The Art of Choice

For many years now, video games have been trying to establish themselves as a new medium. A medium that allows you to interact with it freely, all while giving you an experience like no other. Some games try to emulate films, some games allow you to interact with the story and allow you to choose. Not all games do this, some games fall short of people's expectations and some games are just there for purely being time wasters, but there are other games, other games that are art. The thing about this is that equating a video game to art might be hard for some people, especially those in an older demographic. It may sound like generalization, but attempting to discuss the artistic aspects of a game with a generation that didn't grow up with them can be difficult. To them, games are a bunch of blinking lights, a thing that kids do or, at their worst, murder simulators.

Take a look at the Elders React channel on YouTube in order to see more of these sort of reactions: many of the individuals on it tend to brush of gaming more often than not, and while the latest episode on The Last of Us did show that they had a respect for the game itself, there were still some who thought the game as too violent. The existing media haven't helped this image, and let's be frank: the gaming community isn't always the best place to discuss the idea of art in gaming. There will always be that person who will claim a game is too “artsy-fartsy” (which is a phrase that should have never gotten popular) and that the game itself is somehow lesser quality because of that.

Artistic games, while not genre per say, tend to take more risks when it comes to certain aspects of the game, such as the story, characters, art style and controls. A game like Journey is mostly exploration based showing the beautiful environments and taking the player on a journey of self-discovery, showing itself off more as an experience to behold without any real enemies to fight.

With the Shelter series, both games focus on a mother's fight to try to keep her children alive. The games use a non-traditional art style, giving the games a more storybook-like feel with a strong theme of motherhood in the background. The story is told through more visual means rather than endless text boxes. It uses the visual aspect of gaming well, and with the addition of player choice affecting the fate of the mother and her children, it leaves an impact on the player almost more so than what a movie would produce. A movie you could only watch as a mother lynx found one of her cubs missing and darted off to find it. In the game, however, you can prevent that, or it'll be used as the mother Lynx trying desperately to protect your cubs. The game shows you through beautiful environments and aspects of its programing of what is going on around you and what you can do. The player is the one that decides how this story ends, and every single death or mistake can be prevented. It's all up to the player and what they do.

The Deer God is another game that does this. The game expresses itself leaving player with a strange sense of serenity. It appears as if it is some sort of pixelated painting, not only emphasizing the graphics but the story itself through non-conventional means. It gives the player the option to do whatever they wish as long as they are prepared to face the consequences of their actions. Each aspect of the game is expressed in a more flourishing kind of way, giving the player plenty to ogle as they play.

Art in games isn't just limited to indie games, however; the Final Fantasy games have always been praised for their high artistic standards when it comes to graphics. While the story of each entry in the series hasn't always held up, they've always emphasized the artistic expression of their design team, and while that has yielded some less than favorable results with some character designs It has become a very well praised game for its always unique and distinctive art style as well as some beautiful music.

Shadow of the Colossus has been revered as art for accurately portraying a beautiful yet tragic story of a boy trying to bring his love back to life with the unforeseen consequences of it all. In addition to this, it helps the player experience what it's like to ride a horse and scale the back of a giant monster in a way that complements the story beautifully, improving upon the experience that the game is. The game's main character is virtually silent and yet what it expresses never ceases to amaze the common viewer. Some may find its controls broken because they aren't perfect, but difficult controls were put there by the developers on purpose to express the difficulty of scaling a giant beast. The same thing goes for the Silent Hill games: they're known for their broken combat controls, but if you think in regards to the story itself, each of the protagonists wouldn't know how to fight in the first place, especially not under the stress that they're under. Games have the potential to express what the characters have been feeling not just through dialogue or text bubbles but through the actions off the characters themselves and how they control.

The gaming medium is being used to express so much more than before. They create living and breathing worlds for the player to be in, and interact with. When you watch a film or read a book, you're an outsider looking in, but you can't interact with the world. Sure, you could write fanfiction, but in truth you really don't have any say in what happens or how everything goes down. In games you do. Your choices become a part of the creative process, allowing a form of self-expression in a world built around it. Games aren't art specifically because of how nice they play, how pretty they look or how interesting the story is. What makes games unique as a form of art is how they make the audience an active part of the creative work. No medium that came before it has done this to the extent that games do, and to dismiss it despite (or because of) that is like dismissing comics because “it's all pictures and little text” and photography because “there's no effort involved.”

Games will always be games; they'll always have a place in the realm of entertainment. But besides that, in recent years they've started to become more like comics and films. They're starting to be recognized as more than just bleeps and bloops. They've evolved from their primitive roots, and because of this the realm of gaming has expanded. Art is becoming a mainstay in many games. The expression of such can lead to a truly breathtaking experience unlike any other.

Video games are an art form like no other. While they resemble movies at times, there will always be one thing that sets them apart, and that's the player's choice.

Angelina Bonilla, NoobFeed (@Twitter)