Japan makes the best games.....wtf?!? (poll discussion)

[Kasz216]

leatherhat said:

Kasz216 said:

leatherhat said:

Kasz216 said:

leatherhat said:

Kasz216 said:

leatherhat said:

Kasz216 said:
The wii is the most popular system this generation... driven by... software from Nintendo mostly.

So... no, i'd say Japan makes the best.

Wii sales are driven by some of the lowest quality software I've ever seen, not exactly a great argument for quality.

That's what we'd call a personal opinion.

It isn't backed up by sales.  Which is basically the only way of judging a medium that isn't based on performance (like cars) or artistic merit. (Like books or movies.)

 

1. "lowest quality software Ive ever seen" implied that it was my opinion even I didn't come out and say it

2. Games have no artistic merit? I gotta leave this thread somebody just opened pandoras box.

Some games do... however the Wii actually wins in that regard.

For a piece of work to have artistic merit it needs to embrace the strengths of it's medium.  Few games do this.

Most run from it... like say MGS4 which tries to be "like a movie."

 

You won't see a movie praised for "Being just like a book by having large walls of text."


Games like Shadow of the Collosus, Super Mario Brothers, The Mario Kart games... these games actually have way  more artistic merit then the games most people mistake for artistic because they have a lot of cutscenes.

Who said anything about Metal Gear? I was talking about Demons Souls. And please don't tell me you don't think it embraces the medium.

Couldn't say, haven't played it.

It's still one game versus... well many. 

Also on a side not, I'm a huge metal gear fan and realize that the cutscenes are a turnoff for some, but I was just doing some verbal jujistu to throw you off. I think Metal Gear has huge artistic value, and Kojima has embraced the medium in a big way to make a great entertainment experince. Just think about Psycho Mantis. You want to tell me that wasn't embracing the medium? Look past the cutscenes and you find one of the richest gameplay experiences in history.

The fact that you like MGS is why I brought it up.

I'll put it simply.  Take Citizen Kane.  Often considered the best movie of all time.

Say you replaced about half the scenes with scrolling text that read like a book.  Is this still the greatest movie of all time?  No, is it even to 100?  No.

 

It's not pure gameplay expierence that defines the artistic value, but instead what that gameplay conveys...

 

I'll use another HD example, one I have played.  L4D.   You know pretty much nothing about the characters but what visual cues say, and what they say during gameplay.  You don't even really know why everyone else is a zombie.

The story though is told purely through gameplay.  The horror of giant swams of zombies, the unease of hearing a witch cry... the pure helplessness one feels when captured by a smoker or a jumper, knowing that they need an ally to save them, and that ally is already quite busy with a swarm of zombies.

The anger for your own survival when an ally stupidly ventures too far on his own and you have the dilema of trying to save his stupid ass or risk being a man down against the horde.

 

It conveys everything through gameplay and gives you all the story it needs.  It doesn't TELL you about a zombie apocolypse.  It puts you IN a zombie apocolypse and replicates that feeling great.

 

Getting most stuff across while controlling the player, and making stories and expierences more and more mallable to player interaction is the art of videogames.  It is the uniqueness of it's medium that sets it apart from things like movie and TV.

The interactivity.