PAIN is the much-maligned Havok-engine-driven Playstation Network (PSN) game . PAIN’s premise is simple: you throw people into an environment, and earn points for causing creative mayhem. Think JackAss with a slingshot. But can PAIN qualify as art?

Often, I see gamers turning up their nose at this game. “Pure” gamers consider the game boring, infantile, and asinine (these same gamers who hurl racial epithets at me or invite online female avatars to their virtual bedroom to “make it stink”. I kid you not.) They say “what’s the point?”

They interesting thing about this game is my girlfriend actually loves it. It’s a free-form expression of mayhem, a game that challenges you to see “what you can do next”. The game is the closest thing I can think of to gaming as art. Sure, it’s no da Vinci, perhaps not even Picasso (maybe more like Pollock), but how can you argue with a game that virtually argues back at you, challenges you: what can you do next?

My guess is that many of the gamers that complain about the game lack one component that the game encourages: creativity. While the people enjoy the game’s “what can you do next?” component, “pure gamers” desire to be lead by the hand in order accomplish their goals. Even in open world games, there are still goals to be accomplished. When a game presents no goal, just play and have fun, “pure gamers” miss the point. It’s sad that they won’t even give this game a chance.

So can games be art? I believe that Pain’s free form antics are as close to the “video games as art” argument as you are going to get. When a person is constantly vying for your attention for what you have accomplished, and you are constantly amazed, then you can’t get closer to art than this. PAIN as art, PAIN is art.

Anyways, how can you argue with a game that allows you to do THIS?

Space Shuttle Enterprise

Since school has completed, I actually have time to do more things now, like being an utter shutterbug. This weekend, we headed to the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center to take a few photos. My favorite subjects at the Center were the Boeing 707 prototype (I used to work on the airframe), the SR-71, the Space Shuttle Enterprise and the Close Encounters of the Third Kind Mother Ship model. I’ll have to admit, the pictures have a lot of noise in them because of the lighting conditions, so it’s a good idea to get there during daylight hours for the best light. However, the dim lighting did make for some great-looking shots around both the SR-71 and the Enterprise. You can find links to my pictures here.

Santa and Rudolph, alternate

Here’s an alternate picture of my previous post.

Merry Christmas everyone! See you next year!

Santa and Reindeer

Happy Holidays everyone! Just got done wrapping a set of gifts for my various nieces and nephews. Thought I’d pass the holiday cheer and came up with this picture.

I took my final Final today. The long, hard road to my BS is finally over. My vacation has officially begun, and this extended free time means I can concentrate more on other aspects of my life, like getting more content on my site. I should be delving back into my art (as you can see by a few of my sketches) including more pieces in color. I’m chomping at the bit right now to finally get back into Painter and Poser. But, for now, I’m going to take a little break and concentrate on relaxing. Be back in a few!