Almost everything in this world is a lie. Art is truth. Games strive to be dramatic, challenging and sometimes funny, and they provide an entertaining, even cathartic escape from reality. But I haven't found fundamental, sublime, unvarnished truth in video games. I'm a dude, so I'll happily agree Lara Croft is hot. But is there one scrap of transcendent truth in a gun-toting, gymnastic, wise-cracking babe? A fearless, aristocratic action-hero with unnatural breasts who raids tombs for a living is just another lie. A high-fidelity flight simulation like the IL-2 Sturmovik series is technically accurate, so does that make it art? The game replicates the physics of flight and historic appearance of vintage warbirds, but it lacks emotional clarity: IL-2 doesn't make you understand why aircrew during World War II felt so terrified, exhausted, and sickened by the deaths of their friends. Genuine war art connects its audience with the fragile humanity of men sent to kill, and die. Speaking of pathological fear, game creators would be taken seriously if they finally acknowledged the power of romantic love, and artistic merit of true human sexuality. The nude form is art because it strips away everything but honesty. Stick one moment of naked truth inside a video game, and you get the perverted censorship of a marketing association that labels it pornographic. Real artists unafraid of truth would tell the ESA, Wal-Mart, religious dictators, politicians and other hypocrites to screw themselves. My games collection totals more than 300 (that number would be larger if I resisted the urge to purge). I've owned Pong, Atari 2600, NES, Xbox and too many PCs, so I'm not an outsider being critical of something I don't understand. Nevertheless, I agree with Roger Ebert (although most movies are crap, too). Games are product, not art, because they aren't sincere.
Hey dom84ts: 1. Nice name. 2. I don't think you include enough exclamation marks in your "writing." You need to add a few more to really express your righteous indignation. 3. GameSpot is a game website. Very few games are compatible with Apple's operating system. Telling gamers on a game website to buy a computer that doesn't play games is stupendously bad advice. 4. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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