The first are paintings, perhaps, or choose-your-own-adventure stories. Transistor presents a vision and allows you to interact with it – encourages you to do so, even, not by hiding gameplay-enhancing trinkets away but by making the world a joy to explore. Art games, such as they are, present a vision to the player and say to take it or leave it. There are very few cut-scenes and, to the best of my recollection, none last longer than five minutes. The world-building that brings Cloudbank and its inhabitants to life is what sets this apart from your average “art game” as Transistor doesn’t need to divorce itself from its existence as a game to make an aesthetic impact. Three hours isn’t much, but during that time you’ll learn more about Red, the Transistor and the world they exist in than you would in sixty hours in a lesser game. There’s a New Game + option with a few interesting changes that makes for a nice bonus but that’s about it.įraming the game like this does Transistor a disservice. You accompany Red for roughly three hours of action-RPG gameplay and then it’s over. She wields a talking sword-like weapon against an otherworldly force called the Process that seeks to consume the city and everyone in it. I think that gaming may one day mature as a medium when we stop seeking that sort of validation.īack to Transistor: it’s the story of a newly-mute singer named Red who lives in the futuristic city of Cloudbank. If games are art, well, they can’t also be toys, right? So all that time we’ve spent playing games wasn’t wasted playing with toys, then it was art appreciation. The debate smacks of a desperate appeal for approval. It came as kind of a surprise, then, when I played Transistor, the latest from Supergiant Games (Bastion) and it made me question the possible existence of a video game I’d consider art.ĭespite how much I enjoyed my time with Transistor, I’m not sure it really convinced me…but that’s probably because the question itself is moot in my mind. To me, this has always seemed like an excuse to make first-person shooters with no guns or to omit gameplay entirely. I’ve never really been on board with the ‘Games as Art’ debate.
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