Chefelf.com Night Life: JackSlack - Viewing Profile

In all honesty, as much as I agree that all of the games he lists are excellent titles worthy of praise and that I'm really happy to see them get their profile elevated, the whole thorny problem of 'high art' pretty much makes the list worthless to me.

What is high art? How the hell do we define it? If I want to argue that Super Mario Bros. is an exploration of joy, then why can't it be high art?

He doesn't define 'high art' in any sense. Nobody ever has. It's a useless term.

Let's just flat out argue that games are art. Some are good art, like those he's listed. Others are bad art. Critics will disagree which is which. There's no defining line between the two categories.

Different gameplay, certainly. Lest we forget, Psychonauts (while a brilliant game) was a pretty bog standard action 3D platformer at heart, too. (Jump, run, shoot, get some new powers along the way.) The soul of Psychonauts was in the brilliant level design, the surreal art direction, and the premise. EBA can't exactly have the level design, but it has the art direction and premise thing going as well.

And as for selling people on a Nintendo DS? EBA. Phoenix Wright. Trauma Center. They'd be my top three.

For my next trick, saying why you need a PSP.

...

OK, so I can't do everything. (Patapon aside.)

A sense of humor that's brilliantly twisted. Levels wherein the premise is helping a film director finish creating "Romancing Meowzilla". Being shrunk into tiny versions of yourself and being swallowed, Incredible Journey style, into an Olympic athlete to cheer on his white blood cells (represented by sexy nurses) fight back a virus (represented by supervillains) so he can win the gold medal a day later. A level in which you are sent into duty by a man looking suspiciously like Tom Selleck to assist the freaking Hilton sisters (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) survive a shipwreck by seducing the local wildlife.

The game has personality, charm and originality of concept to spare. And yes, it's a rhythm game, but the mechanics for said rhythm are intuitive and simple (tap the circles in time with the beat) with a lot of fun to be had by them.

In terms of actual gameplay innovation, I'd put Patapon ahead of it. But in terms of presentation? Elite Beat Agents was simply staggeringly well presented; humor to spare, fun visual design and tongue firmly in cheek. It's a winner in my book.

Don' t get me wrong, I know the odds are he'll never even read the post. But I felt like I had to say something.

So, here's something: If you own a Nintendo DS and don't have Elite Beat Agents? You're missing out on a truly fantastic game.