Michael Swaim
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As a lifelong gamer, I've often been in the awkward position of defending my hobby to a roomful of sneering artsy types. Although, to be fair, I do attend a lot of wine and cheese mixers at the New Yorker offices. Nevertheless, it's an experience we've all had to confront. Whether it's coming from our parents, our local clergymen or the critical voices in our own head, at some point we've had to systematically justify the act of spending thousands of hours manipulating an eight-button machine to no demonstrable effect.
Like comics, video games are a bastard medium, perpetually trapped in the purgatory of "low art." No matter how well-crafted or sweeping or gorgeous they are, they almost never get auctioned off to millionaires with paddles. But even comics have had
The World: Katamari Damacyâs world, as near as I can tell, is a fairly accurate depiction of modern day Japan. Thereâs rice, bamboo mats, plants, animals, cube people and massive hammer-headed monarchs who rule the universe. And that frightening monstrosity has tasked you with rolling up enough of Earthâs material into a ball to cause it to collapse upon itself and turn into a star. Never mind the fact that Earth itself is only about a millionth the size of a modest star; when the King of the Cosmos tells you to roll s**t into a ball, you make like a dung beetle or risk being exiled to his velvet crotch-pouch.
The World: The Last Resort, previously owned by your uncle Thurston Last, has been left in your care. In a stunningly short period of time, this turns into you trying to oust Stephen Tyler and Joe Perry with the help of Cher, Christopher Reeve and Jim Belushi. Well, youâre actually dealing with the characters that they voice, although I think the game I just described sounds equally fun.
The World: The Fallout games are among the most well known on this list, primarily because of the immense popularity of the newest entry, and the fact that I tacitly endorsed them at the end of last week's blog post (sales immediately rocketed 4000 percent). And while theyâre set in what could, at first glance, be considered a run of the mill post-apocalyptic wasteland, itâs the touches of brilliance, attention to detail and abilities to have sex with people and swear that truly make these games shine.
The World: At a time when every video game was operating on the âmore is moreâ principle, Ico and its sequel,
The World: The same one as Half-Life, which is basically the same one as most other science fiction action/adventure games. What makes Portal a work of art isnât actually the world itâs set in; itâs the full and rigorous use of the gaming medium to deploy story, build tension and conjure atmosphere. Playing Portal is like watching someone fashion a fine Swiss watch that then spontaneously evolves artificial intelligence and leaps up to strangle the watchmaker.
How Itâs Art: With the grace and simplicity of a master film director, the designers of Portal capitalize on the unique characteristics of the game environment, allowing the playerâs interaction with their world to slowly bring about a full comprehension of plot. Using only a single speaking character, the game subverts a gaming staple (the helpful robotic narrator/tutorial), creates a complex and frightening relationship complete with subtext-laden dialogue and comments on the medium of gaming itself even as it deconstructs it.
The World: The Oddworld games follow unlikely (read: deformed) protagonists as they struggle to free their various peoples from a slave-like existence. To accomplish this noble goal, they jump a lot (except the one in a wheelchair) enlist the aid of their fellow slaves, and fart. The other twisted combinations of amphibian and machine that inhabit the world scuttle on robotic claws, swing eyeless faces while snapping hungry jaws and just generally imitate a cross between a squid and a Terminator.
The World: Welcome to the Land of the Dead. Itâs surprisingly Latin, and surprisingly pleasant, unless you have to work there. A pretty staggeringly brilliant mash-up of Casablanca, bebop, jazz, Art Deco and the rockingest Dia de los Muertos party ever, Grim Fandango is probably the most overlooked Lucasarts adventure game outside of The Dig.
How Itâs Art: Few works have dared to embrace death so fully, to question life from the perspective of the no-longer living. The flat, disquieting collages depicting the living world seem to invite us into Mannyâs head, and through his eyes, to question whether our shared fear of death is a fear simply of the unknowable, or of the garbled and misunderstood. Is it, in fact, the gossamer curtain separating the two which distorts our vision of both? Truly chilling.
The World: Once, there was a time when muppets still starred in movies, everyone took David Bowie very seriously and Shiny Entertainment was the wonkiest, weirdest, most awesomely twisted game company in the world. From
The World: âWorldsâ is actually more accurate. As a student at psychic summer camp, Raz is able to dive into the brain of pretty much any character in the game, and each is a unique, fully developed world with its own physics and art design evolved from the characteristics of the mind itself. Accordingly, the uptight Germanic counselorâs brain is a two tone neon box of ever-transforming precision; the paranoic security guardâs head is crammed with shady, faceless men muttering about conspiracy on an impossibly twisted version of Main Street, U.S.A.; and the giant fish-monsterâs mind is exactly what youâd expect that to be.
The X-Men series has been held together by duct tape and hope.
This should have resulted in years of therapy.
Sometimes it's just a matter of making the US Department of Defense look, like, REALLY cool.
There are few things more dangerous than someone who is really powerful and equally petty.
Actual impending doom like global climate change or mass extinction just makes people bored.
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