Vlajdermen
Arcane
Was Roger Ebert right?
Roger Ebert wrote a favorable review of Cosmology of Kyoto in 1994.Was Roger Ebert right?
It seems that Ebert found the game artistic and, dare I say, immersive.RogerEbert said:The Cosmology of Kyoto CD-ROM comes with a bare minimum of instructions, informing me in a few words how to move within the images. No goal is established and no points are scored; the game never informs me what the object is, although it discreetly tracks the levels of karma and cash I have attained and keeps an inventory of my possessions. The disc comes packaged with a large fold-out map showing the streets and principal buildings of Kyoto - circa 900, when, as Heiankyo, it was the capital of Japan. I begin to wander the streets.
The richness is almost overwhelming; there is the sense that the resources of this game are limitless and that no two players would have the same experience. I have been exploring the ancient city in spare moments for two weeks now, and doubt that I have even begun to scratch the surface. This is the most beguiling computer game I have encountered, a seamless blend of information, adventure, humor, and imagination - the gruesome side-by-side with the divine.
In this medieval Kyoto, people exist alongside ghosts, demons, and goblins. On my travels I have met - and interacted with - a dog eating entrails, long-winded old farts, tradespeople (who offered me medicines, dried fish, cloth, rice cakes, amulets, and a chance to lose money on a cock fight), a monk leading a prayer meeting, kids playing ball in the streets (one is beheaded by a passerby), a friendly guide dog, a maiden with an obscenely phallic tongue, and a gambler who taught me a dice game.
The graphics are hauntingly effective, using a wide-screen landscape format. The individual characters are drawn with vivid facial characteristics, a cross between the cartoons of medieval Japanese art and the exaggerations of modern Japanimation. The speaking voices are filled with personality, often taunting, teasing, or sexy. There is the sense, illusory but seductive, that one could wander this world indefinitely. This is a wonderful game.
That sucker bit more than he can chew and people challenge him to chew, and then he quit. But no, he wouldnt change his mind or opinion and still declare loudly games can not be art.Was Roger Ebert right?
There are so many things labeled as art or with art in their name that it doesn't even mean anything anymore. Martial arts, The Art of War, The Art of Love, The Art of the Deal, culinary arts, pick up artists, etc, etc, etc. It's not that exclusive of a club as people think.
I'd say they have the potential to be - mobile games and other shovelware obviously have no pretentions to art and other games are often pushed out the door before they're ready, which can detract from their artistic impact. You would never confuse endless FiFA or Call of Duty games as art - they exist to meet shareholder's needs and nothing more. Sometimes though you can have the happy coincidence of a game that is not only fun to play but has artistic merits of it's own with regards to art, sound, music, story etc.
Games are first and foremost entertainment, meaning they're made to pander to someone. Art, however, is supposed to be a product of creative expression, not something that sells or made to be liked. Some art sells, but proper art should never be made with sales in mind. Therefore, 99.9(9)% of games will never classify as art, same deal with music and cinema.
Like the protected books, plays, and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas—and even social messages—through many familiar literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot, and music) and through features distinctive to the medium (such as the player’s interaction with the virtual world). That suffices to confer First Amendment protection. Under our Constitution, “esthetic and moral judgments about art and literature … are for the individual to make, not for the Government to decree, even with the mandate or approval of a majority.”
Yes but art isn't a mark of quality: There's lots of shit art. Art is a work made for entertainment, nothing more.