Art in Games / Artistic Games

[Zhul]

So I've been playing RDR lately and loving it, but I'm also a fan of games that are outside the norm (either because of its unusual playstyle or being artistically interesting). After getting 100% completion in RDR last weekend I turned to two of the other recent games I purchased: Flower and Braid.

Flower is very pretty, relaxing, and is a brilliant use of the sixaxis controller. It was quite a change (though a good one) to go from a gunslinger shooting outlaws to a flower petal riding the wind.

Braid's music is beautiful and the graphics look like you are playing an oil painting. The platform puzzles (relying on time manipulation) range from ingenious to mind-splittingly difficult, but I have to say that if you just think about them a while you can figure them out without resorting to a guide (and you feel smarter for doing it too).

Another excellent game was Okami (originally for the PS2, but I got the Wii version). That one had graphics that looked like you were playing a Japanese woodblock print or picture scroll. It wasn't that difficult, but it was fun to play because it was so beautiful.

What other games have people played where they were struck by the artistic style or the non-standard gameplay?

[George]

Flower was a great game, but apart from that it's gunslinging and driving cars for me

[Scratches]

Gotta back you up there on Braid. I downloaded this ages ago, and was thoroughly impressed buy both the game play, and the overall look.

According to some people, however, games are not and can never be considered art.

This has caused quite the stir, as several others have discussed at length.

It seems that any discussion on this topic rapidly becomes less about the question 'Are Games Art?' and more about defining art itself. I don't think this question will ever truly be answered as no two people will every totally agree as to what art is, it being something that affects every person differently. Is it something that expresses part of an artists personality, or just something designed to elicit an emotional response? Does it have to be created or constructed, or can you just sign a urinal and call it modern art because "it reflects the dynamic nature of art today"?

For what it's worth, I don't know much about art, but I know what I like. Ultimately, that's the only definition that counts in my book.

My two cents.

[Zhul]

All great points, Scratches. I'd lean toward the assumption that our community does consider games as an art medium.

I don't know much about art either, but I have gone to a few art museums. The last one I was at, the modern art museum in Fort Worth, cured my appetite for modern art for at least 20 years. There was seriously a fluorescent light fixture attached to a wall at a 45 degree angle titled, Light. I thought, "Someone got paid for this?"

I thought of another game that I played a long time ago that had a wonderful visual style: Ico. I wasn't big on its gameplay, but I admit it was pretty. I heard Shadow of the Colossus (by the same developer I think) was also artistically striking.