Just read the entire Roger Ebert article. Regardless of whether one agrees with him or not, he makes a lot of very intelligent observations. And I say that as someone who thinks his movie reviews have been pure bullshit for at least the last 10 years, and were never really that insightful even prior to that.

 

And, from what zyron PMed me, MW2 has a level where you assassinate civilians for the shit of it. I'm not sure I'm down with that. I'll track down a copy of the first MW and see how that is.

My son has tried the demo for Battlefield:Bad Company that came on the Dead Space disk (he's too freaked out to play that and even gets kind of squirrely watching me play) and he likes B:BC. Perhaps I'll pick that one up too. Nothing too objectionable in that one, right?

Also, some lackey at the game store (local version of Gamestop) spoke of a war game where there was an extra level at the end where you kill zombies but I was only listening with half an ear so I don't remember which game it was. Does that sound familiar to anyone?

And really, thanks for your help. Y'all rock!

 

It's not just willy nilly for the hell of it, it's in the larger context of the game, but they give you plenty of warning and opportunities to skip that mission.

 

COD: World at War has the zombie level after you finish the game, that's also a pretty good one for him. And I'd second the no to mw2.

 

Don't forget the third element - the ludic element, or how the gameplay itself creates meaning and affects interpretation.

Anyways, Ebert's real problem is that he's attempting to engage with games without actually engaging. It's like trying to figure out if movies are art without ever seeing one, or trying to determine if literature is art by having the plot told to you. Ebert needs to actually and honestly sit down and play one of these video games. Actually, he needs to sit down and play a bunch of video games: serious ones, silly ones, good ones, bad ones, ambitious ones. There's a reason that people who do this usually think that games are art.

Playing is the fundamental act of video games. If you don't play, you won't get it.

I'm not trying to crowd out people's interpretations or create an artificial barrier, "You must be this tall to talk about gaming" thing. I'm just saying that if you've never read about or lived through Cold War tension, you won't get Dr. Strangelove. You may like Quentin Tarantino, but you won't fully appreciate his films if (like me) you haven't watched a ton of movies in your life. And you won't get video games if you don't play them.

It's really kind of a pointless discussion, being as it's all about semantics anyway. I'm inclined to broad definitions; to me, there's an art to the way Tom Brady throws a football. Ebert, as a professional critic, is inclined to narrow ones, based on ideas like single authorship and winning vs. experiencing. But if you're going to get involved in an argument, you need to be honest about the way you argue it. I'm not saying that Ebert's being disingenuous, or that he didn't make an effort to understand why video games are now considered art in certain circles. What I am saying is that, as the first comment in that article says, he just doesn't get it.

We are in the infancy of a medium here. Imagine the state of film in 1900 and you'll understand where we are with regard to video games. The funny thing is, Ebert might actually be right: we may have to wait for decades for video games to be considered art, but it will not be because what we have now is worthless crap (it isn't) and it won't be because what we have now is too immature (it is, very, but that's not the big reason). It may just be that we have to wait until the old guard dies out or loses relevancy before the argument for video games as art becomes too strong to dismiss. Ebert makes an effort, but there are plenty of film critics who still connect Half-Life, Bioshock and Braid to Super Mario Bros. - in that they believe Super Mario Bros. a toy. As much as Ebert tries to redefine the concept of prejudice, I can't imagine a game that would convince him otherwise without him actually playing it.

This post has already dragged on far too long. I leave you with some reviews.

 

You know, I've always hated this argument, for a very simple reason; it's simply not true. We are not at the infancy of games.

Pong came out in the early 70's; that's almost 40 years age. Since you mentioned the history of film, 40 years after "The Great Train Robbery" in the early 1900s (or whatever the first popular video was), it would be hard to call movies "in their infancy", as we already had "Citizen Kane", "M", "Gone with the Wind", "Alexander Nevsky", "Modern Times", etc.

And that's actually being generous, since developments in history increase at an exponential rate, and 40 years from the 70s to today are more like 50-70 years from the beginning of the 20th century.

The 80s were definitely the infancy of games, just like the 20s were the infancy of films. But 2010? Not at all. Even the 90s have a bunch of great games that stand up to this very day.

Actually, I think that's the minority. The majority, like myself, realize it's a fucking arbitrary (depends upon definition) and irrelevant (doesn't change how fun it is) question.

You know who pushes the "games are art" question the hardest? Video game journalists who feel inadequate and need to justify themselves, and conference talking heads making motivational speaking-style rah rah presentations.