Hey, am new but have shadowed the boards for a while, so as not to seem flagrantly ignorant.

It seems that you're looking for storytelling as the primary art form in gaming. Some games may tell an amazing story with horrible visuals and gameplay, some games may have amazing artistic visuals and music with horrible story and gameplay, and some games can look and sound like crap but the gameplay is so perfect that the game is art itself. I give you one example: Tetris.

Zelda Wind Waker, Electroplankton, Pikmin, Skies of Arcadia Legends, etc. There are tons of games that can be considered art in one way or another. Since so much goes into a game, those that are successful in several of them and make you go wow in some way, those are good candidates for art.

Some artistic elements in games:

Visual Art (everything you see is in some form an artistic creation)

Music/Voice work (just like you would have in movies)

Story/script (Just like in a novel or play or movie)

Dramatizations (just like you would see in a play or movie)

Engineered gameplay (unique to games but requires artistic vision and creation)

Game Presentation: ie. Efficient code/game composition (no loading times, fluid, engaging) *in any artistic trade, the craft can greatly determine the product, be that in fine art, movies, etc. If you have ever done programming, you can understand the beauty and artistic value of an ingeniusly created piece of code.

any image can be considered art i guess. any photograph, drawing, or painting.

i think people look really hard to find the "arty games" like ICO and SotC. However, art as a general concept can be found in any game, no matter how.... unimpressive.

the difference between most games and photos, painting, movies, etc. is the concept of 'mis en scene'. what is going on within a particular frame at any given moment. Games tend to lack depth and subtly in the way that most art critics are used to seeing it.

For example, citizen kane. Just about every frame in that game is meticulously crafted. space is used perfectly. there is also subtlety in camera pans, dollies, cranes, etc. since a game is always moving and the camera usually whipped around at your discretion, it's hard for any game to sustain an artful appearance.

when referring to games, the word "subtly" is often used to describe graphics. how you can detect individual blades of grass, how a characters shirt sways in the wind, etc. in a movie, it's reflected in, for intense, how close characters sit apart from each other, the briefness of a glance, how the sun sets just right to suggest something about a character or event.

anyway, there's a lot to it. i personally feel like, by nature, it's hard for games to be considered art by the classical sense. that is to say, a game can be comprised of artful elements without being a piece of art as a whole. however, some people may disagree and some may not care. it's my opinion though.

I would wholeheartedly recommend any Zelda game, Mario Galaxy (I felt positively HAPPY playing through that game. If that's not art, I don't know what is), Bioshock, the first Halo, and Final Fantasy.

I agree with Kitchensink, but definitely check out Electroplankton on DS. It's whole purpose was as an artform.  Might be hard to find it though. I see it going on Amazon for $80 used. $175 new.

Also check out Elite Beat Agents and Nintendogs.

MGS, particularly MGS3. The finale was quite the twist, and truly amazing. It was the first and only time that I almost (almost, lol) cried during a game.

My other suggestions would've been Shadow of the Colossus, followed by the Legend of Zelda, but those seem to have already been covered. :P

The first thing I'd say is that art doesn't have to have story, dialogue or visuals. You're thinking about movies.

The most artistic game I've ever played is Oil God, which has none of those things. Start here. This is important. "Art" doesn't need a narrative.

Games are indeed powerhouse works of art. Here are some of the greatest 3D games: Half Life, Neil Manke's They Hunger mods, Max Payne, Devil May Cry 3, Metal Gear Solid 3, Final Fantasy 12.