{"id":587,"date":"2006-08-07T20:30:00","date_gmt":"2006-08-08T00:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/?p=587"},"modified":"2006-08-07T20:30:00","modified_gmt":"2006-08-08T00:30:00","slug":"a-stupid-commercial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/?p=587","title":{"rendered":"A Stupid Commercial?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Esquire recently published an article<\/a> about the fact that serious criticism on videogames does not exist. No incisive essays, no erudite articles, just “dude, looks like Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Outcast II: Jedi Academy<\/span>* is gonna be sweet” stuff. As someone with experience reviewing games, I feel I must state the following: videogames are not art. They just ain’t.
It takes a lot of artists to make one, and some of them can have truly brilliant imagery, but I have yet to see the game that’s art. Artistically presented maybe.<\/p>\n

In my (albeit limited) experience, professional criticism often takes one of two forms:<\/p>\n

A) The secret decoder ring. “Here’s what the artist\/author\/composer is trying to say, dimwit.”<\/p>\n

B) The petri dish. “Here are all of the religiosociopoliticaeconoclimatic factors kicking around in the spacetime locale in which the artist\/author\/composer worked. Put it all together, and how could he not <\/span>end up writing this? Hmmm, dimwit?”<\/p>\n

These approaches require that the author actually be saying something, whether he means to or not. I’m just not seeing it. When I sit around and talk about games, relevance never comes up. This is due mainly to the fact that it’s not there.<\/p>\n

I mean, come on. Let’s give it a try.<\/p>\n

“The major statement made by Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3<\/span> comes to its zenith when the audience unlocks Darth Maul as a playable character. At that precise moment in the play experience, expect to turn to your fellow aficionados and reverently gasp the syllables “skateboarding is totally fucking awesome<\/span>“. “<\/p>\n

“In summary, after witnessing the stunning victory of Natalie Cook and Kerri Ann Pottharst<\/span> at Sydney, Team Ninja’s 2001-02 Japan had begun to taste the beauty of the occidental sport of volleyball, which, in combination with the new Xbox’s hardware and man’s enduring fascination with breasts, made a perfect world in which to develop Dead or Alive: Extreme Beach Volleyball<\/a>.<\/span>“<\/p>\n

<\/span>Please. <\/span><\/p>\n

* No really. That’s an actual title<\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Esquire recently published an article about the fact that serious criticism on videogames does not exist. No incisive essays, no erudite articles, just “dude, looks like Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Outcast II: Jedi Academy* is gonna be sweet” stuff. As someone with experience reviewing games, I feel I must state the following: videogames are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}