AuthorTopic: Official Off-Topic Thread  (Read 318692 times)

Offline Froli

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #430 on: August 13, 2008, 08:05:32 pm
Are you really getting some kicks trolling in this forum?

Offline MrMister

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #431 on: August 13, 2008, 08:07:02 pm
no i was hoping to stir up some arguments i hadn't seen before on the subject
it might be a one shot deal

Offline ptoing

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #432 on: August 13, 2008, 08:08:36 pm
Stop trolling.
There are no ugly colours, only ugly combinations of colours.

Offline Rox

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #433 on: August 14, 2008, 01:30:12 am
Heh. That's pretty much the definition of trolling, isn't it? And arguments on what subject, anyway? Game art looking good? I don't think anyone here would ever need to argue about that. Remember the roots, man.

Offline Evan

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #434 on: August 14, 2008, 05:19:13 am
On the topic of video games and art, I downloaded "Braid" today on the XBLA. Seriously, this game hurts my brain, but in a good way. I think that it's a perfect example of what we're talking about.

http://braid-game.com/

A perfect mesh of art and game. For once, it's not a nice-looking game with little to it.

And although it's not multiplayer, my gamertag for 360 is "TenFortyEZ." I suggest some of y'alls add me if you have 360, but don't send a blank invite, just include your name on here. Or give me your gamertag and I'll add you. Either way.

Offline huZba

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #435 on: August 14, 2008, 09:59:40 am
I tried the demo of Braid. It has so many things done right that it's not even funny. No tutorials, you learn as you go. No pushing the story to the player, but it's up for grabs if you want it. Transforming gameplay mechanic and great visuals too. It'll probably be the first purchase i'll do on XBL.

Offline Froli

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #436 on: August 14, 2008, 12:33:20 pm
How about Bionic commando rearmed? was it a good remake as everyone says? I played the nes version and it was probably the first game I finished back in the old days ;D
I read a lot about braid and it seems a lot of people were blown away by it.
« Last Edit: August 14, 2008, 03:34:16 pm by Froli »

Offline questseeker

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #437 on: August 14, 2008, 03:34:31 pm
The idea that video games are the only interactive art form is patently ridiculous.  If novels, paintings, film and theater were not interactive we would not enjoy them even a little bit.  The fact that you as the audience or reader are constantly reconstructing and reorganizing the narrative, judging the characters, wondering what will happen next...these are all the things that make these art forms what they are.  Video games merely extend this process into the literal.


by that logic, a bird in flight, completely beyond my power, is interactive.  I can wonder where it came from, where it's going, condemn it as unintelligent or worship its freedom from human "rationality."  This doesn't make the bird interactive, it only means that I am alive and that my perception of the world's output is subjective.

videogames, on the other hand, are one of few art forms (there is an excessive amount of interactive installation and performance art that was forgotten in the list) where the users input changes the output.  That is a dramatic and vital difference and it's both an expanding and a limiting factor depending on the context.

That's a pretty crazy stretch :P  Film of a bird in flight in the context of an entire film, or a painting of a bird in flight, is to me VERY different from simply seeing a bird outside, because there is a director or a photographer or a painter interpreting and changing it and showing it to us in their own way.  Viewing or consumption of artistic works IS interactive in a way that passive observation of natural phenomena is not.  And of course, video games are interactive in a way that other art forms are not, I wholeheartedly agree.

My point is simply that the idea that games can't be art because they are interactive just rings very false to me.  They are *more* interactive, that's all.  The idea of arbitrarily drawing a line in the interactive sand is just crazy, and I've never understood Ebert's reasoning behind it.

About Ebert: don't care, he's an old film buff, he's not expected to like or understand or support a competing, different art form.

About videogames being art: of course they are, anything that is not (or is not considered) completely utilitarian and constrained by external forces has a spark of artistic expression from the person who decided to do it like that and not differently.
Being something that is produced from the ground up as a source of designed experiences for the public, videogames can be classified along with older art forms like painting, sculpture and music at the purest end of the spectrum of art forms.

About interactivity: I side with ndchristie, you are confusing interpretation, that takes place entirely in the observer's head, interactivity, which affects the artwork (or at least its temporary manifestations), and merely intentionally directing the observer's attention without causing changes.

About the bird example: an actual bird might be beautiful, but isn't art because we know it is not the work of someone (barring aberrant cases, like suspecting it's actually been put there for our entertainment); a bird film is art, albeit probably boring, unless we are convinced that it is utterly meaningless (for example, it's a byproduct of testing an automatic motion-activated camera system with birds on a sky background; but even that would have some art "margin" left, such as the choice of camera placement, time of day etc.).

Offline AdamAtomic

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #438 on: August 14, 2008, 04:46:14 pm
Without getting too deep into semantics, I am really not picky about whether or not you consider interpretation to be interactive.  Ebert's point about video games is that they can't be art because they are interactive, therefore the author does not have full control over the effect the work has on the viewer.  However, obviously interpretation exists, and so obviously authors of even "non-interactive" art do not have "full control" over the effect the work has on people.

Offline crab2selout.png

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #439 on: August 15, 2008, 12:43:48 am
Just finished playing Chrono Trigger for the first time. Still an incredible game. I was looking through some of the game's art on a sprite site and realised that you never see the exteriors of any of the game's locations(except for overworld view). No outside shots of houses, castles or domes except for those overworld shots. The entire game is a series of rooms linked by the overworld.