The last few weeks for me have consisted of dividing my time
between Mass Effect 3, discovering Arrested Development, and doing uni work
(aka – procrastinating with Mass Effect 3
and Arrested Development). I also
managed to leave the confines of my room to catch The Hunger Games, The
Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!, and The Avengers (still refusing to refer to it by its British title)
which I may or may not review here later.
This period has given me time to think about my own approach
to video game critique, and whether or not I should take it as seriously as
film critique. One of the problems here is that video games are a more
difficult medium to actively pursue, partly due to the higher costs, and partly
because of the lesser ease of access. For example, to discover and watch films
for criticism is relatively easy – they can be found on TV regularly, they can
be bought on DVD for quite cheap, they can even be found for free on the
internet (or so I hear...)*. Whereas, there’s no real similar means of access
for video games, one has to find and buy most of them, sometimes much more
expensively than films. There’s also the problem of changing platforms. With
film, you could just as easily watch something from 1910 as from 2010, but to
play a video game from even 20 years ago would require tracking down the
necessary console (unless you use an emulator, but that’s not the same).
Another of the problems of video game critique is Roger
Ebert’s favourite debate – are video games an art form? To make a real decision
regarding this, one would probably need a definition as to what ‘art’ is. And
that’s where the whooole debate becomes a big ugly mess before it’s even begun.
‘Art’ is a loose and subjective issue. What one person might consider to be
art, another might not. Personally, the furthest I could possibly define art
would be some sort of creative expression that evokes a reaction. Sure, video
games can evoke reactions – TimeSplitters
made me laugh, Amnesia made me shriek
like a lady, Mirror’s Edge made me
cry tears of frustration. But for me the real debate lies in whether or not
games are much of an expression.
Something that the Seven Arts (as detailed by Georg Hegel,
then Ricciotto Canudo, then the French** – although how they ever agreed upon
the set is beyond me) seem to share is that they lack any audience
participation, in that their pieces are created with the express intent of
being judged, thereby being a focus of creative expression. This is what could
separate video games from the other ‘arts’, as games are generally made with
the audience’s direct interaction in focus, often pushing the creative element
to the side. For example, can a World War II video game like Call of Duty or Medal of Honor be as much an expression about war as a film like Saving Private Ryan or Full Metal Jacket? Can a game like BioShock be as much an expression about
Objectivism as a book like Atlas Shrugged?
Certainly if we look only at the visual and aural aesthetic
of video games, they can be opened up for critiquing. There are many games that
use creativity in these areas to draw the attention of an audience much in the
same way as a film would – Okami, Limbo
and Rez are notable examples. There
are also plenty of less artistic games that still feature a particular
graphical style which sort of contextualises the gameplay, like Gears of War, Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Dead
Space. But to only consider the audio-visual side of games would be to
detract from the very thing that makes it individual as a medium. Gameplay
needs to be analysed as well to form a proper artistic critique. And yet how do
we consider the ‘art’ of gameplay?
Here’s where I think the ‘games as art’ debate could be
eventually settled. If some serious video game critics begin to theorise about
the artistry of gameplay and game design, then maybe it can begin to achieve some
legitimacy as an art form. For cinema, it took a good couple of decades of
infancy before meaningful narrative features started to arise and be written
about seriously. Video games seem to be maturing now, much as cinema did. What
started with Pong and Asteroids has now moved onto Red Dead Redemption and Mass Effect, like cinema moved from Train Pulling into a Station and Fred Ott’s Sneeze to Birth of a Nation and Wings. Maybe if some critics or even
just gamers begin to write some analytical and critical debate and theory,
maybe we can give Canudo an eighth art.
Although maybe not, ‘cause he’s a bit too decomposed to
really reconsider his work.
So to link all this back to my original point, whether or
not it’s an agreed-upon art form, video games can still indeed be taken
seriously as both a hobby and a pursuit, not just a time-waster. I don’t
consider much of my gaming time to be wasted time – I’m doing something I enjoy
and being mentally stimulated, as I would be whilst watching films, so how can
that be anything but good? So through this approach of taking them seriously as
an art form and as an important cultural pastime, I can critique video games
with a meaningful attitude... as far as money will allow.
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