The beauty of good CGI and voice acting

[fatalrendezvous]

I know this video is kind of old - but for some reason I felt compelled to watch it again earlier today.

KARA is a CGI short from Quantic Dream, the same video game developer / studio that created Indigo Prophecy, Heavy Rain, and Beyond: Two Souls. It's meant to showcase their new engine (new at the time, anyway), which was capable of running on the PS3. But they clearly put a lot of work into it and it's become a lot more than that.

It's a very powerful short, made even more so by the quality of the voice acting, the music, and the graphical detail. (I should take a moment to mention that Valorie Curry, who voiced and provided motion capture for Kara, has been in several motion pictures and primetime TV shows)

I just felt like sharing it, because this was one of the pieces that really opened my eyes to the notion that games are more than just "games" but rather that when done with the right attention to detail, can be an art form.

What do you guys think?


---
BONUS: Kara behind the scenes video

 

[Razilin]

Two possible outcomes of the Operator's decision:

 

[Kylulu]

Games have always been a form of artistic medium. The increase of graphical fidelity has not brought about this.

 

[fatalrendezvous]

Games have always been a form of artistic medium. The increase of graphical fidelity has not brought about this.

While I personally agree, there are many who do not.

 

[Windsong]

It's a shame all those games were pretty mediocre to downright terrible. If I wanted to watch a story I'll rent a movie.

Video games are about interaction and gameplay. Story and graphics should come after in terms of importance. It's when they all come through in their own unique balance does a great game shine.

Or they release a new cawodooty. Kids go nuts over the same things.

 

[fatalrendezvous]

I actually thought Beyond: Two Souls was a very compelling game, and I'm pretty sure Heavy Rain is widely acclaimed.

Then again I'm an Ellen Page fanatic so of course I loved Beyond: Two Souls.

 

[Brovo]

While I personally agree, there are many who do not.

Many thought that movies weren't art either when they initially came out. The Hays Code was made specifically with the idea that they weren't art and needed to be restricted accordingly. Then films like Citizen Kane came around, and dispelled that myth quite handily.

Games just need more time. It's only been... 30-ish years that this generation of games has gotten rolling? With games like The Walking Dead, The Longest Journey, Bastion, Jade Empire, Sid Meier's Civilization, Portal, Deadlight, Bioshock, Spec Ops: The Line, DEFCON...

Basically if you don't believe games are art at this point, no amount of CGI and graphical improvements is going to change your mind. Games have already tackled concepts like survival-ism, childhood, religion, sexuality, and so on, in really tasteful ways. If you can look at all of the games above and not see any hint of art, subtle messages, greater meanings and loving touches by their creators... Your head is in the sand, and you are locked in your ways.

That is all, really.

 

[Hellis]

Transistor and Brothers has done us gamers a huge favor when it comes to being considered art. Beyond two souls try, and I feel, fail to be more then a game. Instead its hardly a game and more movie. Brothers is what i feel games should strive for. Not in story, but in completion

Brothers incorperate near flawlessly the controls and mechanics into the setting at the story. There is no hud that you can see, the world reacts to you in subtle ways and everything is seamless. There are no pop up things that appear. The world is simple yet immersive. Each brother is working together and view the world differently and it comes across completely. The setting pieces are seamless, you go from area to area and are taken across the world on a journey that doesn't really use cutscenes in the traditional sense. Despite there being no dialogue you can understand the story as it is conveyed in a incredibly vivid way. The narrative force is so strong, that by the end, I felt like I needed to hug my own brother and thank him for existing. If that isn't art, then nothing is. At least to me.

And the art and the music is ssome of the most organic, perfectly placed stuff ever.

 

[Hellis]

Also, on the point of CGI and Graphics. Anyone who say better graphics provides it more grounds for being a artform, is straight up ignorant towards what the word Art is about; Aesthetics and styles and EXPRESSION.

Cubism is modern art, it is sparse and it is to most, just cubes. It is still vidly accepted as art. It is the painted, visual art equivalent of really lazy 2d. Picasso made topical, very intricate paintings, but cave paintings are also regarded as art. Graphics, is not Aesthetics, Graphic engines and 3D are like a brush or a pencil. Nothing else. They provide new forms to make art. But video games, has always been art if the new pretty games are art. Art is the expression of visions, feeling and emotion trough a medium that can be picked up by sensory means. We can see and hear a Dance show, and it can invoke in us feelings, it is art. Movies is art, it's able to stimulate us visually and audibly. Games are just the next step in the evolution of art. And it is such regardless of graphics. Photo realism doesn't make anything more of a art.

Most if not all art, is about telling a story. Storytelling is as old as mankind itself. We as humans tell stories to understand the world. And art is a extension of this as well. All art is about expression and stories. Picasso made a famous painting that told the story of Germany bombing of Spain. And now, we have games tackling all sorts of events and situations.

Making a game takes serious craftsmanship. You have to write, you have to sculpt a world, and you have to balance the interactive experience. Games are not only art, a good game can be a entire art installation of its own; Spec Ops told a story about a soldier who was slowly breaking down, haunted by his past in a way reminiscent of Apocalypse now. Its developers managed to turn a military shooter into a thought provoking experiment about war and how terrible it is.

 

[Windsong]

If women pushing eggs in their ovulating Vaginas and popping them out onto a canvas from a ladder is considered art then video games can be too.

Personally I wish the issue wouldn't pop up. It should be more akin to "oh yeah that's pretty/interesting/stimulating" and move on rather than have a million and one voices screaming about what is art how is art why is art the way art is. That shits annoying.

 

[Brovo]

If women pushing eggs in their ovulating Vaginas and popping them out onto a canvas from a ladder is considered art then video games can be too.

Personally I wish the issue wouldn't pop up. It should be more akin to "oh yeah that's pretty/interesting/stimulating" and move on rather than have a million and one voices screaming about what is art how is art why is art the way art is. That shits annoying.

But my art is art and your art isn't art because my art appeals to my sensibilities while your art has lots of guns and violence. My art after all, involving crucifying people to wooden sticks and leaving them to rot for three days, has absolutely no violent content. Faux News told me so, so it must be true.

 

[Hellis]

I'm sorry. But my game will have penises in it. That is high art right there.

 

[Razilin]

Anatomically speaking, it would be low art.

Unless your penis was on your head.

Then you'd be a dickhead.

 

[Windsong]

I'm sorry. But my game will have penises in it. That is high art right there.

Dante's Inferno.

Giant physics driven floppy devil dong.

It's like the horse anuses in Oblivion.

Someone modeled that.

 

[Hellis]

Well. I once spent a entire gamejam modelling a anthromorphic tit in a game about breast cancer. I wishI was joking, but at the time we were dead set on the idea.

 

[The Philosoraptor]

I know this video is kind of old - but for some reason I felt compelled to watch it again earlier today.

KARA is a CGI short from Quantic Dream, the same video game developer / studio that created Indigo Prophecy, Heavy Rain, and Beyond: Two Souls. It's meant to showcase their new engine (new at the time, anyway), which was capable of running on the PS3. But they clearly put a lot of work into it and it's become a lot more than that.

It's a very powerful short, made even more so by the quality of the voice acting, the music, and the graphical detail. (I should take a moment to mention that Valorie Curry, who voiced and provided motion capture for Kara, has been in several motion pictures and primetime TV shows)

I just felt like sharing it, because this was one of the pieces that really opened my eyes to the notion that games are more than just "games" but rather that when done with the right attention to detail, can be an art form.

What do you guys think?

---

BONUS: Kara behind the scenes video

I can imagine all sorts of ways they could turn KARA into a legitimate and decent video game.

 

[Windsong]

I can imagine all sorts of ways they could turn KARA into a legitimate and decent video game.

They have tons of them. They're all in Japanese though..

 

[Darog]

Anatomically speaking, it would be low art.

Unless your penis was on your head.

Then you'd be a dickhead.

My dick portrait is hung like a horse portrait.

 

[The Philosoraptor]

They have tons of them. They're all in Japanese though..

God does not get this reference... Please. Continue.

 

[Windsong]

God does not get this reference... Please. Continue.

If God is all knowing and omnipresent then how come he doesn't know of the superior 2d waifu?