The First "Great" Video Game - When?

Schindler's List. The Godfather. Casablanca. Each of these films have solidified their standing in American culture as the most widely accepted works of art of the past century. Each film offers the most brutally realistic vision of its respective theme while at the same time delivering a lasting message to their audience. For instance, Saving Private Ryan engrossed the viewer in some of the most hellish battles of World War II while also offering a masterfully-written narrative that explores the concept of brotherhood, sacrifice and basic human instinct. These films are successful because no matter how old their viewer, they communicate their message effectively and challenge us to compare the morals and decisions of the film's characters to our own. They have earned the right to be called, "great".

Herein lays the double-edged sword of video game narratives: because gamers assume control over a character or group of characters for the title's duration, unless the game's code forces you to perform otherwise, gamers make the decisions to kill or let live (most often the former), to forsake their companions or save their lives. Why did Corporal Upham fail to assist his fellow soldiers in their hour of need? How does Captain Miller rationalize losing the men he's spent the past three years with in the pursuit of an unknown? These are amongst the critical questions video games have not yet posed to their audience. Quality cinema has consistently left a lasting impact on the viewer because he or she becomes emotionally invested in its characters. If we know nothing about a game's protagonist(s), or we dislike them to the point we wish to turn the game off completely, how can developers expect us to care for them?

-Brian Paterson, Reelgamers.com

[VigorousApathy]

Video games are harder to make perfect than movies. They need to have great gameplay with fantastic depth and longevity, amazing scalable graphics, a 40+ single player campaign with nearly infinite replayability, multiplayer worthy of Blizzard titles, and on top of all that they need to contain films within them ala Final Fantasy.

And on top of all that the technology to make video games is if not still in its infancy at least still in the adolescent stage. There were not perfect films during this stage of development either. Films were around for many decades before Birth of a Nation and other movies that could be considered great.

I have no idea what the writer of the article was going on about. Games can contain movies within them. So they already have more potential than films. There are no fundamental limitations to them that he seems to be talking about. Films are the media trapped in a small 2-dimensional box, always showing the same thing no matter how many times you watch one.

[sandip787]

JUNE 12th - this magic day seems to ring a bell.

[socomnick]

Bioshock comes to mind.

[DJ]

But you need a specific piece of hardware to experience specific game titles. The first "great" videogame was released well over a decade ago (though I'll allow people to argue over which one). I would say games are a higher media form than film because film is strictly non-interactive, while the videogame industry is pushing to make their titles interactive films. MGS4 is the greatest example.

[PoSTedUP]

when? NOW! right NOW! todaY!

sup nick, you read that article about EA and a console?

[kingme71]

Oh boy, another games should be like movies article. Why do games have to conform to the standards of a movie? Comparing apples to oranges.

One of his arguments is that games require multiple sessions to get through thereby losing the captivation the user would have had it been one sitting, but what about books? Do most people read straight through a book in one sitting? Maybe, possibly if it is short enough, but most don't and books can have an emotional impact too.

What about movies that don't provide a poignant story... comedies typically don't and are they any less entertaining? What about horror or action flicks?

Games are a form of active entertainment involving the player in the story, typically linear but as technology progresses, they are getting more open ended and allowing the player to mold his own story or to experience different paths along the story arc. Movies are a form of passive entertainment where you are engrossed in the visual and audio experience exactly as the writer and director intended. Both separate beasts.

[Gorgon]

The reason is because games like Halo, Resistance, Gears of war, etc, still sell like they do. No wonder the gaming medium is still not taken seriously.

[DeathMaster]

For starters, kill Uwe Boll.

As time goes by, and the videogame market grows out of proportion, more money will be involved. More money to hire more script writers and more over-dramatic CGI artists... That would pave the path to the first game based movie with quality.

Still I remain skeptical towards those kind of movies, until the opposite is proven.

*Takes a look at the list of Uwe Boll movies and giggles*

[Spydiggity]

Bioshock could have been it. Finaly Fantasy 7 could have been it. Starcraft, Resident Evil, GTA 3, Halo, both Half Lifes. there have been amazing games. the problem is there isn't an award show on fox or nbc each year to make non-gamers take note.

Imagine a "best moment in video games" category. and one of the nominees is the first time you encountered a zombie in RE and he was eating a fellow stars member. people would be way more turned on to video games and you would start to recognize "great" games.

[Postlik]

I believe, just now, in this gaming generation, are we starting to see these titles coming up. Just now the technology which these games need to have to be truely outstanding, has arrived. This is the reason that i believe that just now ,new games like Bioshock or MGS4 reached that level.

[poopface1]

In the game there are two crew members that you start with and basically you have to choose which one will die at a certian point. The catch is, one of those characters is the human girl you can have the little love story with(if your a girl playing as female shepard the guy is you intrest). I know its just a game but I basicaly told that dude to his face that he was gonna die cause I wasnt sending my bitc# out there. It made me feel bad, but the dude in the game seemed to understand and insisted that he be the one to stay, which made him seem like a realy good friend(and harder to send him to his death).

Games can go beyond movies cause it makes the player make the choices, not just watch others make choices. I didnt read it all but I think this guy rant is outdated, cause now we got games like mass effect and MGS4. Anybody who played mass effect knows what Im talking about. By the end of ME I knew soooooo much about the chracters that I actually felt bad for an alien(I hate aliens) who was my arch nemisis throughout the entire game.

In my eyes ME has already surpassed this guys expectations, I know that the character in that game ment more to me than the ones in most movies, cause I got to make the decisions that effected them and the world around them, not watch it.