Graphics vs. art in modern videogames

This is not a post that intends to argue that videogames do or don't constitute art. I believe it was Heraclitus of Ephesus who called this "a fucking boring debate". Art isn't a locked door that needs a password to gain entry. It doesn't respond well to rules or entry criteria. When we bark back and forth about art, what we're really discussing is indescribable differences in perspective, differences in the way we perceive the world. No one's right and no one's wrong. Having said that, green is irrefutably the best colour. I don't think you can deny this.

It's certainly hard to deny that the medium of videogames is at best considered cinema's irritating little brother, the hyperactive pre-adolescent clutching at the coat-tails of its betters for attention. There's a host of reasons for this, with roots within the games industry itself as well as the preconceptions of dismissive outsiders. I believe one of the reasons for many games being considered little more than toys is the industry's preoccupation with graphics.

I appreciate great graphics. There's a huge amount of craft and skill (as well as thousands of miserable, marriage-destroying labour hours, presumably) that goes into making a landscape both beautiful and interactive. Achieving graphics that encourage immersion, enhance gameplay or inspire player creativity is an artful pursuit. But graphics must sit within the larger visual realm; there must always be a point to pushing technology to new levels. Otherwise we're just fiddling with pixels.

Games that prioritise graphics without considering wider visual goals are usually pretty easy to spot. Recently, Killzone 3 proved a visual disappointment despite the big bucks spent on its development. All the bells and whistles are in place, it's just that they have nowhere to go. The game's visual design is so uninspiring that all the superstar rendering isn't driving towards any meaningful artistic goal. It's the equivalent of tearing open an immaculately wrapped, expertly ribboned Christmas present to find a collection of your dad's dandruff scattered inside. Pointless ostentation hiding an ill-considered core.

You might argue that depressing, drab industrialisation is the very point Killzone 3 is trying to make with its visuals. Very true, but does the game's visual identity actually succeed? Where are the incidental insights into the misery of life on Helghan? Does the look of Killzone's world affect how we want to interact with it? The game doesn't hold a candle to Limbo's pervasive sense of monochrome dread, or Machinarium's rusty, apocalyptic charm. Even the Gears of War series used its vision of "destroyed beauty" to enliven its backstory and evoke a sense of a historical grandeur now turned to rubble. With Killzone, all we get is an unending, featureless sea of rivets, railings and warehouses, populated by a faceless army of cockney Nazis.

The ever-expanding library of downloadable titles on all platforms, less burdened by the expectations of cutting-edge graphics, is proving that videogame art can be impressive without graphics. It's a shame that so many developers, and so many gamers, refuse to acknowledge that graphics are utterly useless without art. We can only hope that as this industry emerges from its rebellious teenage years with a full complement of pubes and an art degree, our perceptions of visual beauty in games evolves and, to some degree, inverts. Who knows, maybe in this new utopia, The Secret of Monkey Island will be considered one of Xbox Live Arcade's most beautiful games, and Shadow Complex one of its most ugly.