Games as art, as art.
Storytelling is cool, but as a former speedrun producer I have a slow-burning interest in the non-fiction fringes of machinima, particularly those that focus on the games themselves.
A fascinating example I (finally) noticed last week is a series of Half-Life 2 “critiques” by GooseGoose Productions. Like their creator Mark Gillespie, I’m sufficiently in awe of this series of games that I would have happily indulged simple fan-boy “wasn’t this bit cool!” reminiscence - but this is only one factor in his (necessarily spoiler-laden, by the way) pieces on episodes “zero”, one and two.
Gillespie makes the obvious argument for games as significant cultural artifacts and quality narrative inventions, but also promotes what I believe to be an equally correct but less widely accepted position on games as visual art per se, revelling in Valve’s architectural and design aesthetics. His creative background helps: I loved when, as an oil painter, he’d get all excited about any one particular texture! In a more conventional machinima mode, he also occasionally interjects some of his own work as imaginative hypotheticals, Garry’s Mod style.
(tag: machinima)
