The Art of Videogames

[WastedEngland]

Hey guys!

 

I searched and couldn't find a similar topic so I thought it'd be a good idea to start one up.

 

I'd assume that most of us being gamers, we'd like to think that video games are in their own right an art form, in their entirety or containing different types of design and art (characters, environments, themes etc.) OR maybe you don't; if so there's an open floor here for you to air your views too (but if this area is a strong point of discussion for you, you might be better posting in a topic like This one.

 

The main idea for this topic is to showcase any games you think stand out above their peers in terms of their presentation. This isn't limited to the game as a whole; for instance you might want to tell the world how you loved the Art Deco theme in Bioshock, the amazing character concept art behind Skyrim, The cel shading style used in Borderlands, The comic book presentation in Infamous or the front end design of Red Dead Redemption.

 

Indie games have always been very stylistic and adventurous in their design, maybe there's an indie game you think deserves a bit more limelight? or may have even been over glorified? One game that I really liked was the minimalistic organism style of flOw on PS3.

 

There is a reason I decided not to post this in Gaming chat; this reason being that I wanted to focus more on the themes and art in games. An example for what I'm trying to say is that Crysis is a very beautiful game but beyond it's photo-realistic graphics does it stand out in its design and presentation? You may disagree and if you do please post, this is an open ended topic after all.

 

To kick off and give you a taste of what i'm talking about i'm going to explain one of my favourite games when it comes to the art of video games.

This game is Mirrors Edge.

I think Mirrors Edge is a beautiful game in terms of its lighting and colour palette. The cityscape appears to be bleached white which to many will seem ugly and bland however this ties in perfectly with the oppressive government in the storyline. The city has a lack of character to portray the how the government want to keep the people oppressed and avoid them getting to personalised, even the adverts are bland and unoffensive. Yet, the areas where you are usually tasked with traversing through on the rooftops and back alleys hidden from the public view show signs of neglect, the whites are dirty and have an albeit slight character and depth to them. These whites contrast with the azure skies and dark shadowed areas which in motion almost seem dreamlike, giving a sense of freedom the game wants to feel as you navigate your way across the rooftops above the policed state city below because as Faith the 'runner' you are free on the rooftops roaming where many can't.

 

The interiors usually have a single colour theme that with white covers the walls and floors of the interior that again portrays the unoffensive, clean and pure oppressive felt within the city. Yet when you submerge to the maintenance works and industry within the city this colour follows so that these areas don't fall into the trap of generic grey-brown theme commonly seen in these environments. The darker areas usually maintain a freshness felt on the rooftop levels, this felt by the lighting of the strong colours almost bleeding into the environment and the reflective and water effects used. These areas usually show an incomplete or neglected feel that gives the same feeling of freedom felt on the rooftops, almost like these are the last pockets where the government has yet to cleanse or has no desire to, because there needs to be areas that can't always be cleaned and controlled.

 

I just like the whole feeling of the game. It's commonplace to hear of an governed policed state and imagine everything looking similar, buildings and interiors looking uniformed and saturated (think Portal 1) and whilst Mirrors Edge follows this rule it lets us observe it from an outside perspective, the cracks and no go areas where the powers don't have such a tight grasp. Lastly; here are some concepts I also felt showed the theme and direction of the game:

 

Phew. Well, I know that was a lot but don't feel like you have to give such an in-depth view, I only wrote so much because it's an area of gaming that's always appealed most to me. Also, please don't think I made this so I could drone on and on how much I liked Mirrors Edge, I really want to know what other people see in this and other games!

Edited July 25, 2012 by WastedEngland

[Eagles]

Oh, such a great idea for a topic.

I agree with everything you said there, dude. Mirror's Edge is an amazing game, both in graphics and in gameplay/story. The word unique can describe it very well. Crysis, for example, is also a game that is beautiful for what it wants to represent: an apocalyptic city. Everything is dirty, broken and dark. It's not as good-looking as Mirror's Edge, but it passes the message of the game very well with the visual.

 

Starting from the past games, the one that first really caught my eyes were The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It was different from any game I've ever played until that date. Colorful forests and big castles with so many characters inside it made this game one of the most originals in a matter of beauty.

 

For the current generation, I could mention Little Big Planet for its creativity and originality, the Uncharted or the Assassin's Creed series for their amazing scenarios concepts and for their notable characters, but I will emphasize Journey, for PS3. Dude, that game was superb, all the concept behind the story explains all the artistic features that involves the game. It's something that makes the player feel calm and decided to go ahead to see what's next. In summary, it's the game with the better art around - probably I'm the only one with this opinion. But here they are:

[Dystopia]

Mirror's Edge is my favourite game, it's so aesthetically pleasing and something I constantly take inspiration from in terms of colours. The art department for that game are second to none in my opinion. Great choice to get this topic started, I can't add anything as you have already done so for me.

[WastedEngland]

Thanks for the good words guys! I'm glad the idea of thread is starting to pick up

 

@Eagles

I've never played the Legend of Zelda games but I do agree that they do hold a charm that rises them above others in the genre. I think whilst it's history in Nintendo makes it an icon it does have a distinctive style, not to mention the character of Link is instantly recognisable also.

 

When I first heard of Journey It caught my eye however i've barely touched my PS3 in months. It does look very interesting, so I'm going to look into it and hopefully it'll give me the reason to dust off my PS3.

 

@Dystopia

Awesome! I'm glad somebody agrees and sees the game in the same view I do, it's a shame that its sequels future is an on/off project.

 

Whilst i'm posting I'll contribute a little more:

These are concepts for Saints Row The Thirds' Steelport. In all honesty, I do prefer Stilwater from the first 2 and all in all SRTT was a huge let down for me in many ways. Steelport was a well detailed city to be in but it just felt too samey, what I loved about Stillwater was that each area had a distinctive feel to it. You would know if you were in the Barrio or the Shopping District or Sunnyvale Gardens etc, Steelport lacks that variety in my opinion. Still, it's hard not to look at those concepts and admire what Steelport looks like and what it could have been.

 

I might make a post here looking at the way Stilwater changed between Saints Row 1 and 2, because I always thought that was very well done, Stilwater felt new yet familiar at the same time.

Edited July 26, 2012 by WastedEngland

[Robinski]

Visual design is obviously something very strong in the games industry, but I think right now it lacks the capability of delving too deep below the visual surface. It's a problem that's inherent to the market itself and both how quickly it became commercialised.

 

When going with the whole "Are video games art?" thing I like to compare it to the last "new" medium: film. A major difference between the early days of these industries is who was targeted. Film was/is a passive medium (i.e. obviously you can engage with a film, but you do play a part in it) and as such it was easier to market to everyone young or old, man or woman. But games, being a "learned" thing where understanding the language of games is vital to actively engage requires more of a clean slate mentally than learning the rules of film. As such, children were always the main audience for videogames, and with that bring the lack of artistic depth that goes into allegory, metaphor and literary themes. Give a child Bioshock (we can argue about how that's bad parenting later) and they won't tell you anything about the socio-political elements inherent to the world of Rapture and the problems inherent in its premise, they'll just tell you about the scary guys with masks and the big daddies.

 

I make arguments with people online all the time about "authorial intent" (i.e. it doesn't matter if the creator intended for [message x] to come across, it's there for me to see and that's valid) but when a lot of your authors aren't intending to put any sort of literary theme or message but focussing solely on visual design and gameplay you are merely creating entertainment and not taking full advantage of your medium's ability to produce art. This, in my view, is what's happening or already happened to the gaming industry. Combining a largely immature audience and the huge influx of cash in such a short period of time (gaming was always pretty popular , but really took off in the early-mid 2000s) essentially trained the industry to create derivative and uninspired puddles of games.

 

That said, the past couple of years have seen a rise in indie/smaller scale development alongside Call of Duty MMXII and it's these sort of things that generally challenge the status quo. The tools that are available to the general public and those willing to teach themselves allows for this sort of innovation, not completely different to the french New Wave phase in cinema in the 50s, and how it reacted/reflected to Hollywood.

 

I don't necessarily think we've stagnated and that this stage of rampant commercialism in gaming is a bad thing. It's just a stage the industry is going to have to go through. And it will, the market's so huge now, gaming's not going anywhere soon. I'm pretty sure we'll eventually end up with games similar to Chris Nolan films like Inception or The Dark Knight series: on one level it's easily enjoyable action and visual flair, but on another has quite heavy and developed intentional politics and themes.

 

In terms of stuff that I find interesting right now, I'm so annoyed that Journey was a PS3 exclusive. Wanna play that game.

 

E: Well f*ck, turns out I'm in Vis Arts and not Gaming Chat. My argument's pretty invalid if we're only talk about visual design.

Edited July 26, 2012 by Robinski

[WastedEngland]

I agree with what you're saying, totally. Games differ from films because when you're watching the protagonist go through his/her story you witness and feel emotionally involved in their tale but all you've done is watch. Games give you depth of really identifying with your protagonist because he/she is yours, you controlled them and in some games made the decisions and dealt the consequences. It's kind of like when you read a book, you imagine what all the characters look like within the parameters of what the author describes but the image of the characters/monsters/places will be different from others who've read the book. Even if the author goes into great detail about the subject, your opinion or perception will fill in the blanks with what you think fits best. When you read a book and see a film adaption you'll probably think "What the hell? I didn't think so&so looked like that" or you may think "that's exactly how I imagined that castle would look" and in some cases it could throw you off the film altogether. I think Games clash these two together, which is why I believe some games can be considered an art in themselves. A game can give you the option to chose how your character looks, how they may approach situations or make decisions and act. A game can give you the option to explore your surroundings and interact with them so you can immerse yourself within the world. A book would let you imagine this world whilst following the story whereas a film would deliver it all to you, sometimes heavily compressed to 2 hours or less. Like your Bioshock example, if you play only focusing on the story and what's required of you to do, it's similar to a film. If you're aware of the socio-political elements you may get motivated to explore the world more and dig up some more evidence in the form of the tape recordings.

 

In terms of challenging the status quo I think gaming as an art has the potential to get better and better if it builds the fanbase behind it. CoD for example is only breaking sales records whilst remaining firmly rooted as your cliche fps that doesn't change anything and is on parr with your typical Hollywood war movie. It'd be insane to think that alongside that a partially 2D/3D platformer in black and white with a film grain and minimal sound feedback could sell over a million, but Limbo shows that a diverse unique theme works and has demand. When it comes to Inception style games, you mentioned it being a Chris Nolan film. Maybe that's what gaming needs, more 'names' with the budget and influence like Hideo Kojima so that these well made and well developed experiences have a specific name or studio behind them. Then again, films do reach a much wider audience so them having a name behind them makes sense, with the way gaming is a name might not be enough.

 

And I just read your edit, while my intentions for this topic were more the visual side of art than the philosophy behind it, I did do something similar when I was talking about Mirrors Edge, this topic doesn't need to be filled with pictures to have insightful content

Edited July 26, 2012 by WastedEngland