Web exclusive: Video gaming lifted to the level of art

I just got back from a hellish trip through Liberty City. After hijacking a motorcycle and… I just got back from a hellish trip through Liberty City. After hijacking a motorcycle and using it to jump off ramps, I accidentally landed on a pedestrian. Unfortunately, I did so right in front of a police car, which immediately turned on its siren and swerved my direction. I tried to escape down a foggy alley only to have my back tire shot out, which flung me onto the pavement so that I came to a halt about 40 feet from where my bike landed. I scurried into a brick building, maybe six or seven stories tall, thinking I’d escaped the law.

But from the rooftop I heard machinegun fire pouring down on me. It was coming from a police chopper shouting out final warnings above me. I didn’t hesitate before whipping a rocket launcher out of my back pocket and demolishing the chopper in mid-air.

If you’re not familiar with Liberty City, it’s worth visiting. Everything you’ve dreamt of doing in Las Vegas you can do here, and much more. But here, if you screw up, you get a second chance. And a third. And you can visit between classes or before bed because Liberty City is a living, pixilated world that patiently waits for you within “Grand Theft Auto IV.” For less than the price of a round-trip flight to Vegas, you can purchase the game and an Xbox 360 to play it on.

More than 3.5 million consumers decided to take the trip April 29, GTA IV’s release date. According to the Associated Press, its first week of sales pulled in more than $500 million for distributor Take-Two Interactive.

And while a handful of politicians and hacks like Glenn Beck rehash arguments about the violent influence they believe games have on consumers, they’re missing what so many of us have come to appreciate: The line between video games being considered pure entertainment and video games as an art-form has slowly dissolved.

GTA IV didn’t single-handedly achieve this. The process was building long before I first found “Donkey Kong Country” and a Super Nintendo under my seventh Christmas tree. I can trace the evolution of my videogame preference from that starting point by system and by the epic games that stand out among the rest – from “Mario Kart” and “Harvest Moon” to “GoldenEye 64” and “Space Station Silicon Valley.”

And as that line has evolved, I’ve demanded more out of the experience, developing a much more discriminating taste concerning spending $60.

If I want something to entertain a few friends with, I’ll throw on some “Fight Night” or “Madden,” in the same way I’d put on “Harold and Kumar” or “Die Hard” for some low-key entertainment with broad appeal. But with some real free time on my hands, there’s no reason to accept less than what we demand out of the best film and literature: fascinating plot threads, multi-dimensional characters and some outright fun.

In Ion Storm’s “Deus Ex: Invisible War,” I found myself having to choose whom to save: an innocent young girl who was going to die of infection regardless or a creep who might be able to lead me to a cure for the city’s air pollution. Ultimately, a twitch in my right pointer finger left both of them dead via rocket-bomb, but that’s not the point.

These gray-area decisions weave in and out of the larger context of Ion Storm’s game, which lets you decide which form of government mankind will utilize for the future. A thinking man’s action game, you might say. It’s also interesting that a game world filled with flamethrowers and timed explosives also allows you to finish the entire thing without killing a single character.

But that’s a decision the designers made going into the game. They have to put just as much, if not more, planning and foresight into creating a cohesive game world for consumers to act in. And when the best designers, like Shigeru Miyamoto and Peter Molyneux, rev their creative engines, we see legendary games like “Black and White” as the result. It takes their guidance to lead teams of artists, programmers and testers to get the finished product, the same way Scorsese or Polanski might command their teams.

Our generation has witnessed the evolution of the videogame from two-dimensional sprite characters into nearly photorealistic graphics. We’ve seen cartoon antics replaced with sophisticated, gritty narratives. We’ve asked for more and more, and the industry has delivered. Now, when pretentious conversations about art come up, I make sure to bring up “Ocarina of Time” and “Halo” as masterpieces and Miyamoto as a visionary, or some garbage like that.

Yes, games are expensive. Yes, they’re incredibly addictive and time-consuming. But don’t let that stop you from picking up a controller and enjoying the most immersive and interactive art form available to us today.

Tell Brandon how to unlock the magic flaming demon sword on level 12 at bkp3@pitt.edu.