Art within Games: Part 2

   Games as art/ the art within games, a lot of people see games as just hobbies, but can games be artistic? Yes/No!!/depends, I thing it depends on how we define artistic games. visually artistic, emotionally artistic, inspirational, or just well build game play? It varies form person to person, i consider Limbo and Journey to be pretty artsy games, visually Limbo's pretty simple, a black and white side scroller full of puzzles, Journey is also simple but in a different sense of the word, it has a very basic story line and setting, yet it maintains a very detailed and beautiful 3D world to glide and roam around in, some people fail to realize these games actually have a story line at all because there so basic. Find your sister in purgatory (Limbo) and go to that mountain over there! (Journey).

   After searching for more games like this to play, i found that the list of what are considered to be games that approach art, a bit disappointing to say the least, I was hoping for similar games to Limbo and Journey, but found games that i wouldn't consider artsy, especially since i didn't find limbo or journey on any of these lists. Metal gear solid 4 and Portal were among the names i found, and in my opinion there not what I would consider artsy. I also found games such as "The Graveyard" and "Passage" which are the deep kind of artsy which come across as overused in my opinion, and therefore have lost all meaning.

   The BAFTA awards give a good idea of what an artsy game is and whats considered artsy (or so i thought until i saw the nominees), The 2013 winner speaks for its self, Journey, not only did it win Artistic Achievement, it also won Audio Achievement, Online-Multiplayer, Original Music and Game Design, so all in all, a well rounded game. The nominees put me off a bit though, Borderlands 2, Dear Esther, Far Cry 3, Halo 4 and The Room. Don't get me wrong there all amazing games, in different ways, theirs no disputing that, but i wouldn't necessarily put Far Cry 3 and Halo 4 in this category there just like most games from an art perspective, especially Far Cry, its just standard settings with standard weapons and standard enemies, there must be another game that could have taken its place, surely!

   From what i can gather about artsy games you either get visually interesting arty games, from a design point of view (Limbo, Shadow of the Colossus, Bioshock), deep hidden meaning, think more about your life games (The Graveyard, Every day the same dream, Passage) or theirs the puzzle games, which are also usually visually amazing (The Room, Braid, Limbo).