Starmen.Net

Both ICO and Shadow of the Collosus. If them isn’t works of art, I don’t know what is.

The Neverhood was a silly game with claymation graphics and bizzare music.
What it lacked in gameplay it made up for in charm.

I think Wind Waker deserves a mention for its art style. Definitely a beautiful game.

Oh lawl, the old “are vidya gaems art” debate. I suppose if I were to open this can of worms, I’d probably nominate…

Baroque
Killer7
Okami (hurrr)
Silent Hill 2

Zelda Wind Waker
Mother series

Cyan’s Myst & Riven. Most mind-blowing, original, and above all, artful games.
There are plenty of others, too. But those are the biggies.

Myst: I remember watching the “Making of Myst” which came with the game. Everything from the sounds and the backgrounds were done with exact detail.

LucasArts Adventure Games: Nice, fluid animations were used in some of their later games like “Day of the Tentacle”, “Sam & Max”, and “Full Throttle” which puts modern flash animation to shame.

Cave Story: The oldschool styled sprites really bring life and charm to the game.

Portal: The sense of isolation as well as the droning voice of GlaDos give it a unique feel.

Aside from the Mother series, which is a generic answer on this forum, I would say Persona 3 (I would include other SMT games, but I’ve only played Persona 3 to know what I’m talking about. ).

Persona 3 depicts the human mind through the Social Links, Tartarus, the Velvet Room, etc., especially in the modern setting it takes place in, which it visually shows how relevent certain things are in our lives. (I personally am connected to the Hanged Man Social Link, since my parents are getting divorced… )

I think the only game I can seriously name as art would be Cave Story, and that was because it was made by one single person. Every creative endeavour the game took, links to a single mind.

Oh also Trace Memory. Few see how much is behind this game.

I have checked Cing’s site (Cing is the developer) and it shares a style and message to never stop being curious on what’s around the world and have in mind to solve every question that is haunting you. If more people knew about this game, it would probably be taken big as the main franchises and its really great it will have a sequel. That could be the beginning of a great journey.

Katamari Damacy.

Did seriously no one mention this yet?

It’s hard to define what ‘art’ is, so I guess I consider them all a painting wheather or not they are a good painting or not.

Shadow of the Colossus.

Does anyone else see the genesis sonic games as art? I kind of do.

Mother series is obvious.
Paper mario (the first one) , and i’m surprised noone else thinks so.
Spore
Warhawk (I swear it isn’t just a headshot/pwn the n00bs game)
Heavenly sword
Black and White 1 and 2

cafink:

I consider all games art.

Oh really? I beg to differ.

^There can be.

Incoherent Moron:

there can’t be bad art?

How could there be. Art is subjective. It would end up being a contradiction to label things as objectively bad, from sense perception alone.

The only degree, to me, by which art can be bad stems from accuracy of expression. Those who sell out and make a product not for themselves, but for someone else, fail on that count. But it still ahs no correlation to how much I like said art. There can be bad and good artists imo is what I am saying, but there can’t be bad or good art. Not totally dead set on this, but that’s my take on it.

So with that said, I simply can’t mention any games. Wii music, however, is and artistic instrument so I feel it falls into a different category than most of the games being mentioned in this thread.

Beyond Good & Evil.

Easily one of the most beautiful games I have ever played. The music is stunning, the plot is solid, the characters are memorable, the environments are gorgeous (well, maybe not the slaughterhouse or the factory ), and the gameplay is enjoyable and has a lot of variety to it. I often call this one of the most underrated games of all time. If any game is art, it’s this one.

Definitely Killer7 and the Mother series.

Why has know one mentioned Yoshi’s Island yet? That was like one of the first games to really have an “art” focus.

More like a blind 3 year old boy on Notepad

Killer7

Breath of Fire 4

I’ve been playing this game on and off for years. It’s really hard to find for PS1, so I finally got me a copy for the PC. They improved the graphic rendering slightly and the load times IMMENSELY. It’s so fast I keep doing a double-take in shock…

The art style is really nice though! 2D Cel-shaded characters on a 3-D background, and only a couple of bosses are made 3D. I can’t tell, but it seems like most of the characters are hand animated, which is pretty wicked. Also, this seems to be one of the few games that has this style of graphics, especially for the PS1.

Well Kojima is being a dry hypocrite.

Rez!

Whenever I described this game to anyone I always said “Its like playing art.”

Games that do it well:

Shadow of the Colossus, ICO, Out of This World, Silent Hill series, Mushihimesama, Zelda Series (Majora’s Mask highlighted), MGS series, Mother series, Lunar series, roguelike games.

Many of these games have a cinematic or pictureesque quality to them that really brings them to this level. Mother 2, for example: recently when I had a friend play it with me he remarked just how uncanny it was that he could put Ness behind a desk next to an NPC, and have Ness face the same direction as the NPC. Giving the scene that picture-esque quality that may not be as apparent in other games as you casually place your avatar in the scenery. That struck me as something very true about Mother.

Mushihimesama is simply an orgasm of brilliant design choices. I particularly enjoy this shooting title because of it’s colorful art style. Blowing up bugs and seeing their neon-green insect gut explosions is .. vivid. That and the game has a ton of depth, particularly with its scoring mechanic that has you chaining enemies by constantly shooting something on the screen, and manipulating a couple different firing techniques to achieve higher scores. Music is also a bit more on the eclectic side. Just a brilliant bullet hell shooter in my eyes, but I’ve yet to try out Dodonpachi.

I particularly enjoy the Lunar series because playing the gams you anticipate seeing more of the FMV anime cutscenes, they gave a ton of depth into the characters and really compelled you to keep playing to learn more of their story.

And well roguelikes, they simply inspire the imagination with their minimal interface where monsters are represented by different colored letters. That’s very noteworthy, I think. Emphasizing that the true art is in your mind as an ogre is clumbsily trying to swat your head off with his enourmous battle axe, as your character brilliantly parrys each strike etc.

Oh and I think there’s something to be said about FPS or multiplayer games where great team coordination means the defeat of your enemies. It’s a great feeling to have a balanced match of Day of Defeat Source, maybe 10 players on each side where each team is fighting for the middle point fiercely, it’s very satisfying after the match ends. You think, “I did good, and the other team did good, as well!” without a lot of room for grudge.

I guess I kind of think of a good game in terms of its art like how a book is deemed a piece of literature. When the overall design is original and cleverly cohesive, it seems to achieve this quality.