Skip to main content

Let's Play "Walk Around and Kill People 6"

Recently, to go along with its annual awards, Steam (a platform for buying computer games) released this list of their most played games of 2017. While perusing said list, I came to a somewhat depressing realization: all nine of the games with more than 100,000 peak simultaneous players consisted, at their core, of walking around a 3-dimensional environment and shooting people to death. To some this may fit completely with their view of video games as mindless entertainment which promotes violence. But to me it was jarring, possibly because not one of the twenty games in my Steam library adheres to this formula. In my experience video games can be a fascinating artistic medium, but it is difficult to find the gems in the teeming horde of first-person shooters. The overwhelming popularity of this specific genre has distorted the general public's perception of video games, obscuring the fact that, just like other media such as books or movies, they can be used both to offer an easy, numbing distraction and to create a compelling artistic vision.

If you need examples of how video games can be true art, they certainly do exist. Fallen London has some of the best prose I've ever read, while Sunless Skies and Hollow Knight create powerful atmospheres in a way impossible in any other medium. Portal has one of the most memorable villains in any media, and Undertale is basically this blog post in the form of a video game. There are also plenty of games which have tremendous ability to teach. Kerbal Space Program has given me an intuitive understanding of rocket design and orbital mechanics, and Europa Universalis IV greatly expanded my knowledge of history and geography (side note: my ability to pass Mr. Wong's map tests last year with almost no studying was entirely due to this game). With the existence of games like these in mind, its sad to see that most people would rather just blow things up. I can only hope that as video games mature as a medium, this situation will improve.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's Not Fantasy, It's "Magical Realism"

As you probably remember (if you're in Mr. Starace's class at least), Ms. Heitz semi-recently gave us  this article  explaining what magical realism is and how it differs from fantasy. As I read it, I became more and more irritated, finally deciding that I needed to write something demonstrating how it is emblematic of a significant problem in how those who analyze literature view certain genres. Luckily, I have a blog where there is a possibility that someone might actually read my rant on the subject, so here are my thoughts on why magical realism is not a distinct literary genre, but a category of fantasy literature. Literary critics, wanting to feel more discerning than the average reader, are loath to ascribe literary merit to popular "genre fiction": fantasy, science fiction, mystery, horror, etc. They were thus presented with a conundrum when a new style of writing arose in Latin America. It was full of supernatural elements, and thus fit the standard defi...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Song of Ice and Fire: Storytelling as Worldbuilding

This post is part of a series which I hope to write in the relatively near future, documenting pieces of entertainment media which I currently view as significant influences on the way I view what makes a story good. Beyond simply serving as writing practice, the purpose of these is largely so that in future years I can look back and laugh at the things I thought were so important when I was in high school (or be shocked by my prognosticative powers, I suppose, though that seems less likely). I'm putting the series here for the moment because it fits in fairly well with some of the media blog posts I did for Mr. Starace and doing so reduces the number of places I'll need to look to find my past writings in the future. Anyway, on to A Song of Ice and Fire (which [just in case someone else is reading this] is the low-magic fantasy epic by George R. R. Martin which was adapted into the HBO show Game of Thrones. ) The primary reason why A Song of Ice and Fire (which I will hence...
Post a Comment
Read more

Spring, Herald of Doom

(Note: This was written for school last year, but I figured I might as well put it here.) In winter, all was good and cold. Crisp air made walking nicely brisk. Skies overcast with murky grey, Gave pleasant rain to those below. But spring, a green assassin, creeps, And slays the clouds with sunlight spears. Their corpses fall, and soon are dew, To feed this vile season’s verdant minions. The sun lets loose its baleful gaze, Like a cruel tyrant smiting from on high. Horrific heat weighs down the weary people, No more clouds left to shield them from the rays. But even worse, whenever spring comes along, The dreaded summer will be upon us before long.
Post a Comment
Read more