tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-870149531492841319.post2928302238708176593..comments2023-06-20T06:13:57.041-07:00Comments on A Tree Falling in the Forest: Citizen Kane of Games: Can't We Stop the Comparison Already?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06275978140928366141noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-870149531492841319.post-45585541565551394812009-11-29T19:29:07.451-08:002009-11-29T19:29:07.451-08:00I know exactly how to make the citizen kane of gam...I know exactly how to make the citizen kane of games.<br /><br />Hire a busy professional to write a story for your game primarily featuring journalism (I suspect such a thing may appeal to journalists). <br /><br />Then remove them from the credits.<br /><br />Job done.XIXhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08908221875042795396noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-870149531492841319.post-57461628855047329872009-11-21T14:19:33.128-08:002009-11-21T14:19:33.128-08:00So that was me. I started that small tempest in a ...So that was me. I started that small tempest in a teapot. What's been interesting in following everyone's reactions is that I don't disagree with most of the people who position themselves as critics of my argument. My assertion is not that Metroid Prime is brilliant because it's like Kane. My point, and this has been lost, is that they share similar and timeless themes.Full stop. I know it's the zeitgeist of the time to say games don't need this and that to be legitimate, but if you read what I wrote and how I wrote it, I'd be surprised if you found a sentence where I make any such claim. That's not my baggage and to me, it's irrelevant to my larger point. Both works are legitimate to me, and I wrote about why that was. <br /><br />And comparative analysis is worthwhile. Kane could, likewise, be compared to Beethoven's 9th, King Lear, or Beowulf, and it wouldn't be heretical at all to do so. I'd be happy to write about that, but I don't think there'd be anywhere to publish it at this point. But look, cinematography comes from painting, screenwriting comes from theater. Truffaut and Hitcchock talk about Shakespeare all the time. Jordan Cronenwaithe spoke about impressionism and abstract art. Other media inform new media. Full stop. Fact. We gain from this. Learn new undestandings of how these new media form work. We don't learn from asking whether or not they can be compared, but we do learn from the actual, unapologetic comparisson. <br /><br />I have no interest in legitimizing or deligitmizing games. To me they're already legitimate. They were before and remain so now. And that should be inherent in my choice of Metroid Prime, a game whose primary method of communicating is through interaction. I glean a similarly timeless experience with those notions of universal loneliness, hope of great achievement, solidarity with the ghosts of the past, and great plans gone horrifically awry in playing it. The interaction in the world teaches me that. Not a cutscene, nor an audio diary. It's the procession of the core mechanics combined with the ambiance of the world that speak to me. <br /><br />The medium is different, but the human value is equivalent to me. That's it. That's the argument. That's the art. Human experience doesn't change. We face the same fundamental questions about our lives and existence generation after generation, and civilization after civilization. What you find when you look back far enough is a great consistency in theme and struggle. Kane didn't just appear, it came from 700 years of artistic evolution. But most of us writing about games grew up at a time when we didn't have to question film as legitimate (though I'd maintain it's not exactly high art in the first place -- I don't believe anything deserves to be called high art or low art). That artistic evolution continues in games, and I think it's an act of both critical and human ignorance to insulate games from comparrison to everything that's preceded them. They are their own form, part of a new medium of pure interaction. But they didn't form in a vacuum and they ought not to be considered in a vacuum. <br /><br />So I submit there are two arguments to this question. On my side, Metroid Prime, through its interactive system is about human loneliness, universal isolation, self-betterment, and the ultimate failure of that self-betterment to resolve any of the fundamental isolation one feels in life. On the other side, MP is about shooting space aliens in the face. <br /><br />To say it can't be compared to Kane is to validate the latter over the former. And that says just as much about the critic as it does the object of their criticism. I'll argue the latter point and feel no shame at all forwarding it along any lines that make the subject relevant, interesting, or controversial because, at the heart of it, I believe wholeheartedly in that essential truth about MP. That's the kind of critic I have been, and will continue to be. Which would you rather read?Mikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07954366153747466968noreply@blogger.com