The debate on whether video games could be art has been held at a low simmer for quite some time. Roger Ebert threw down the gauntlet on which many picked up, including recently Clive Barker, who stirred the pot again. In what I deem is a “final thought” on this issue, Ragnar Tournquist (of Dreamfall fame) invited Wayne Santos to deliver a very well written essay on the state of the question “can video games be art?...
Its definitely nice to see Ragnar’s characters getting a little love. Zoe and April come in 4th on a list of top 25 Video Game Heroes. I don’t think it is without merit either. The Longest Journey and Dreamfall have some of the deepest and satisfying protagonists in gaming. I still need to try Indigo Prophecy which I hear is just as deep. Ragnar’s new project, The Secret World was announced a few months ago but no additional details, as of yet....
Ragnar let spill the very happy news that Dreamfall’s story will continue. He’s already fended off nay-sayers of the episodic format with a follow up Q&A. First of all I’m ecstatic that Funcom decided to continue the story. TLJ and Dreamfall represent the equivalent of a very good independent film that was meant to tell a very long story, and you keep hoping they continue to fund it (see Firefly). Even more so than TLJ, Dreamfall ended abruptly, obviously wrapping up a small part of a much larger story....
Dreamfall is the highly anticipated sequel to The Longest Journey, which in my opinion was one of the best true adventure games to come along since Sierra Online was in its heyday. The trailer looks to keep true to the spirit. You won’t see mind blowing video sequences. In fact it looks like they took standard game play for most of it (we’ll see when it arrives this spring). The biggest achievement of TLJ was the characters and story, and this one doesn’t look to disappoint....
Back in the summer of my sophomore year in college (2000 or 2001) while Jeff and I were working at Vialta, one lunch time we stumbled upon a review of a new game from Finland. It hadn’t yet been released in the US (I don’t think they had yet secured a US publisher). It was a rave review. Harking back to the classic puzzle & character driven adventure game that had made the Sierra classics so popular so many years ago....