Psychonauts is a very excellent game. "Psychonauts is based on the exploits of Raz, a young boy gifted with psychic abilities who runs away from the circus to try to sneak into a summer camp for those with similar powers in order to become a "Psychonaut". He finds that there is a sinister plot occurring at the camp that only he can stop. The game is centered on the widely strange and imaginative minds of various characters that Raz enters as a Psychonaut-in-training/"Psycadet" in order to help them overcome their fears or memories of their past, so as to gain their help and progress in the game. Raz gains use of several psychic abilities during the game that are used for both attacking foes and solving puzzles."--wiki
"Every Shiny game seemed to exist in the same darkly comic, ooze-dripping, subversive and sticky quadrant of the underworld, and even the ones that were torture to play (Messiah) kept you engaged with solid dialogue and voice acting, inventive new ways to kill stuff and backpacks full of snot." ------< 10 Video Games That Should Be Considered Modern Art>
There are many games that I can't fully analysis them for the graphic aspect.
It's great that someone mentioned the modern artists compare to :
In the late 1960s, Beksiński entered what he himself called his "fantastic period", which lasted up to the mid-1980s. is his best-known period, during which he created very disturbing images, showing a surrealistic, post-apocalyptic environment with very detailed scenes of death, decay, landscapes filled with skeletons, deformed figures and deserts. These paintings were quite detailed, painted with his trademark precision. At the time, Beksiński claimed, "I wish to paint in such a manner as if I were photographing dreams".
"Gagné has also finished his first video game, Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, a 2D side-scrolling shooter game which was released August 3, 2011 on Xbox Live Arcade as part of the XBLA Summer of Arcade promotion"--WIKI
About the context " Film noir", it reminds me of another game “LA Noire”. And I found it became a special type. From Wiki "Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywoodcrime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classical film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s." Can we call it the adventure of death? The role has a very simple cartoon style face which makes this game much more fun. I think it's the highlight of the art part. The cartoon face makes the game much more fun and the land of dead also seems dark humor. And the film noir style become a good context to show the adventure and puzzle.
About the Oddworld, of course, Odd is the main concept.
I think I need read a lot about how to design the Oddworld and then I can have my own opinion on this.
H.R Giger
From Wiki, I know how he make his works.
" Giger got his start with small ink drawings before progressing to oil paintings. For most of his career, Giger has worked predominantly in airbrush, creating monochromatic canvasses depicting surreal, nightmarishdreamscapes. However, he has now largely abandoned large airbrush works in favor of works with pastels, markers or ink.[3]"
About the Game---Portal. "What makes Portal a work of art isn't actually the world its set in; its the full and rigorous use of the gaming medium to deploy story, build tension and conjure atmosphere. " from the article 《10 Video Games That Should Be Considered Modern Art》.
About the modern artists to compare:
"This ones all about how they did it, not just what they did. To me that makes Kubrick the obvious choice, but at times Hitchcock seems equally appropriate."
I think from the visual art side, it's not easy for me to say anything about it. But I think it truly present something: cold, high-tech, puzzle. The lab element works as a maze, There is one way to play----to research the place and find way out.
"The game places players in the role of a child named Andy as he attempts to rescue his dog that has been kidnapped by creatures known as The Dark Souls.[1] The game has about half an hour of storytelling cinematic sequences, thousands of 2D animated frames, and uses pre-rendered background scenery.[1] The game is known for its infamous death scenes."---from Wiki
I think the Game has more Disney style, especially when I see the Dog and the shadow monsters and all the backgrounds.
i think the concept is about the " Terror ". And in this game, the main color tends to use the darkness and evil style. And how to show the terror? A boy fear about the darkness will be a nice setting. Because children always fear about the dark and don't like to turn of the night.
So it create a scene that the boy has to face the darkness and it has a strong feeling of nightmare style.
Talk about the Cartoon, the first artist comes to mind is Walt Disney. Nobody build a children's dream land like him. We all familiar with his cartoon animation.
Hayao Miyazaki is also one of my favorite artists who create lots of excellent animation.
About Hayao Miyazaki, I think most of his works were reflecting the Japan in his childhood. The whole country was in the mood of reconstruction after the war. He must lived at the countryside and all his work shows lots of nature scene.
Nearly all his animation are about the concept of "Grow up". This concept matched the background in that period.
Teenagers learn something in the ideal world and get back to the real world, after going through something, they grow up rapidly.
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