![]() ![]() In the original Deus Ex you assume the role of JC Denton, a biomechanically-enhanced agent for the United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition, as he tangles with Majestic 12, Hong Kong Triads, and even the Illuminati.Įqually of the mind and the heart, the Deus Ex series asks difficult questions about what it means to be human, and dares us to envision the implications of our rapid evolution toward something like the Singularity. Or in Bioshock Infinite, a barbershop quartet Beach Boys concert.ĭEUS EX SERIES, MINUS INVISIBLE WAR (DEUS EX 1 + DEUS EX: HUMAN REVOLUTION) Standout Moment: A very Lynchian meeting with Sander Cohen. ![]() Striking a perfect balance between gorgeous aesthetic and meaty narrative, what really sets the Bioshock series apart from its first-person shooter predecessors is its meditation on big philosophical ideas about governance, ttopias, salvation, and free will vs. In the original Bioshock, you assume the role of Jack exploring the mysterious underwater city of Rapture and evading big mechanical baddies called Big Daddies. Standout Moment: ( Spoiler Alert: Don’t click if you’d rather not spoil the surprise.) Encountering something implausibly beautiful in a world so racked with gloom and grief. In other words, it’s a game about the human creature posing as a game about zombies. It’s a game about survival, loss, our legacy, and the lies we tell ourselves to protect us from pain. Though the narrative isn’t exactly original, it achieves an impressive depth of realism and thematic richness while, ironically for Ebert, approaching cinematic excellence. This no-looking-back philosophy is challenged when he meets the stubborn and spirited Ellie. In it you assume the role of Joel, a man traversing a zombie-infested urban hellscape and doing his best to leave the past far behind him. If any of these prerequisites suffice, there are plenty of literary games out there waiting to be played that pack the same punch as a good book, and if I had more time here I would sing the praises of all of them ( Shadow of the Colossus, The Legend of Zelda series, Braid, Chronotrigger, Earthbound, Ōkami, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Fallout, et cetera et cetera, ad infinitum) but for starters, here’s a list of five of my favorites you should consider playing tonight instead of starting that new book for a change.ĭeath has never felt more appropriately heavy than it does in The Last of Us. (And here I differentiate between artful games with a dominant narrative and artful games with a minor or altogether absent narrative- Minecraft, Fez, Tetris, Civilization, for example.)īut what qualifies something as literary? Is it a matter of mere technical accomplishment, its inherent architecture: well-strung together sentences in the case of a book, or in the case of a game its design, aesthetic, and game play mechanics? Is it the capacity to meditate on grand ideas and pose difficult questions? To speak to the human condition? To capture a certain era in history like a portrait frozen in time? Or simply to move us: to tears…to action…to something, anything beyond complacency? While I would obviously refute this sentiment as a teacher of creative writing for new media (as would the Supreme Court, which in 2011 ruled that video games should be considered an art form, “deserving of First Amendment safeguards as ‘the protected books, plays and movies that preceded them,’” or The Museum of Modern Art, which in 2012 featured an exhibit of 14 games as art objects, among them Pac-Man, Tetris, Myst, and Portal), I would also argue that video games can be quite literary. Roger Ebert once wrote that video games could never be art, which later he would go on to clarify that what he actually meant was video games could never claim the status of “high art,” like that of, oh, say, cinema? ![]()
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