Megaman X. Back in the day, Resident Evil and Megaman were among my favourite franchises. But Capcom has sinse seemed to abandon the superior Megaman X series and dedicated itself to ruining the Megaman franchise with these rubbish, 8-bit throwbacks. They've made a similar move in taking Resident Evil in a new direction of awfulness. I was always a fan of Street Fighter, too. However they probably did the only thing they could do to make that franchise successful again and with their latest game, they just remade SF2.

Needless to say, I have a lot of trouble respecting Capcom these days. They used to be a favourite but alas, no more.

That said, I did just buy Dead Rising 2 and maybe Capcom can win back some points with that. I do love zombies!

Well now, I got my PS1 back in '97, I was just a tadpole back then but I knew what I wanted the moment I saw it. My PS1 and I were inseperable and I damn near dragged that thing to hades and back and well, it started to show towards the end but if you talked real pretty to it and gave it some time, that little machine would get up and run me some of those old games long enough to satisfy. She weren't in no great shape when the PS2 came out but it still worked and we had one hell of a ride.

Now my PS2 came around, oh lesse now, must have been the summer of 02. No, tell a lie, it must have been more like 03. Yep, sometime about then. It was on the cusp of the year so forgive me if I don't right remember the exacts. But if it were possible I must have played that little thing even more than I played the PS1, being that I had a lot of free time when I was growin' up. Oh those summer days would go on and on. Why I remember I damn near didn't stop when I got Kingdom Hearts out of the box. Yep, and you know I still play that ol' thing from time to time because, as far as I can see, there just aint no library like it.

So it's '10 now, getting close to '11, and I've moved up in the world and I've got myself a big beast of a PS3 to pass the hours but I've been playing on sony for more than ten years. Heck, I was playin' sony before I even got my own play station. Not one of those machines ever truly let me down and after how I went with that PS1, I'm surprised the thing still turns on.

So you go on and tell me that Sony machines don't last. That's your right to do so, but I know. I got my memories.

Final Fantasy 10 is my favourite in the franchise. Followed closely by 7 and then by 5.

And I can only imagine that the reason nobody has mentioned this game is that I was the only one stupid enough to buy it. Curse my love of pirates.

Pirates of The Carribean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow. I hated that game and it was a glorious day when I was able to trade it in for $5 towards Red Dead Redemption.

Halo. Call of Duty. Legend of Zelda. Grand Theft Auto. There's actually a really long list of stuff people are joygasming over regularly that I just can't get behind. And then there's titles like God of War which everyone loves and I just haven't played and probably never will.

Defining what qualifies as art is comletely subjective. I can see games like Okami and Ico may be considered art, but not video games as a whole.

slipkill89

Capcom: Ha! After the rubbish they've been spewing out they're lucky to even get a mention. Their Street Fighter 2 remake isn't exactly to their credit either.

Nintendo: Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha... But seriously. How many times are we going to go through the motions before Peach hires a body guard?

Konami: You had to bring Metal Gear into this, didn't you? Well, yeah, I have nothing against konami and I won't say much on Metal Gear Solid 4 because I haven't finished it. Why haven't I finished it? Because trying to play the game and sit through the cut scenes is such a chore. Maybe I'll watch a let's play. I'm pretty sure the game is meant to be a movie anyway.

Rockstar Games: If they'd gotten Red Dead Redemption out a little sooner then maybe. They've been making Grand Theft Auto for years now. How many games have there been? Six? Come on! The Saints Row series made this kind of game entertaining in two. Why is it taking you so long?

BioWare: Oh, hello BioWare. What's this? Dragon Age? Wow, it certainly is well written. But, oh, look at this. Your combat system still sucks. So basically nothing new from you either.

Valve: Half Life 2? Why are you asking me to judge Valve on Half Life 2. Nothing Valve has ever done matters except Portal. I thought everybody understood that.

Tacmo: Oh, so that's who made Ninja Gaiden. Well other than being difficult I can't say it really stands out in my mind. I like that chick from Red Ninja more.

Ubisoft: Haven't played Prince of Persia. Have they done something else? Oh right. They made those annoying games about the assassins where I spent a lot of time doing everything EXCEPT being an assassin. Sorry, crap games don't get my vote.

Activision: Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Naughty Dog: Well they've come a long way from making Crash Bandicoot. Uncharted looked nice but if it got any more derivative I think it would become a singularity of cliches and destroy the world.

EA: The Sims is still boring. I still can't play SPORE online so that's not winning them any awards. Mirror's Edge was pretty good though. They can still go shove a fork up their arse, though because I'm not happy with them.

Bungie: ... No. Just no. Not now. Not ever.

Twisted Pixel: I'd be willing to give them an award just for the name of the company. Never played their game though.

So that leaves Adidas... Uh, Eidos and Batman: Arkham Asylum. My oh my was this a great game or what? It seems like it's taken forever for anyone outside the comic industry to do justice to the Dark Knight. Now we've got the Nolam films and THIS. This game was brilliantly crafted in so many ways. Mark Hamill's voice acting for the Joker is perfect. Everything about this game's style is so well designed. The environment is dark and gothic, the music sets the mood well and everybody looks sinister and intimidating. The story throws back to some graphic novels so I won't say it's original but boy oh boy is it a great set up for Batman to face off against an impressive collection of his villainous foes. Unfortunately most of those "boss fights" suck but I can forgive them because the combat in general is so much fun and so fluid and beating heads into the ground gives such a satisfying feel. But let's not forget about the stealth sections either. Very few games can so skillfully combine stealth and brawling action into the one game but this title achieves it.

I have a lot of praise and very little complaints for Batman Arkham Asylum. I'll keep my review brief because I've already written a much longer one and you can find it on my profile. So I'm going to say that with Batman in mind and remembering that Eidos also brought as Deus Ex and the Lego Star Wars games, they get a point from me.

Considering most games take a very loose definition of "realistic" and I'm fine with that, I don't care if the system will make it closer to real life. It depends on whether or not it fits in with the game as a whole. If the game is meant to be fast and furious, then I don't think it works. If the game is after a slower, more immersive feel then I think it works well. Slapping random things into a game for the sake of realism is a pretty silly reason if you ask me.

The problem with answering the question seems to be finding an agreeable way to define art. But I think a game like Heavenly Sword is just as visually pleasing and has as much asthetic value as a classical painting.

I think if one is to count cinema as art or theatre or novels as a form of art then there's no way you can exclude video games. Maybe calling pac man an art form would be a stretch but we've come a long way sinse then and arcade style games are increasinly rarer in favour of a greater focus on narrative.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/04/video_games_can_never_be_art.html

I'm sure many of you out there with your finger on the pulse have come across this already. This is famous cinema critic Roger Ebert's blog, I suppose, and in this particular entry he claims that video games are not an art form, have never been an art form and will not be an art form in any generation we'll live to see. It's laughable elitism and I thought I'd share it because if anyone does have an opinion worth listening to on this issue, it's the gaming community.

As for Mr Ebert, he might be respect as a film critic but he's completely out of his field here. Ebert's argument falls flat on its face the moment he admits that he's never seen a video game that interested him enough to play. With that we know he's making his judgement on second hand information at best. More importantly, though, Mr Ebert isn't trying to discuss this with anyone. He's arguing against someone else's claims but he's really having a conversation with himself. He's made up his mind and nothing will ever change that. You might call this an Epic Fail in the school of debate.

So we turn the question over to you. Are video games art? All of them? Some of them? Are they becoming art but are not yet art?

Answer 1: You and your girl are looking for different things in a relationship. Break up. You'll have more time and she can find someone more interested in a commitment. This isn't a criticism of you, it's just honestly how it sounds. She's looking for something serious and long term, you're not.

Answer 2: Stop watching TV and play video games instead. Tell your girlfriend you don't want to talk to her every night and play video games on those off nights. Oh, and just keep your house clean in general. If you have to spend HOURS cleaning before she arrives then I'm concerned about your general hygine practises.

Answer 3: Multiplayer games. You're clearly not socially inept so the idea of sharing this hobby with your friends shouldn't be new to you. Really, this is probably the most rewarding answer to your problem.

But for how you've presented it, it just sounds like you need to go your seperate ways. If she's travelling into town to see you, calling you every night, introducing you to her mother then she's very serious about the relationship and is looking for it to go serious places. If you're looking forward to her leaving your house so you can play video games again then this is not two compatible relationship ideas. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I missed something or you left out a detail but that's the message I'm receiving.

No matter what course you take, you're really discussing this with the wrong people. You need to be talking to her about this, not us. Good luck finding a safe way to word "I don't want to talk to you tonight so I can play video games." It's not easy. I know. I've been there.