It's the age old question:  Are video games art, or are they merely entertainment?

When you think about games like the latest John Madden game, it's easy to say they're entertainment:  Because really, what's artful about a bunch of guys on a football field who all look relatively the same.  There's no sweeping story.  There's no character development.  There's really not much to look at, right?



I don't know...the fog effects, the field, the mannerisms of players.  When an artist sculpts a lump of clay to look like a real person, we call it art.  These players look pretty lifelike to me.  Madden might even lean towards art just a bit.  But mostly, it's entertainment.

How about a better example:  Doom.



Eh...there's really not much to look at.  It's mostly about blasting demons.  There's very little story, per se.  Granted, it sort of defined a genre, but the art value of such a thing I think is pretty low.  This one I'd chalk up to evidence of games being purely entertainment. 

But then, if you look at a game like Grand Theft Auto IV, it's the same kind of a game, really.



You're tasked with shooting, finding, etc, just like Doom.  But these people have personalities, stories, and they're a heck of a lot more believable.  Scenery that looks like some of the best landscape painting you've ever seen?  Check.  Except this stuff you can walk right up to, examine, perhaps even climb on top of in between bouts of blasting drug lords and beating up on hookers.  It's kind of a blurry line.

Further blurring the lines are games like Shadow of the Colossus.



This, in my opinion, is art first and foremost and entertainment second.  Maybe that's just me, but I found myself stopping to stare in awe more often than I was climbing and shooting and stabbing.  It elicits an emotional response with its melancholy missions and its brilliant bosses. 

Maybe that's the crux of it:  Emotion.  Feeling.  Is that what makes a game more art than entertainment?  Is it story?  Beauty?  An emotional response?

Then what about this game?



Flower, for the PS3.  It has little to no story, doesn't really elicit any emotion (at least not for me), and is almost sheerly beauty.  But I would consider this art more than entertainment, I think. 

It really is a difficult question to answer. 

What do you think?

You've seen the crappy Pixar-fueled games.  You've played (or avoided) all kinds of crappy licensed merchandise that was only created to rake in cash from unsuspecting parents and children who may not know a good game if it bit them in the joystick.  There are exceptions, but most games made from movies, as a rule, suck. 

You know what wouldn't suck?  How about games made from these three movies:

1.  Labyrinth



Part platformer, part action-RPG, part dancing game.  You play as Sarah Williams, who is soon joined by Huggle as her sidekick.  After skipping the first ten minutes of the movie in a thirty-second clip (mostly to avoid five minutes of  baby Toby crying), you are plunged into the labyrinth.  You must fight your way through, dodging and navigating with a map that constantly fills out as you advance.  After meeting Huggle, you can use his abilities to reach new areas of the maze.  Logic puzzles would have to be solved in order to advance to certain rooms, and there would be secret passages and alternate routes depending on your answers and what abilities you chose to upgrade along the way.   After you meat Ludo and gain the ability to call boulders forth, the labyrinth opens up and you have the remainder o the thirteen hour time limit to explore and try to find the Goblin King (played by David Bowie in a fantastic codpiece, by the way) and save your screaming brat of a little brother.  The showdown at the end would be a dance off, for sure.  Pure video gaming gold.

2.  Little Miss Sunshine



As crazy a driving sim as you are ever going to get.  You must navigate the roadways between Albuquerque and California's Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant in time for the performance of a life!  Along the way you can make stops to fuel up at roadside eateries, making sure to keep all the family members happy and (most importantly) in the van by picking up powerups along the way such as heroin (for grandpa),
porn (for Uncle Frank), philosophy books (for Dwayne), etc.  Along the way, the van continues to deteriorate and you must avoid the cops that try to stop you for your moving vilations and unsafe vehicle (if you're caught, they discover grandpa's body in the back).  And it could end with one of the best dance offs in the history of video gaming.

3.  The Nightmare Before Christmas



Yes, yes.  I know.  They made Oogie's Revenge for Ps2, Xbox, and GBA.  That doesn't count.  This would be an old school platformer, the kind that hasn't been seen since the glory days of the Super Nintendo.  You would play as various characters, collecting the proper accoutrements for a Christmas celebration all your own.  Levels would inclide the holiday forest grove as Jack and Zero, Christmas Town, the graveyard, Sally's tower as and escaping Sally, Christmas Town again as Lock, Shock, and Barrel, the real world as Jack (which would be a flying level in the sleigh dodging missles and delivering presents), and a final showdown with Oogie Boogie himself.  Oh, yes...and...just for good measure, it would end with the best dance off in video gaming history.

Okay, so maybe they wouldn't be the best games ever, but you've got to agree that they would be far more entertaining than any Disney schlock that's out there!

What other movies would you love to see made into video games?

Got a hilarious story about the time you fell down a flight of stairs while playing DDR?  Or how about when your grandma busted a hip trying to nail the finish on that song you just couldn't get through?

We hare at Hardest Level do our happy dance on EXTREME DIFFICULTY when you send us your stories about your video game experiences.  Shoot us a line, and if not for yourself, do it for Grams.