Caltrops - Braid - Re: Fuck you.

Forum Overview :: Braid

by Theodore Rex DX 10/13/2008, 11:38pm PDT

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:

Theodore Rex DX wrote:

"But regardless, in deciding if (and how) Braid is an artistic success, whichever side of the discussion you wind up on, I think the fact that the discussion exists in the first place means Braid has succeeded."

Braid has succeeded ... because some people think it's a success and some people think it's a failure. This makes sense because you think it makes sense and I think it's utterly retarded horseshit.

I took this to be a scathing dick-in-the-ass inserted into all other computer games released recently. The possibility of games as art makes you feel like an idiot for even bringing it up with most of the shit put on the shelves in the last couple of years. At least Braid warrants discussion of that possibility, and at no point can anyone point to an 80-minute cut scene or Cloud's girlfriend dying or whatever, which is the tactic (which is not helping at all) used by most people writing Ebert.

But yeah, it's like the humor in Portal. Many games should be at least that humorous, as a minimum. Most games can't/don't come close to Braid for graphics and sound, and Braid should be the minimum we'd expect in a better world filled with better game developers.

ICJ

My biggest gripe - apart from the fact that games suck, as you pointed out - is that those few games that are deemed 'artistic' are called that because they draw influence from established art in established mediums and apply it haphardly - usually at the expense of the gameplay - to make the gameplay element seem respectable. They get attention and discussion because they provide a reference point and a basis for comparison.
FFVII is held up (by retards) as an example of 'art' because of its cinematic style. Braid because of its style and narrative, plus a few random post-modern deconstruction references to other games. The puzzles are clever, but gimmicky and not particularly brilliant or artistic or original no matter what anybody says. Shit, a lot of the discussion was sparked by the way Blow *marketed* it and talked it up. I mean, he did try to draw a tenuous link between the 'proper' art element (narrative) and the filthy leper non-art element (puzzles), but it never really stuck because it was stupid and tenuous and he obviously made it up as he went along. It was just kind of sad that he felt he had to justify one by linking it with the other.
Anyway, what I'm getting at is that you can, and people have, done some awesome shit with gameplay that is totally 'art' by any reasonable standard, but people don't call it that because they're know-nothing dicks. It's hard to think of a better medium for examining all the stuff art is supposed to be good at examining than gameplay. But really, I don't care if a game is 'art' or not, only that it's good. Or not. I've seen a lot of cool stuff not meet its potential because it compromised itself for the sake of 'art', and that's about as sad as it gets. If a game is good, it doesn't need any more validation than that.