When did games need to become something other than games to be something special? When did they stop just needing to be fun?
While at work today I went through my usual routine. Sit down at my desk. Get out my iPod and search through to any un-listened to podcasts from the past week. I happened to see that GiantBomb’s Game of the Year Podcast hadn’t been listened too so I chose that to listen too even though I already knew what game they had picked for Game of the Year.
Now I have no problem with GiantBomb picking Grand Theft Auto IV as their game of the year. After all, it is their game of the year selection, not mine. What kind of got me a little cross though was that during their debate for Game of the Year, which eventually boiled down to Metal Gear Solid 4 and the eventual winner, was that all four of the GiantBomb guys kept saying how the two games were so much more than just mere games. They easily brushed aside talk of Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, a game I feel Brad Shoemaker actually thought was game of the year, and Dead Space because while they were great games, they were just games. But somehow GTA IV and MGS4 transcended gamedom and were a completely different entity.
I don’t know about you but I play games because they are games and honestly I don’t see how these two particular games became something more than a game. I can see where someone would say that the story in MGS 4 is outstanding and possibly the best ever in a game but did it truly transcend gaming and become something else? Not in my eyes. I can see where someone might say that the decisions in GTA IV were realistic and gut-wrenching, I don’t agree with it but I can see someone’s argument about it, but did that realistic gameplay ever make the game become something else? I don’t think so.
I am all for games as an art form and if someone can make a connection with a game on an emotional level, that’s great and certainly special. But I feel that the primary goal of a game should be to entertain the player. Why aren’t game of the year awards picked on that criteria?
I meant to have my Best of 2008: Handheld Games piece up tonight but I decided to do a Best of Games list instead of breaking it down, so look for that tomorrow.
Amen
I feel entertained when I can just kick back and watch Snake make Ocelot and his Makarov look like a fool. But then again, I did buy into the whole games-as-more-than-just-games mentality of the world.
I think from the earliest, some game designers had such grandiose dreams. The technology in the 70′s cold only make “Pong,” so that’s what they settled for. And then Cinematronics released “Dragon’s Lair,” and designers came to realise that video games can be more than dexterously-challenging one-off events. They could be another medium for entertainment. I mean, didn’t you want to see how Space Ace saved the girl?
Early video games with stories built in were limited to linear designs but have branched out to give more endings, different paths, and essentially, re-playability. And, as video games became more and more mainstream, the old tried/true methods of eat dots while ghosts become progressively smarter and faster weren’t enough to satiate the gamers. They would buy a game, play it once, and then what?
Re-playability. Make them want to come back. If Hideo Kojima hadn’t created such a fascinating and multi-faceted storyline with his Metal Gear Solid series, I don’t think those games would have the re-playability they have. I mean, I love MGS to death for the same reasons many people hate it.
The two points I had made above, again. 1) Some of the best designers had wanted to create video games that were truly interactive experiences. 2) Nowadays, video games have to be more than just video games in order to stand a chance with the general gaming public.
I understand what you are saying but I don’t think you are describing games becoming something else. I think you are just describing the natural evolution of the young medium. MGS4 is still a game, it may be a highly polished and cinematic game but ultimately it is still just a game.
Someone else (over at Hooked Gamers) gave me the reasoning that some games just impress people so much that they are at a loss for words to explain what makes them such a good game so instead they proclaim them as “more than a game”.