G-Force said:
SimuLord said:
And when they try to be art, they cease to be games (hello Heavy Rain and hello, Hideo Kojima.)
How do you define what a game is? Not trying to troll I'm just genuinely curious. Many would consider Heavy Rain as a game as it does test a players skill and there are clear moments when the game can defeat them and when the player can triumph.
Now keep in mind this is one man's opinion, because I get flamed to hell and back by the art crowd every time I state it, but:
- A game is, at its very essence, a set of mechanics by which one of two things occurs---either a definable objective is reached or a state of equilibrium upon which a world can be built is achieved, and these mechanics are set up such that the player is at the controls of the narrative (if a narrative exists) or the worldspace (if there is no narrative---this is, in essence, the difference between Final Fantasy and SimCity if we are to paint with the most definably in-one-side-of-the-court examples of each side.)
Note that I've left a very broad area for interpretation in something quick time event heavy (like Heavy Rain or the "art" parts of a Metal Gear Solid game.) The problem with using these to defend art games as "games" is that in the case of a game like Heavy Rain, the quick-time event is the ONLY means by which the player can fairly interact with the worldspace, meaning that Example Number One of the pure art game has as its sole gameplay element the single worst, laziest piece of game design in the entire developer's arsenal. And furthermore, the art of the game is sacrificed, if only for a moment, during the use of that gameplay mechanic.
But even then, the balance between "player controls the worldspace/narrative" and "player is merely at the discretion of that which is pre-ordained" never crosses an acceptable threshold (again, one man's opinion of "acceptable threshold") between something that is non-interactive and something that is interactive. But I'm getting off my point.
In a game like Fallout: New Vegas, the game never departs from gameplay for long enough to try and maintain the illusion of art. The player always controls the narrative, not the other way around. (western RPGs in general tend to be masterful examples of this.) Look at games like Grand Theft Auto and Half-Life and even Portal, and the game always moves at the pace of the player's mastery of its gameplay elements, keeping the use of story purely as a milestone of goal achievement, which keeps it firmly planted in "game" territory and out of "art" or "interactive movie" or whatever the art crowd tries to redefine games as this week.
On the other end, a game like SimCity, Patrician/Port Royale, or just about any game with "Tycoon" in the title approaches the notion of a "game" differently. Will Wright was fond of saying that SimCity was less a game as a "toy", using as his example the difference between a tennis ball and the game of tennis---the former is an item with infinite possibilities, since besides playing tennis you can use it as a ball in just about any other ball game (as most kids know from using it as everything from a baseball to a hockey puck), assign a personality to it and keep it as a companion (think Wilson the volleyball, but smaller and green), or (to use Wright's own line) "just contemplate its roundness."
Personally I think Wright is selling his own product short. The point is that a worldspace is created and how the player interacts with it BECOMES the game, completely unencumbered by someone else's narrative decisions. The AAR/Fanfiction forum at the Paradox Interactive fansite teases out the logical conclusion of this, as character-driven narratives have been written (no small bit of them actually good literature) based on naught but randomly-generated names with no other pretense on the part of the developer. Yes, something like Europa Universalis is more a true competitive "game" than is SimCity, but that variance of goal is still there.
Having prattled on quite enough I'll wrap this up by underscoring the point that a game has a distinctive set of goals to be achieved through gameplay mechanics
at the player's ultimate control. Art games tend to miserably fail this basic test, and on those occasions they do venture into being "games" they tend to cease to be "art" until the "game" section is resolved. Rigid segregation (that usually breaks immersion---note the QTE has its reputation for a reason.)
