For some reason I cannot find the original so I am pasting the complete article.
September 28, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
The Play's the Thing
By DANIEL RADOSH
AS I write this, my temples are throbbing, my vision is slightly blurred, and I am jittery enough that my fingers first typed that last word as "blurured." I am in a Halo haze, brought on by three days of marathon sessions with Halo 3, the video-game phenomenon of the year.
Even before Halo 3 arrived in stores on Tuesday, Microsoft, the game's publisher, had received advance orders for 1.7 million copies, and gamers are expected to snatch up more than four million copies in all this week. On the first day the game was released, Microsoft reported $170 million in sales, which the company boasted was a record-breaking number for a video game that also tops the biggest opening weekend of any blockbuster movie. Halo 3's commercial success is matched only by its critical acclaim. Most reviewers have given it near-perfect scores.
Yet some gamers already feel a familiar emptiness, a gnawing suspicion that once Halo 3's initial thrill wears off we will be left with a vague dissatisfaction, and once again we will ask ourselves, Is this really as good as video games can be?
Thirty-five years after Pong, fans and critics still debate whether video games can legitimately be called art. Certainly, whatever artistic potential that games have, few, if any, have fulfilled it. Halo 3 hasn't changed that.
Games boast ever richer and more realistic graphics, but this has actually inhibited their artistic growth. The ability to convincingly render any scene or environment has seduced game designers into thinking of visual features as the essence of the gaming experience.
Many games now aspire to be "cinematic" above all else. In Halo 3, as in most games, the plot is conveyed largely through short expositional movies that are interspersed throughout the action. These cut scenes undermine the sense of involvement - of play - that is games' authentic métier. Games have become a backward-looking medium. Because game designers rely on the language of cinema, they have not sufficiently developed a new form of storytelling based on the language of video games.
Appropriating the language of cinema has made games successful as entertainment. The best video games are more inventive, exciting and rewarding than most summer action movies. Halo's Master Chief and Splinter Cell's Sam Fisher can hold their own against the Terminator or James Bond.
Read full...
September 28, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
The Play's the Thing
By DANIEL RADOSH
AS I write this, my temples are throbbing, my vision is slightly blurred, and I am jittery enough that my fingers first typed that last word as "blurured." I am in a Halo haze, brought on by three days of marathon sessions with Halo 3, the video-game phenomenon of the year.
Even before Halo 3 arrived in stores on Tuesday, Microsoft, the game's publisher, had received advance orders for 1.7 million copies, and gamers are expected to snatch up more than four million copies in all this week. On the first day the game was released, Microsoft reported $170 million in sales, which the company boasted was a record-breaking number for a video game that also tops the biggest opening weekend of any blockbuster movie. Halo 3's commercial success is matched only by its critical acclaim. Most reviewers have given it near-perfect scores.
Yet some gamers already feel a familiar emptiness, a gnawing suspicion that once Halo 3's initial thrill wears off we will be left with a vague dissatisfaction, and once again we will ask ourselves, Is this really as good as video games can be?
Thirty-five years after Pong, fans and critics still debate whether video games can legitimately be called art. Certainly, whatever artistic potential that games have, few, if any, have fulfilled it. Halo 3 hasn't changed that.
Games boast ever richer and more realistic graphics, but this has actually inhibited their artistic growth. The ability to convincingly render any scene or environment has seduced game designers into thinking of visual features as the essence of the gaming experience.
Many games now aspire to be "cinematic" above all else. In Halo 3, as in most games, the plot is conveyed largely through short expositional movies that are interspersed throughout the action. These cut scenes undermine the sense of involvement - of play - that is games' authentic métier. Games have become a backward-looking medium. Because game designers rely on the language of cinema, they have not sufficiently developed a new form of storytelling based on the language of video games.
Appropriating the language of cinema has made games successful as entertainment. The best video games are more inventive, exciting and rewarding than most summer action movies. Halo's Master Chief and Splinter Cell's Sam Fisher can hold their own against the Terminator or James Bond.
Read full...
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