The holiday season almost upon us, video game publishers are about to deluge the market with AAA offerings throughout November. Several highly anticipated titles will be released with accompanying artbooks, highlighting the concept design and visual development that went into realizing these virtual worlds.
Although it's true the book is filled with interesting and beautiful images taken from a wide variety of games, the focus is not on the visual. Instead, it launches head-on into the debate regarding whether or not videogames can be viewed as a new artistic medium, or whether they are entertainment and nothing more. Clearly, the author feels very strongly that games not only can be art; he feels that they already are, but current culture has simply not recognized it yet. Although some would say that I'm biased, based on this volume, I think that he makes a very strong case.
The book begins with an excellent preface by Dr. Henry Jenkins, probably the foremost expert and proponent on this topic. After such an auspicious opening, Kelman launches into the introduction and states very clearly the premise of his book; not meant to be an in-depth analysis of any one aspect, it instead aims to open the discussion about videogames as art and touches on a variety of topics including protagonists, the evolution of narrative storytelling, and the significance of environments and level design. In addition, there is also examination of antagonists and peripheral characters, the role of objects and items, and a brief look at the current (and possibly soon-to-be-over) trend towards hyper-realism.
This observation is only one of dozens within Kelman's book. There are many more ideas and truisms to be found here, most of them extremely fascinatingimdash;his discussion of videogames as the modern-day equivalent of mythology is worthy of a book unto itself, not to mention the fact that the visuals alone would warrant several volumes as well. On page 14, a key piece of art by Kaneko from Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne is shown alongside Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights. The juxtaposition is stunning, and speaks worlds about the kind of thinking, artistry and skill that go into game creationimdash;Roger Ebert be damned.
