Fourth Time Around

You know, it's fitting that after completing a second time around the block with the entire Half-Life 2 experience (Main Story, Episodes 1 and 2), this project is about to officially begin. Alan, my good friend and fellow gaming aficionado, and I are teaming up to make this website a reality. We both share a love for gaming, but perhaps more than that, we both take it seriously as a unique and legitimate artistic experience.

This is why the timing is appropriate. I have yet to hesitate with my affirmations that Half-Life 2 is the best-crafted video game in electronic history. Sales numbers aside, it succeeds in every way. Valve solidified their penchant for the revolutionary with the original Half-Life, leaving only enough room to be outdone by themselves. And that's just what they did. By integrating fresh in-game sequences, an unparalleled knack for storytelling, memorable characters, and airtight first-person mechanics, Valve rose to heights few developers can even dream of - a tier reserved for those who treat the digital experience as something more than just a 'game.' Never before had a game come so close to replicating that special 1:1 ratio of sight to experience. In many ways, HL2 impresses upon the player the same phenomenon experienced by moviegoers and theatre junkies: a willing suspension of disbelief. Except this time, your experience is particularly intimate because it's a universe you personally explore.

But I'm not here to preach about the glories of Half-Life 2, though I could for hours. HL2 is just an example of the types of prompts Alan and I wish to explore. The questions that are much harder to answer, perhaps impossible in fact, yet they linger well after you hit the power button. They're also a lot more fun to try and answer than, "How many stars should The Bigs 2 get on a scale of one to ten?" We're shooting for a new kind of digital journalism, closer to academia, but without the high brow bullshit that keeps us all from digging deeper towards the ultimate ponderance: Can video games be art?

It takes a nation to define a movement sometimes and that's where you come in. The only way this can work is if Alan and I aren't the only two asking the questions. We want this to be a community and we'll do everything we can to supply the tools to communicate. As we get rolling, though, chime in, leave comments, write us an email, and we'll see where a great many curious gamers can get in defining the future of digital experience.

Peter