It's easy when you walk past your teenager's room with the
sounds of gunfire
from an alien- shoot-'em-up video game coming through
the door, to feel like nothing can go right in a world where
kids insist on entertaining bloodshed. Things have
really changed in the world of video games, especially with the
kids video games that are sold today.
Certainly
you would be right about almost every kids video game title
on the shelves with their mass-produced generic gratuitous
of blood and
gore. The kids video games of today have really evolved over the last two decades.
But all is not lost.
What used to be strictly "tween" play, are action video games
that is now a truly evolved
area of entertainment like the movies or music, that can
legitimately be thought of as art. If you could be gently
encouraged to take a look at what is on the screen, perhaps
once in a while, you could see a truly groundbreaking
attempt in videogame art that not only makes for a
shattering gaming experience, but also for a moving esthetic
one. It is still highly recommended that kids are supervised
and kids video games are screened for adult content. So lets just look at a few of the top
kids video games that
are widely recognized to truly be among the most artistic
themes of evolution in
electronic arts.
Traditional mythology and religion have always been rich
ground in artistic themes for the fantasy movie and gaming genres. The Japanese
game Okami, featured on the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Wii,
draws on Japanese folklore for its setting. The entire set
for this game is made to look like a hand-drawn watercolor,
with delicate brush strokes and leaders of shades. It is
still an adventure game, but it is among the most artistic
kids video games. On the Wii, when you use your controller, you end up making
delicate brush strokes to alter the scene before you. When
delicate Japanese music moving you on, it is hard to ever
get jaded on this, one of the top kids video games out there.
Great art in kids video games is also the theme of Shadow of the Colossus. This
fighting game doesn't merely follow one of the traditional
plot lines seen in video games. To begin with, the setting
of the game occurs in a place filled with structures that
are colossal in a way that the game's programmers somehow
imbued with a feeling of vertigo. Through this humbling
scenery do you go fighting your foes in tightly
choreographed Bruce Lee type motions. The game doesn't try
to overdo it, and keeps the length down to where it is just
right. Not only is this a wonderful artistic kids video game, it is
also a blockbuster on the sales charts of one of the top
kids video games.
The Japanese don't have great internationally known movie
makers like James Cameron or Peter Jackson; videogames are
their art form instead. The PlayStation 3 game Metal Gear
Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, is Japan's answer into
videogame arena to, say, the Terminator movies over here,
some of which are probably not suitable for very young
children.
Like other kids video games like this, Metal Gear Solid 4:
Guns of the Patriots has excellent visuals of course, but
nothing is lost in the storytelling department either. The
cinematic effect is humbling, and the brilliantly directed
fight scenes are quite epic. Of course this plot depends on
Japanese mythology that may take a little time for gamers to
get around; they say that the director of this videogame
Hideo Kojima always wanted to make his mark on Hollywood.
This looks like a brilliant start, given that it is still
just one of the many great kids video games.
The Japanese always have to carve out something that they
can call
their own; and how brilliantly have they done it with this
adopted art form for kids video games. And they make a good
business of it, in stores, and now online. No one can really
dispute that these top kids video games have registered a
major success on Japan's business charts.
