A week ago, we pondered the chance of living to 100 and still playing games at that age. But even as the gamer demographic trends older, many feel like the time will naturally come when they’ll put down the controller.
Rather than ponder games’ artistic merit, Brian Hertler tackles a question that’s a little more lighthearted, yet no more answerable: Just why do we find video games – even the simplest ones – so fun?
Every adventure requires an antagonist, someone or something corrupting the world you’re in. It’s a basic need. Yet why do so many games serve up foes whose evildoing provides more of a chore to be undone than a memorable struggle?
The Chicago Sun-Times film critic has finally revisited his old contention that games can never be art, to defend it “in principle,” and to dispute about that which cannot be disputed.
No matter who is brought in to write a story or dialogue, the industry still treats the written word in such a utilitarian way that it has a second-class citizenship among the other art forms comprising a video game.
In a culture so infused with irony, the appreciation of campy works – outrageous movies, terrible art, worse music – is absolutely mainstream. Does it apply to games? Can games strive to be campy? Or are they already so?
I have a fear of horror films, and by extension horror games. I’m just too attenuated to suspense and having the hell scared out of me. But what I’m really experiencing, argues one writer, is just that: scary, not horror.
It’s there, and you know how to use it. It’s an exploit or a glitch or some imbalance in the AI. Morally, it’s wrong. But what if everyone else is doing it? Or just the potential for them doing it?
It is hard to read of a young man, essentially homeless, spending Christmas alone in a games store and not feel a twinge of sadness. But it’s a memory more sweet than bitter to someone who considers games a lifesaver.
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