Eurogamer's Top 50 Games of 2008: 40-31 Comments by Eurogamer staff

lol owned ;)

Comment threads like this one make me hate the internet.

I though everyone already knew Kieron was a faux-intellectual twat.

All his reviews and articles are horribly over-blown pretentious nonsense and he's part of the 'games are art'-bollocks brigade that's ruined modern gaming journalism.

They're just games. If you consider them to be art then you're ashamed of being a gamer, so just quit. Play them, enjoy them, but don't try to tell me they're an artform.

Yup.

I LOVED GTA III and Vice City, San Andreas slightly less so (it was too ambitious and overwhelming for its own good) but GTA IV is disappointing. Saints Row 2 on the other hand is a bundle of fun and that is what ultimately matters when you play video games so; Saints Row 2 > GTA IV.

Changing the camera mode helps massively on Siren.

"I take slight exception to the comment by Kieron about 'music is the artform which all other art aspires to.' The actual quote is, 'All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music.' Which is not the same thing."

Thanks for pointing this out. I didn't take the time to check the original quote.

By the way, "games are art" didn't ruin modern games journalism. Lack of talent did. ;) The fundamental problem isn't with looking at games as art (which is perfectly valid, the same way looking at architecture or music as art is), but with doing a bad job with it.

Architecture is architecture. Music is music.

It's a very simple concept really. It just gets confused when people feel like the subject matter in question is lacking in some way so they think that by labelling it 'art' it automatically gains another layer of depth and some extra credibiltiy.

Chromeyellow: I'm not misquoting it unless I put quotation marks around it. I'm just paraphrasing it badly* - and my whole paraphrasing (i.e. Not just the bit you misquote) says the same thing as the quotation. Or at least, that's my reading of it - as in, all other arts aspire to be music because music's nature moves in a way without direct signifiers. Music can be tragic without creating a tragic plot for us to buy into, etc.

Worth noting to everyone else that I didn't actually say anything about games being art in my audiosurf thoughts. I was saying Audiosurf is about how awesome the art of music is. It's something that exists to glorify music, and does a pretty good job of it.

Though re-reading the paragraph, I wish I'd said "line" rather than "saying". It's not a saying.

KG

*Which I'll happily cop too. If I wanted to quote it, I'd have googled it, y'know?

Well, no. Not really. Music does have signifiers, they are the previously heard forms of music that have conditioned the mind to automatically recognise future sounds as music. Once that is achieved, different inferences can be given to different types of music, one type of music is 'happy', this type is 'sad'. They are not inherently happy and sad, the signifiers are the previously learned triggers. Music has a language.

There is an excellent leader in the Economist this week about just this subject. Basically the premise is that language in it's pure spoken form is adaptive, in that humans are not taught it, they simply pick it up by being around other humans. Whilst reading and writing 'must be actively taught' and 'transform an individual’s perception of the world'. They are, “transformative technologies”.

I'll quote the next bit in full:

'In difficulty of learning, music lies somewhere in between speaking and writing. Most people have some musical ability, but it varies far more than their ability to speak. Dr Patel sees this as evidence to support his idea that music is not an adaptation in the way that language is, but is, instead, a transformative technology.'

Music doesn't 'move people without meaning', as you say, it needs meaning in the same way language does. Anyway to misquotedly paraphrase Elvis Costello: Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

If you want to read the rest of the Economist article, you can google it. I subscribe, y'know?

I feel the point has been missed. Fundamentally, I don't agree that all other art forms aspire to the 'condition' of music as the orginal quote would have it. And I certainly don't think that 'music is the artform which all other art aspires to'. I just disagree with both points of view, which are still not the same thing.

I agree with CromeYellow's points and enjoy the derailment of this thread.

Please, continue.

There is an excellent leader in the Economist this week about just this subject.

Best EG comments-thread post ever!

"Rob Fahey: Along with the flawed but lovely Eternal Sonata, this is the best game which Microsoft's huge expenditure on JRPGs has produced so far - which is quite depressing, actually."

Tales of Vesperia would like a word with you.

Wow. This top 50 does seem to feature a large number of games that none of you liked or played.

Comments threads can be amazing sometimes, y'know?

I actually flicked through the piece in the Economist in the station when travelling - function of music being one of the things I tend to think about. Before I read anything, I flicked to the final paragraph to make sure it said "But really, no-one knows..." to make sure it wasn't actually something really big I hadn't heard yet. It isn't, but it's a good overview of music and evolution...

For those who are interested:
http://www.economist.com/printedition/di...

Chrome: I think you're wrong, and there's nothing in that article which says otherwise. Music is *inherently* sad or happy - as in, they are happy or sad to most humans*. Certain chord changes have specific effects on the human mind. Diminished Sixths or whatever they were called weren't banned in medieval times due to the social history of them - they were banned because they sounded freaky. Faster and slower rhythms change the heartbeat, etc. We learn to manipulate these effects. We do not create these effects from society.

Are there elements of music which are signifiers which we learn to create an emotional response to (I mean, anything with language in it is a signifier) but generally speaking you hear a song and it works on something in the brain directly. The question of *how* and *why* it does that is the big evolutionary issue, y'know?

Do we learn it? Yes. Totally. But we are learning something which works on the human mind, at its core, for no reason. By comparison, we tell a story about a tragic happening, people feel sad - but they feel sad through human empathy. If we sing a sad song - then they feel sad for *no reason at all*.

You've misunderstood Costello, by the way. He actually supports my position. He's saying that you can't explain music's effect and people trying to do so are just acting in a ridiculous and useless manner. To be honest, it's a wanky quote I disagree with in the way he meant it - he pulled it out to just dismiss critics. It's kind of a music journalist "thing" to work out fun ripostes to the line.

KG

*People with Amusia are the interesting exceptions. Music is just random noises to them. They can never learn it, and never feel its effect.

Ok.

My understanding of the Costello quote was that he was saying all art forms are as valid as each other, rather than any one being superior. (Although I don't really know the context in which he said it and don't read the music press to any great extent.) I realise he was trying to dismiss critics but I don't think he was denigrating writing or exalting music specifically. So is that not in support of my position? Like I say though, I don't know the context, I'll look at it.

From my own experience (what else can I draw on?) I just get more of an emotional response from certain passages of writing than I do from music. A play holds me more rapt than a gig. Personally I think it comes down to the same 'big evolutionary issue' you mention. For millennia, the entire volume of human knowledge was passed down through language and word of mouth. Those who were genetically better equipped to remember, were better equipped to survive, and did so. I therefore think the ability to be moved and affected by stories and words is genetically embedded into humans as deeply as any other form of expression. If not more so.

I think the original quote, 'All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music,' needs to be taken in context. It is taken from a text written in 1873 (thanks google). At that time most art was very formal and exclusive. Institutions such as the Royal Academy demanded conformity of artists, opposition of which would lead to pariah status. The world of free and abstract expression we now have does not bear any relation to the late Victorian period. Impressionism was only just beginning, let alone all the myriad forms of visual expression that would follow. Realism in literature was likewise unknown at the time.

I think the free and accessible 'condition of music' was something that other art forms might have once aspired to. But during the last 130 years (and especially the last 60 or so) other art forms have caught up with music as a way of engaging humans in a deep and emotional way.

"34. Siren: Blood Curse
Sony / PS3

Gonna have to get this. "

I thought it was awful; horrid camera, missing a coherent plot. Just all smoke & mirrors hidng really poor gameplay.

ah, the horror genre.

Fuck me, who gave John Walker the grumpy pills? Got anything positive to say about anything John? Oh, and if you haven't played a game - ie: the brilliant and sublime Okami - stay out of it.

Chrome: I'd agree that your reading of the Costello quote is a lot something I can get behind - all art forms have their interesting aspects and do different things, etc*. But he really means it's impossible to translate or describe the pleasures of one art form into another - though I think that's pushing it further than he meant. He specifically meant that some artforms are untranslatable into one another. Music to writing and Architecture to dancing are examples of ones he thinks equally ludicrous. You can't say anything meaningful about architecture by dance. Similarly, people who write about music are wasting their time.

Equally, totally get that you find narrative more likely to capture your attention, for longer, more than music. I think it's probably the same for me - music may have intensity, but it's for shorter periods at a time. Being lost in music for - say - a couple of hours is really rare.

(Though on that scale, I find it interesting to think about games - I think a game's kept me totally in a world far longer than any film. I think of days lost to Civ, without even thinking of going to the toilet. That's amazing, y'know?)

Regarding your reading... well, I get what you're saying, but it's not as if Theatre was a new art form then, and I'm not entirely sure by "condition" he meant "social acceptance". I'll accept maybe he is. But I think my reading still has some worth - all arts really are trying to get to that magic moment of emotional movement which music manages by its very nature. They may do totally different thing, but the urge to *move* is what it's all about. We're almost certainly wired for human empathy - which is what narrative relies on - but it's something that makes more *sense* than how music moves us. MacBeth is tragic because of reasons we can express. Sigur Ros isn't. There's a magic there, and all art is reaching towards that magic.

That's what I meant, anyway. I think it's an interesting thing to think of - and I think that Audiosurf being *about* that magical connection to music made it a little like a poem to the power of music. Or maybe it's more like a picture frame or something? Or a Gallery? I could argue 'em all, I suspect.

Audiosurf: Pretty Neat, basically.

KG

*I mean, there's a reason why I'm a games journalist. If I thought music intrinsically better than games, I'd be writing about music, y'know?

Ok. All good points. I agree with you on nearly everything so we'll just have to agree to slightly disagree on the music 'magic' thing. I stood in front of Van Gogh's Sunflowers a few weeks ago and (although not entirely sober) I just got a vivid rush of energy from the picture. Something totally intangible. As magical as anything.

I did wonder about the writing and the gaming issue and your thoughts on their validity as mediums of expression. You say you don't think any of the forms are intrinsically better than any other, which sort of nulls my argument. I took exception to the original article because it came across that you were being a bit music snobby. Of all the types of snobs, music snobs are by far and away the most boorish and dull. That was what yanked me originally, it's a pet hate.

There's a good contradiction though, I was talking about Realism and how literature opened at the end of the 19th and throughout the 20th Century. This led (eventually) to the New Journalism which started as a conscious effort to break down staid rules. The New Journalism's aim was to increase the involvement of the reader because the alternative objective reporting is inevitably distant and cold. But you know that, (thanks google) having coined the NGJ (that's pretty cool). So I can only assume that you want writing to move towards the 'condition of music' but it seems you don't think it can ever get there.

You might be right. When you read something like 'The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test' now, it seems awfully, embarrassingly self-indulgent and self-aware. NJ has evolved (becoming totally ubiquitous whether journalists know it or not) and it is less stylised now but it still is far too bound by rules and the required 'narrative' as you put it. It's fiction that does it though. Wild stuff by people like Kerouac and Easton Ellis. It gets me more than music, that's my magic.

I also know exactly what you mean about Civ, having some Aztec bastard declare war on you for NO GOOD REASON when he's supposedly friendly. Now that gets an emotional response.

Anyway, looking back on the thread, it all makes sense. Fuck me I think we're under-employed. Sadly, me much more so than you, and you write about games for a living! Keep up the good work.