Vice city

The one thing that has intrigued most about video games over the last two and half decades of playing them (off and on) is the constant development and refinement of the artificial intelligence that goes into them. While most (not all) of the A.I. in games seems to be designed to hunt and kill the human player more intelligently, it does seem like video games are indeed a popular incubator for creating artificial intelligence. The problem is that an A.I. developed over decades by this method might have a slightly hostile opinion of humans (if you know what I mean).

Taking computer games into the future@
http://www.essex.ac.uk/news/event.aspx?e_id=2021

'Second Life' is frontier for AI research@ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24668099/

I just do not understand grown men playing these games. It is a sickness of our modern world, I feel. IMHO. I know they are having FUN and escaping the real world, but honestly, games are for kids. Sorry. Rogert Ebert agrees with me on this, too. Ask him. Bissell, get thee to a nunnery! And grow up!

Smile.

Danny Bloom in my cave in South Taiwan

I would put games like, say, Deus Ex or Fallout 3 above par with most of the movies that have shown up in theaters recently. With the exception of films like District 9 or Splice, which these types of games share much in common. The form is slightly diminished in some ways, such as the limitation of requiring gameplay mechanics, the cultural baggage of the games industry and its audience, and the difficulty of creating drama-based game play. But in other senses such as the long-form (sometimes dozens of hours), full immersion in a real-time world, active as opposed to passive engagement in the action and narrative, the game as a medium excels.

Wintermute, am i missing something here? Like a brain? My brain? how can you compare video games with movis, works of art, stories....? my gad, life is overe if that is how you see the world today. God is more than dead. Civilizatrion as we know it is dead. sorry, can you explain again how a movie is trumped by a silly game for children? grow up sir!

Based on your spelling and punctuation, I'd say it's possible... :)

I won't argue that the majority of games are more sophisticated or 'mature' than movies, in part because many, as you say, are designed for kids. Many movies are designed for kids, as well, such as Garfield 2. A game like Grand Theft Auto -- which you can gleam from the article is full of sex, drugs, and gangbanging -- is certainly not designed for kids, but I wouldn't call it Great Art, it's basically an interactive Fast & Furious.

Deus Ex excels, I think, primarily because it had a great writer, and the development team were able to communicate the narrative through the medium of the 1st person role-playing game. It's difficult to express in words the experiential qualities of Deus Ex, particularly to someone who likely has some preconceived mental models of games -- re: cultural baggage of the industry. But essentially, it's an intricately woven, multi-layered global conspiracy set in the near-future, delving deep into themes such as the hyperstratification of society resulting as the end-game of laissez faire capitalism cranked to 11 (fairly poignant even moreso today, I'd say) and the benefits and hidden costs of humanity's increasing interdependence and merger with its technology (major theme of our gracious host's). There is an undercurrent of a Leviathan-esque examination of human nature through the sci-fi conceit of a superintelligent AI standing in as a surrogate God in the post-God world, deciding its purpose is to run all of humankind's society as benevolent philosopher-king. In the wake of this gangster capitalism where 90% of the population lives in a bootstrap-less polluted poverty, dying of viruses engineered by pharmaceuticals to ensure profits, the AI suggests to the player that the human species is unable to self-govern requires a God, to be the divine arbiter and panopticon, and to fill the human need to be assimilated into higher orders of structure and meaning. And that God functionality be replicated through an all-powerful Echelon-style computer intelligence. In the end, you have the choice whether to assist the God AI and produce a computer-generated Brave New Utopia, the terrorist organizations and plunge humanity back into a Luddite-fantasy dark age, or keep the system going by joining the hallowed ranks of the illuminati-like secret societies, banking institutions and corporations that pull the strings of the world. Depending on the player's choice, the rest of the story will be altered, and this is one of the areas where games can shine, as was also described in the article.

Now, notice my statement, "Better than most movies" was carefully qualified with, "that have shown up in theaters recently."

Let's get all rigorous and remind ourselves what is being played in theaters recently. Here's what's showing at the local multiplex:

Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore PG, 82 min

Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore 3D PG, 82 min

Charlie St. Cloud PG-13, 109 min

Despicable Me PG, 95 min

Despicable Me 3D PG, 95 min

Dinner for Schmucks PG-13, 110 min

Karate Kid, The PG, 140 min

Last Airbender, The PG, 103 min

Other Guys, The PG-13, 107 min

Predators R, 107 min

Ramona and Beezus G, 104 min

Salt PG-13, 99 min

Sorcerer's Apprentice, The PG, 111 min

Step Up 3D PG-13, 97 min

Toy Story 3 G, 109 min

Twilight Saga: Eclipse, The PG-13, 124 min

Are games going to replace movies? No. Are most games better than most movies? No. There are good movies and bad movies, and there are good games and bad games (subjectively, artistically good and bad). I do think that a lot of games do bring out that man-childishness, and that greate games like the ones I mentioned are rare, sadly, although I'd like it not to be, and Mr. Bissel shares my desire. However, a lot of movies recently have also been pretty braindead, I think there's a lot of dreck to go around on both accounts. Perhaps 'games' is just a too semiotically tainted word, too much implied 'childishness'. Perhaps 'interactive multimedia story' is a more useful descriptor of what a game like Deus Ex is.

I would say, to come back to our gracious host's blog's raison d'etre, that I'm congruent with the theme, that deep-reading and deep-thinking, which results in deep-writing is the cornerstone of a great movie or game. The other half is that that fantastic script must be executed by the director, actors, etc. or the game development team.

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