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This was a statement made by famed movie critic Roger Ebert.

And it affirms something to which I’ve long attested:

…the film critic’s pathetic lot – to forever claw and scratch for recognition by other film critics, since no one else – namely those other film students who went on to actually make films – gives a damn.

What is art?

This question is one that has been debated perhaps since the beginning of human history – indeed I would venture a guess that even the cave painters Ebert mentions in his post argued the validity of those works, unaware as to how they would inform historians of the social context in which they were created.  It is only at the modern heights of arrogance that could one claim to be able to answer this age-old question with any certainty.  And it is hardly possible to be any more arrogant than making a universal truth claim, let alone one expected to hold for eternity. The whole thing is laughable.

I have argued in the past that video games are the ultimate form of expression, and what is art if not expression?  Indeed video games are a convergence of art from just about every medium – audio, visual, literary – and their social impact is ever-increasing.  Ebert makes his statement by observing video footage of a few games offered up as art, already prepared to deny the possibility.  Aside from the sheer fallacy of denying art as a form of expression, there is also the matter of his evaluation not being made from the proper standpoint.  As I argued in the above-linked essay, what sets video games apart from film, television, music, books, and other mediums is their interactivity.

That one thing [that sets video games apart from other media] is interactivity. You can rip a page out of a book in frustration as a story takes an unfavorable turn, or you can yell your lungs out at movie screen as the stupid teenage girl wanders down the dark hallway alone towards the lurking killer, but chances are that you’re not going to change anything. In a video game, however, a person is given a measure of control over the characters and environment presented.

To evaluate any video game without playing it is as dubious as evaluating a piece of music by only reading the lyrics or reading the sheet music, or evaluating the merits of a film based on – insert laughter here – a critic’s review. (more…)

A Spoiler-Free Review of Mass Effect 2

Mass Effect 2 is every bit the middle game of a trilogy.  It lacks the impact of the first game – the introduction to a galactic-scale conflict, the first look at a thoroughly conceived sci-fi universe, that first unnerving dialogue with Sovereign.  And it necessarily reserves all of the big surprises for the finale.

For those who did not play the first Mass Effect, this game amounts to little more than a pretty-top notch shooter built on the pretext of a galactic recruitment drive, with a meaty chunk of story seemingly added on as an afterthought.  That is to say that there seemed to be no connection between the quests to acquire Commander Shepard’s teammates and the greater adventure.  In terms of story, there were few surprises – the only “big” revelation completely underwhelming, and the one intriguing bit of lore development – the bit about the Geth – left mostly unexplored.

Back in October of 2007, when BioWare fans first heard that the company had been acquired by Electronic Arts, there was a collective sigh of dismay – or perhaps even a roar of indignation.  The fear was that creativity and originality would be traded for whatever best fit EA’s business model.

Mass Effect 2 provides case in point. (more…)

By the Balance, the blessing of the Six, Mo’jaal, or whatever is out there – this is one hell of an amazing game.  I played it for the first time years ago when it was first released, finished it, and then somehow forgot how much I enjoyed it.  That actually turned out to be a blessing, because playing it through a second time was mostly an all new experience, and if possible, it was even better this time around.

Let me start by telling you the faults of the game, just to get them out of them way, and make room for what’s great about it.  The combat sucks.  There’s just no way around it.  Fortunately, there is very little of it.  Future games might want to take a hint or two from Indigo Prophecy (aka Fahrenheit), and just have quick time based fighting or something.  This is an adventure game, afterall, and it should stay purely adventure, as there is no room for anything else.

What’s great – the story.  It is completely mind-blowing.  I don’t mean that as a cliche, but literally mind-blowing, because it will really make you think – about life, about purpose, about reality.  The game touches on themes from Indigenous Australian mythology, and does so brilliantly, adding a new dimension to the twin-world lore of the Longest Journey franchise – dreams being the common thread that connects the two worlds, and also their origin.  Without getting too much into the philosophy of Dreamfall, let me just say that if for no other reason, then you must play this game for the story.  Decidedly mature, but never gratuitous, and blurring the boundary between fantasy and science fiction, Dreamfall’s narrative would be screen worthy, but for the fact that it is too large to be contained in a single film, and would probably be butchered on television.  So the interactive medium was the correct choice to tell this story. (more…)

Jack Kevorkian is a man of many talents, yet he is infamous for only one thing: his dealings in death. The media-christened “Suicide doctor” is close to death himself after his recent release from prison, and perhaps now he is wondering what his legacy will be. Most likely it will be his hodgepodge suicide machine and his publicly decried usherings of the terminally ill into the next world, conducted from the back of an old van. But what few people may ever know about Jack Kevorkian is that he is also an accomplished artist, having rendered a number of fascinating and provocative paintings. These images convey the thoughts of a man who throughout the course of his life appears to have been at odds with the rest of the world – at best a cynic, at worst a misanthrope.

According to a biography written by Detroit journalist Michael Betzold, the enmity between Kevorkian and the world started at an early age and grew steadily over the next half-century. The biography chronicles a boy who acted out against his disenchantment with school by shooting spitballs and who early on rejected the Christian tradition in which he was raised. Like the iconic high school intellectual, he steered clear of sports and the social scene, instead engaging in more cerebral pursuits. It seems almost like a science fiction cliché how he would go on in his adult years to become something quite akin to a mad scientist, like Victor Frankenstein or Dr. Strangelove. (more…)