Smithsonian Museum: Art of Video Games Exhibit

[Ran-bot]

I just saw on Slashdot that the Smithsonian American Museum of Art will be hosting a special exhibit to showcase "The Art of Video Games" in 2012. The showcased games were selected based votes from an online poll, the results of which can be viewed HERE.

I'm glad for the recognition of video games in renowned art museum like the Smithsonian. My first impression is I think they could have used a little more input from people in the industry. Just because a game is popular in an online poll, doesn't necessarily make it an artistically, historically, or technologically important step in gaming. But there are some titles there that absolutely deserve to be there. I think their catagories are a little odd and maybe over-represent old game systems (pre-NES). One thing I'd REALLY like explained to me how any rational person would could consider Doom II as technologically or artistically more influential than the original Doom... Don't get me wrong, Doom 2 was great, but Doom was the real step up in gaming, Doom 2 just added a double-barrel shotgun.

I could on, but fow now I'll just say that I'm not sure how I feel about this exhibit yet. I will grant that maybe in the context/flow of the exhibit their selections may make a lot more sense.

Thoughts?

[Antero90]

Doom 2 just added a double-barrel shotgun.

And the erm... that skinny guy with the instant fire atack, a room with two bosses and a developers head...

Well, that's the dangers of online pools, hopefully some old schoolers will save the day.

[westy]

Why doesn't anyone ever talk about the Amiga when reviewing classic games

NES GAMES ARE OVERRATED

[Aggamemnon]

Amiga rocked.

Defender of the Crown ohhh yeah.

[westy]

Amiga rocked.

Defender of the Crown ohhh yeah.

*high five*

[Machine]

Atari ST man myself but I hear the call!

[Thebos]

Not a bad list showing how things progressed. Its a bit simplified (as expected) and some of the choices are iffy in my book (Pac-Man for the VCS as highlight: SERIOUSLY?)

They seemed to have ignored many of the early computer games (pre-DOOM) hence the lack of Amiga and Atari (the Commodore 64 is mentioned however). Not too surprising though considering this is a museum exhibit.

[Schleicher]

Halo 2 was butt ugly imho *monocle drops*

[lightfoot]

A list of cult video games should start a bit earlier in time, in my opinion.

I agree that such a list cannot but turn out highly subjective. But the whole 8-bit era needs more than just mentioning, I think.

Alright, Zaxxon is in, but where is Mercenary? Boulder Dash? ACE? Commando? I could go on and on like that, if I took the time.
And where is Arkanoid?
(I still play that from time to time...)

Games like Boulder Dash were damn ugly, even in that time, but still somehow managed to have high playing value.

The whole era introduced so much into gaming. Sound and music, multicolored graphics (-remember, 320x200 was called 'high resolution', hah. The 8-bitters had such things long before Doom)
Not to forget, multiplayer. Nearly every game was for 2 or more players. Sure it was ugly, only made bleepy and crunchy noises, but we had a lot of fun with games like Worms, or North&South.

[Trapmaster]

Mercenary? Boulder Dash?

Funny, exactly those were the two I was thinking of in the first place regarding popular 8-bit games - I couldn't think of any other that I liked more back then. Although Mercenary was not the only 3d game, I always considered it revolutionary, considering it was only 64k and offering such a rich world.

Games like Boulder Dash were damn ugly, even in that time, but still somehow managed to have high playing value.

I think BD was one of the best looking games from all the diamond-collecting games. The gfx was okay, comparing to similar games like Emerald Mine for example (*not talking the amiga version here)

[Ran-bot]

They seemed to have ignored many of the early computer games (pre-DOOM) hence the lack of Amiga and Atari (the Commodore 64 is mentioned however). Not too surprising though considering this is a museum exhibit.

Honestly, I feel the exact opposite. There are a ton of great games from 8-bit onward that get no mention while some truely bad games from early systems get mentioning. Like video chess...what did that ever do that was innovative or artistically relevant? Or the game that bankrupted Atari, ET. Their inclusion is more of reflection of the limited pool of games from that era than their relevance to gaming.

A list of cult video games should start a bit earlier in time, in my opinion.

Agreed. There's definately some interesting video gaming history that pre-dates games being displayed on TV screens, like THIS. Maybe that breaks their definition of "video game" though.