GameSpasm

Artist Roger Ibars wired one hundred different game controllers -- from the familiar to the obscure -- to travel alarm clocks, creating a series of wonderfully impractical devices. While we can't buy our own (it used to be possible to buy a similar device, but they're hard to find now), we can all enjoy the beautiful photographs Ibars took. It's a collection not only of his art, but of the collected works of game and peripheral companies over 30 years.

Ibars granted Joystiq (the natural home for art about joysticks) permission to share a selection of high-resolution images with you, which you can find in our gallery below. It's going to be really sad if Kinect makes controllers obsolete, because future galleries will just include blank spaces with tiny alarm clocks in the background.

Artist turns 100 classic controllers into alarm clocks originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 15 Jul 2010 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments Tags: Art, Controllers, HWD-Corporation, joysticks, Retro, Roger-Ibars

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Just because we're video game fans here at Joystiq doesn't mean we appreciate the more classical forms of art -- as long as they're related to video games, that is. Like this series of shows at the Brick Theater in Brooklyn, NY, for example. It's a whole month of some quality live drama, all driven and influenced by video games.

There's Grand Theft Ovid, which tells some of the Roman poet's tales using everyone's favorite carjack simulator (along with a few other popular games). Modal Kombat features a set of guitar controllers that are used to play non-music games. The best, though, might be the Theater of the Arcade, which takes old games like Duck Hunt and Donkey Kong and presents them, re-imagined, as short theatrical vignettes. O Mario, Mario, wherefore art thou?

The shows are going on at the Brick through the rest of July. Performances are just $15, plus there's also a Rock Band Karaoke night and a few other game-related events sprinkled throughout the run. If your significant other is complaining that you're spending too many nights in front of the TV and not enough out enjoying the arts, this seems like a perfect compromise.

[Thanks, Edward!]

Brooklyn theater putting on plays inspired by video games originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 14 Jul 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments Tags: Art, brick-theater, brooklyn, Donkey Kong, Duck Hunt, grand-theft-ovid, literary, Literature, modal-kombat, theater, theater-of-the-arcade, video-games

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Though a game simply titled Coma likely doesn't sound like the most engaging ludological venture, you must take a few minutes to check out Thomas Brush's beautiful little browser-based platformer. It's short and sweet, featuring hand-drawn graphics, a lovely soundtrack and a plotline that's absolutely pregnant with artistic ambiguity.

Though that last sentence was also pregnant with pretentiousness, Coma is not. It's just a pretty, simple game, and it's free to play on Newgrounds right now. If you've got a half-hour to kill, we strongly advise you go check it out.

Coma: A playable essay on things that are pretty originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 12 Jul 2010 23:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments Tags: Art, Browser-based, coma, newgrounds, PC, thomas-brush

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We're hard-pressed to call a book full of concept art for Alien Breed: Impact created by clearly talented artists "kinda nasty," but, well, part of it features images of gross bugs and stuff. More to the point: gross alien bug things.

If you're into this kinda thing, we've dropped the whole set of images into the gallery below.

Alien Breed: Impact art book is kinda nasty originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments Tags: alien-breed, alien-breed-impact, Art, concept-art, microsoft, PC, Playstation, PS3, team-17, Xbox

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When Art Director Jonathan Jacques-Belletête sat down to design the overarching look of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, he had two big criteria for his designs to meet. First, he wanted to choose "illustration over simulation" -- rather than creating something exactly real, he wanted to make a game that had a definite style. And second, he adhered to the theory that "design distinction creates desire" -- if a game (he used Bioshock and Team Fortress 2 as examples) has a distinct art style, it will already start to stand out in players' imaginations.

And so, from all of the various genres and settings for the third Deus Ex game, Belletête and the team landed on the phrase "Cyber Renaissance" to describe the look they chose. In a pre-E3 presentation this week, Belletête talked about "Cyber Renaissance," and how it defined the art and architecture of Square Enix's Deus Ex title.

Continue reading Exploring a 'Cyber Renaissance' in Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Exploring a 'Cyber Renaissance' in Deus Ex: Human Revolution originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 18 May 2010 04:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments Tags: anatomy, Art, art-director, cyber-renaissance, cyberpunk, deus-ex, deus-ex-3, deus-ex-human-revolution, e3-2010, Eidos, eidos-montreal, Fashion, Jonathan Jacques-Belletete, props, square-enix

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You may not have been too disappointed that Fable 2 wasn't full of animals (filthy, stinking animals), but Lionhead's Lead Artist John McCormack was, and he tells Beauty of Games that he's making up for it with the next game. "The lack of animals in the Fable franchise is always something that has bothered me," he says, and so in Fable 3, "we've built bats, crows, rabbits, ducks, robins, vultures, lizards, rats, butterflies, moths, insect swarms, dogs, fireflies, geese and we even started on a cow."

Rest assured that animals won't be the only new part of the experience, though -- McCormack also says his team is hard at work on incorporating the new Industrial aesthetic into the game's buildings, morphed weapons and NPCs as well. He says he's not sure whether all of those animals will eventually make it into the finished product, but obviously we hope so -- vultures need to be Touched, too.

Fable 3 art team working on a menagerie of animals originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 10 May 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments Tags: animals, Art, beauty-of-games, concept-art, fable, fable-3, industrial, john-mccormack, lead-artist, Lionhead, microsoft, microsoft game studios, Touch

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To some, their home is their castle. Now it can be a dragon's lair. LTL Prints - the Philadelphia company that introduced an eye-popping lineup of Jet Set Radio Future wall graphics back in December 2009 - is unveiling its latest cling-on art today, based on the classic 1983 arcade game Dragon's Lair by animator Don Bluth and designer Rick Dyer.

The graphics have been taken straight from the legendary laserdisc-based game, cleaned up and include the bumbling-yet-heroic Dirk the Daring, the hapless Princess Daphne and her captor, Singe the dragon. LTL Prints is offering the graphics starting at $14.95 for versions sized to fit laptop lids, all the way up to more expensive, 7-foot-tall prints. The look absolutely amazing -- we're just sad we can't order a 1:1 scales version of Singe. Then again, we'd need a really tall wall ...

Dragon's Lair wall graphics demand to be put up, up, up originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 23 Apr 2010 20:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments Tags: Art, cinematronics, decor, don-bluth, Dragon's Lair, laserdisc, rick-dyer, wall-art, wall-graphics

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Paris recently added La Musée du Jeu Vidéo (The Museum of Video Game) to its long list of museums housing world famous works of art. For €10 ($13.38), Parisians and visitors to the city can explore the history of games on the roof of La Grande Arche de la Defense -- that's only €0.50 more than the price of admission to Le Louvre (€10)!

Since the museum opened on April 14, a few of its first visitors have documented their experience. French newspaper 20 Minutes has a smattering of images and YouTube user "bsyphillis" shot a couple videos of the museum's console displays (embedded after the break), both enticing us to skip out on this whole "Joystiq thing" and hop a plane to France this evening. Even if you're not so into video games (wait, why are you reading this site?), La Grande Arche offers some fairly impressive views of the city, making it significant other/family-friendly. If you visit, feel free to buy us a totally sweet t-shirt.

Source 1 - 20 Minutes
Source 2 - YouTube

[Via GoNintendo]

Continue reading Paris has a new video game museum

Paris has a new video game museum originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 22 Apr 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments Tags: Art, game-museum, la-grande-arche-de-la-defense, la-musee-du-jeu-video, le-louvre, museum

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In the "Games as art" debate that seems to never end, the number one opponent of our industry's medium of choice being considered art (at least "high art") has been renowned film critic Roger Ebert. Since he made his initial declaratory statements about video games many years ago, folks have piped up on both sides of the argument. Ebert's latest volley in the long-running discussion is a piece published on the Chicago Sun-Times website in response to thatgamecompany prez Kellee Santiago's TED talk at USC last summer.

While he allows Santiago many pleasantries and compliments throughout the piece, he argues that, regardless of her various points, games "can never be art." At the very least, he says, "No video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form." He contests that games consist of "rules, points, objectives, and an outcome," which stands in contrast to his somewhat ambiguous definition of what, exactly, art is. In a moment of seeming clarity at the end of his piece, he asks: "Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art? Bobby Fischer, Michael Jordan and Dick Butkus never said they thought their games were an art form." And while we might not agree with all of Mr. Ebert's points, we can certainly find common ground with his wondering why the debate over games as art is still such a topic of concern among gamers (ourselves included).

[Thanks, Salvatore]

Roger Ebert's latest column posits 'games can never be art' originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 17 Apr 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments Tags: Art, games-as-art, Kellee Santiago, roger-ebert, rogerebert, ted, thatgamecompany

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While some special edition artbooks could be politely identified as "pamphlets," Naughty Dog has taken a different approach with its illustration-filled tome based on Uncharted 2. The studio (with help from Ballistic Publishing) is releasing a 272-page book featuring the game's "concept art ... character studies, environment art, character modeling, game art, cinematics, motion-capture, animation, and effects." However, all these half-tucked works of art exact a fairly high price from those who wish to acquire them.

There are three versions of the art book: a softcover print which costs $59.99, a leather-bound "special edition" which costs $129.99, and a $300 Limited Folio Edition, which is bound in suede leather, embossed in gold, placed within another suede leather-bound presentation case, and includes a certificate of authenticity signed by the game's designers. Only 200 ostentatiously rich Nate Drake enthusiasts will get their hands on this limited print, so interested parties should hop off their money-chairs and pre-order now.

[Via Press The Buttons]

Enormous Uncharted 2 artbook is a costly relic originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 16 Apr 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments Tags: Art, art-book, naughty-dog, Sony, sony computer entertainment, uncharted, Uncharted 2: among thieves, uncharted-2

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