Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Video Games as Art: Little Big Planet

Finally there is hope again for the video game. For too long we have suffered the first person shooter with its lack of social value and contempt for anything worthy of technology and the action adventure horror flicks and rehashed and tiresome tricks of video wizardry. Now Media Molecule and Sony have brought us the highly stylized and completely unique "Little Big Planet". There have been few moments like this in recent years for video games. Now the gamers are allowed to express themselves in ways never before seen in an environment that is not only easy to use but suprisingly capable of complex works of art and social commentary as well as some good old tricky gameplay.

The unfortunate part of the game so far is that many users lack imagination, or at least the players that choose which levels are the most popular lack imagination. There are plenty of people who try to emulate existing games or re-make their favorite movies within the game which may be a sad commentary on our current pop culture driven world. Even Sony has played to this by selling add-ons to the game based on previous games. We should all stand up and say "Stop It"...let this be something untainted by what is and let it be what it was meant to be which is a place of dreams and imagination. Save the Sackboys and Sackgirls from the drudgery of our corporate spoonfed world. Let the artist and creator within you out of the dark place where you have hidden it away from the light of day and let it play within the world given to us by the masters of cool at Media Molecule.

This is a call out to anyone who creates levels on "Little Big Planet". If you have a level or know of a level that you feel is artistic and/or offers some sort of cultural value then post it here and discuss with others.

On the web:
http://www.mediamolecule.com

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