Roger Ebert in Limbo

Give it up for Roger Ebert. The guy is one of, if not, the greatest film critic on the planet right now. Diagnosed with thyroid cancer, he saw it as a mere bump in the road to becoming more culturally important in the word. He runs a successful website where he actively engages his readers. He has my favorite twitter page and holds nothing back when it comes to his opinions. All this coming from a guy that some people wrote off when he was diagnosed.

One of Ebert's most recent opinions is that videogames can never be art**. This announcement of course set the internet aflame. Marios, Halos, and Rock-Banders all expressed their outrage and shock. Video games can be never be art? Are you mad man? Rather than back down from his belief he actively engaged his readers, encouraging them to come back at him on the issue. You can read the original article and the comments here.

As a video-gamer and a big fan of Roger Ebert, I can say that I'm pretty sure that Mr Two Thumbs is flat out wrong. Most video games are not art, most are just purely entertainment based awesome nonsense. However some games have artistic design so breathtaking that they are most certainly art. For example, take the most recent xbox game LIMBO. 

This game simply blows my mind to pieces. I feel that if it was shown in a gallery in New York City, people would eat brie and drink cabernet and say things like "the dimness of childhood and the machine" while they tweeted about the future of art. I don't want to dive too deep into the WHAT IS ART debate, but this new game Limbo most certainly is.

** More recently Ebert took back his famed statement, declaring that video games one day may be art. Looks like all those controller junkies have some power after all.