addendum

quite apropos to my last post, 1up.com has just recently posted a retrospective on Shadow of the Colossus. it's mainly an interview with creator/lead designer, Fumito Ueda, but it touches upon some of the aspects that i blogged about earlier (and some stuff i missed). enjoy.

fiat accompli

so i have just sat through my first proper lecture for the serious games seminar. the subject for today was about how artist have co-opted video games as a medium to create art. some of them played off the conceit of the lack of realistic consequences in games. one example is "Tekken Torture Tournament" where the players got an electric shock whenever they got hit in the game. what amused me most about observing the video was just how much the players enjoyed the pain as opposed to making them consider the real consequences of beating another human being into a pulp. this to me seems to be a matter of improper execution on the part of the artist. if his intent was to make real the genuine consequences of hitting a person, the feedback should have been a lot more painful. the electrical shock, though is seemed rather excrutiating as witnessed from the player's arms, gnarled and tensed from the feedback, the smiles on their faces indicate to me that the sensation was tolerable and thus more of a novelty and enhancement of the fun than a counterpoint. being really punched in the face and kicked in the breadbasket, i imagine, is not so ignorable.

seeing these attempts by artist to utilize the medium compels me to re-enuciate my own private thesis. in my first blog i argued that video games are hindered by their aspect as a game and some of the artwork i saw today were attempts to break free of that game aspect; co-opting video game iconography, conceits, and technology as a medium. this seems to me the avenue in which games can fully flower as an art form, but my primary interest lies in the idea that a video game in earnest, one that is meant to be enjoyed from playing, can become fully realized as a work of art. i'm interested in how a commercially presented video game succeeds or fails as an artwork.

this being said, i believe there are two aspects a video game can acheive artistic mert: aesthetics and narrative. when presented in the format of a game, these aspects must conform to the expectation of a game: success. when narrative or aesthetics gets in the way of game mechanics, it makes the game less fun. at best, this is a deliberate choice (like the artworks mentioned in this lecture) and so becomes more a matter of expression than entertainment. at worst, it is simply distracting. a comparable analogy to this would be movies, storytelling in general really. a movie can be boring (Koyaanisqatsi comes to mind) and have artistic merit for the very reason that it defies narrative (relying on aesthetics), but a compelling narrative can also be a vehicle for being considered a work of art (the Godfather or American Beauty). even better, a movie can be considered a work of art for both its aesthetics and its narrative.

enter Shadow of the Colossus.

this was a critically well-recieved game, but it did not have the same cultural penentration as the typical poster-childs of video games like Mario and Doom. and this is a shame because this game, in my opinion, is an aesthetically and narratively realized work of art.

how can i consider this a work of art and a game? first, let me assure you that it is a game. the object of this game is to hunt down and kill colossi (think Talos from Jason and the Argonauts) by climbing on them and stabbing a weak point. this is a typical video game conceit: bad guys with glowing weak spots begging to be shot or stabbed at. victory (success) is when you kill all the colossi. this barebones description may sound typical, but its the aesthetics above and narrative beneath this task that makes Shadow of the Colossus a moving experience and a work of art.

the game takes place in an expansive pastoral landscape, with sprawling plains, dark forest, and majestic cliffs. and while you explore this landscape in search of the next colossus, you ride in complete silence with only ambient noise heard in the background until you meet the colossus. then the music cues. it's orchestral and context sensitive. if the colossus is moving about obliviously, the music is contemplative and deliberate. if its aggressively chasing you, the music is racing and threatening. and once you finally figure how to climb on top of the colossus, the music becomes exhilarating and exultant. the pace of the game also changes as well, because the colossus will try to shake you off, sending you flailing about. essentially, the music is pitch perfect to your actions on screen. this is masterful, but not exactly screaming "art" just yet. that starts happening when the colossus dies...

the colossi don't explode. they don't writhe in agony. they don't curse your name as they bemoan the undoing of their evil plans. the colossi collapse slowly, somberly, with a great deal of sadness. with pathos. the music accuntuates this. its sounds more like eulogy than victory. the death of these colossi is not a happy thing, but a thing of sorrow. then a black substance escapes from its body, homing on the player, knocking him out. you revive in the center temple and start to realize that killing these colossi may not be a wholesome enterprise.

herein is where the narrative of Shadow of the Colossus subverts success for the player and demonstrates artistic merit. the story behind the game is that your character wants to save the girl you love from death. the entire time, her lifeless body lies on an altar in the central temple, a constant reminder of why you are doing this in spite of the questionable consequences. at the beginning, your character makes a pact with a demon that if you slay the colossi that keep it imprisoned, the demon will bring the girl back to life. it forwarns you that the consequence may be grave and your character states that he doesn't care as long as she is brought back to life. the every time you slay a colossus, its death reminds the player that this isn't going to end well. and the emotional impact is how it does end well, but in an unexpected and emotionally provoking manner.

first, before you face the final colossus, your horse, the trusted companion that has carry through this gigantic landscape, sacrifices itself to save you as you race across a collapsing bridge. as you get to the last section of the span, your horse throws you off, saving your life, but resulting in the horse plunging down a deep ravine. you defeat the imposing last colossus and discover what the black force was: the demon's soul possessing your body. i won't go into too much detail, but you die at the end and that last scene is especially poignant. the game give you control as a vortex pulls you in to seal away the demon that possess you. the same controls that allowed you to climb onto the colossi is now used to desprately resist the suction. behind you is the vortex. ahead of you is the girl. so not only are you trying to save yourself, but you are striving to be reunited with her. the action is futile, the pull is too great. you get sucked in and are no more. your sacrifice was not all for naught, however...

as you may well have already guessed, i present Shadow of the Colossus as a work of art because it has a potent theme and one that it conveys eloquently. you save the girl in the end, but you didn't save her from the bad guy. in fact there really wasn't any definitive villian. you don't get to live happily ever after. but you do achieve you goal, not through inconquerable power but sacrifice. 

argument

this site's purpose is two-fold. the first is my own selfish desire to blog about video games, specifically the issue of video games as art. the second is to fulfill the requirements for a seminar class concerning said interest. as such, some of what i will write will only be relevant towards that class, however i will blog more extensively when i have more to say. as for now, this first posting is about how i developed my interest in video games as art and my main hypothesis about the artistic merit of video games now and their future potential. 

like many, i started playing video games at a young age to compensate for being a social introvert and over the years, although i've become more socially adroit, video games have become ingrained as the best way to pass my free time. i also drew a lot as a kid and when it came time to go to college i decided to try and develop this talent in the hopes of becoming an artist. i don't think that panned out once i finally did get my bachelor's in art, but if anything, formal schooling got me thinking about art much more critically. with video games i have become what is called a "hardcore gamer," while with art i'm at best a dilettante. so enters the controversy of video games as art and the confluence of these two interests...

a lot has been said about this subject by many more notable and qualified person than i, but perhaps the most ignorant and insightful criticism about video games as an art form comes from Roger Ebert. the ignorance of his criticism lies in his overestimation of the power the player has to interact with the medium; a player can only do what the programmer allows. subsequently, a programmer is entirely in control when it comes to what he or she wants the player to experience and as such can fulfill Ebert's definition of an artist. the insight of his comment, however, is bit more subtle because it is couched in his appraisal of what video games are today, quote, "[video games] tend to involve (1) point and shoot in many variations and plotlines, (2) treasure or scavenger hunts, as in "Myst," and (3) player control of the outcome. I don't think these attributes have much to do with art; they have more in common with sports."

video games are a nascent medium and the relevance of Ebert's comment is the limitations imposed by the assumption that this medium is games. gaming is poor medium to conduct art because what makes a good game is not necessarily congruent with the vagaries of art. the enjoyment of games is predicated upon success, the satisfaction of accomplishment even if it is only an accomplishment by the artificial rules of the game. the appreciation of Art, art with a capital "A," high art, on the other hand, is not necessarily about making the audience feel like they have accomplished anything. indeed, a great piece of art can be antithetical to a gaming schema; imagine Hamlet: the Game where the player dithers about, soliloquizing about their intentions and only accomplishing them in the last five minutes of the game while dying due to their inability to act sooner. Hamlet the play is work of art, musing about mortality and the struggle of the human condition. Hamlet: the Game, on the other hand is barely a game at all, and considering how irate most gamers are at overly long cut-scenes getting in the way of the game, a complete and utter failure. 

this is not to say that games cannot convey powerful and relevant themes, because indeed i have played some games that have done so. my point is that a game is a limited venue for what artistically relevant themes can be conveyed since theses themes have to be congruent with the sense of accomplishment that drives a game. moreover, i believe the moniker "video game" is dangerous reification. the direct interaction of the audience in an artificial world can be a powerful medium for art, but the assumption that this interaction must be in the form of a game is the myopic conceit of what the medium is today. Hamlet probably wouldn't make a great game, but the themes it deals with could be artistically conveyed in a virtual world where the player's interaction produces similar results. granted, the incentive for interacting with an artificial world where one is confronted with sound and fury signifying nothing is not nearly as great as getting to save the world. one pursues the former for edification and epiphany; the conveyance of which is (usually, but not always) the testament of a work of art.

the ensuing posts on this blog will go into more detail about which video games i have played which i believe have achieved the lofty goals of being considered art. i will also go into greater detail how their presentation as a game may limit their artistic relevance. hopefully, the seminar i am taking will illuminate to me projects that elaborate on the theory i have just expounded.