Roger Ebert... Friend or Foe?

[Sage of Creation]

Roger Ebert's opinion on video games

He's obviously never played a Final Fantasy or Legend of Zelda.

[Biggie]

Re: Roger Ebert... Friend or Foe?

Doesnt he stick his two big thumbs up into crappy movies asses like all the time?

[IRC]

Re: Roger Ebert... Friend or Foe?

Jeez, lets not all freak out because someone doesn't like videogames and attack him. Read the answer he gave the question. For the most part I agree with him. Even for the best games they're still games. Even for Final Fantasy 6, which I feel is the closest thing to literature that videogames has produced, and it's still a game. Like he says there is an inherant structure to games that can take you out of the story and reminds you it's a game. For FF6 you have this very nice story, but it's not told all that well. There's not enough dialouge to explain everything fully, and every couple of minutes you're abruptly removed from the story to fight a random battle. You're in Zoz and you've got this great atmosphere with the music and the rain and all the shady townspeople, and you have to jump across the rooftops of the towns buildings. But every couple of steps everything shifts and the music changes and you've got to fight a gabblede****. Even the town itself is structurally damaging to the game. Am I really to believe that every town in the world only has a dozen or so buildings and twenty people? There's not even the illusion that the town is bigger than it is.

Now games like Shadow of the Collussos, which intentially or not strives to minimize all these distractions, make me feel that while games are not art right now, they may one day be. After all the first movies were just five seconds of people walking down the street.

[Magus]

Re: Roger Ebert... Friend or Foe?

Excellent point but it's obvious the guy has never played anything more than Pong or maybe Tony Hawk or Madden. Does he have children? Maybe he watches them play.

But he should look at "auterist" videogames like the Metal Gear Solid series, Katamari Damacy or Ico and Shadow of the Colossus.

[Loki]

Re: Roger Ebert... Friend or Foe?

This isn't news. A film critic voiced an opinion on videogames. Some people disagree. He's a film critic. Film. Not games. He thinks games are a waste of time. He's not alone. WHY DOES IT MATTER?!

[Magus]

Re: Roger Ebert... Friend or Foe?

...Also an excellent point!

[Loki]

Re: Roger Ebert... Friend or Foe?

And yes he has kids, and grandkids. That's not the point. If your only exposure to videogames was watching movies based on them, I bet you would think them a waste of time too.

[hitogoroshi]

Re: Roger Ebert... Friend or Foe?

IRC and Loki called it.

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

Re: Roger Ebert... Friend or Foe?

There's not even the illusion that the town is bigger than it is.

I don't like it when games do that. I want to go in every building possible, and I will not accept anything less than "this door is locked".

[Roland Of Gilead]

Re: Roger Ebert... Friend or Foe?

I typically agree with Ebert unless he starts giving The Fog two thumbs up.

[Sage of Creation]

Re: Roger Ebert... Friend or Foe?

Jeez, lets not all freak out because someone doesn't like videogames and attack him. Read the answer he gave the question. For the most part I agree with him. Even for the best games they're still games. Even for Final Fantasy 6, which I feel is the closest thing to literature that videogames has produced, and it's still a game. Like he says there is an inherant structure to games that can take you out of the story and reminds you it's a game. For FF6 you have this very nice story, but it's not told all that well. There's not enough dialouge to explain everything fully, and every couple of minutes you're abruptly removed from the story to fight a random battle. You're in Zoz and you've got this great atmosphere with the music and the rain and all the shady townspeople, and you have to jump across the rooftops of the towns buildings. But every couple of steps everything shifts and the music changes and you've got to fight a gabblede****. Even the town itself is structurally damaging to the game. Am I really to believe that every town in the world only has a dozen or so buildings and twenty people? There's not even the illusion that the town is bigger than it is.

Now games like Shadow of the Collussos, which intentially or not strives to minimize all these distractions, make me feel that while games are not art right now, they may one day be. After all the first movies were just five seconds of people walking down the street.

Love this explanation! Mr. Ebert doesn't even attack games, he just feels they haven't achieved an artisitic status we can all culturally accept as "art".
I think in order for a game to achieve this status we need to somehow look beyond the parameters of a "game" and build upon that. There needs to be more "cultural messages" involved in the game before this can happen, I believe. Most games these days only rely on your basic "stimulus - response" to entertain but if they involved a little more deep thinking into the workings of humanity, they might just come out as artistically acceptable.

[Magus]

Re: Roger Ebert... Friend or Foe?

.....I think that gives my post some more merit, yes.

[John Mora]

Re: Roger Ebert... Friend or Foe?

I think it's a little presumptuous to say that videogames need to mimic literature or film in order for them to have equivalent artistic value. Crichton books are more like reading movies and watching Innocence is more like reading a research paper, and I don't think either of those qualities do anything in either's favor. I think the trick is not to put in lots of cutscenes in videogames, although I'm not saying story has no place and we should all go back to Pacman. What I am saying is that putting in 45 minute cutscenes where you constantly reference the Bible or Shakespeare won't make you art, it's someone trying to make art that has no concept of what they're trying to imitate.

Videogames shouldn't need to mimic literature OR film. It's a separate distinct form of expression and should be treated as such.

[RPGD]

Re: Roger Ebert... Friend or Foe?

I basically share the same views as the stoppd above me.

[Caciss]

Re: Roger Ebert... Friend or Foe?

VIDEO GAMES ARE GAMES. I LIKE GAMES. FUN IS FUN.