The Art of the Virtual

摘要

Steven spielberg spoke out on video games last month at the EA Game Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California. "I think the real indicator," he said, "will be when somebody confesses that they cried at Level 17." Spielberg was talking about video games and art, and the increasingly less absurd question of are-they-or-aren't-they. The mere fact that U.S.C. has a Game Innovation Lab is probably an indicator that something is afoot, but I'm here to accept Spielberg's challenge and come clean. A video game made me cry. The game is called Halo, and it wasn't actually Level 17; it was Level 5. I had been slugging it out for what seemed like—and probably was—hours with a bunch of aliens in an icy canyon. Just as all hope was fading, I seized an alien aircraft and made my escape. I sailed up into the darkening sky with light snow sifting down around me. Moody music, like something from Carolina Burana, swelled in the background. The sounds of battle faded beneath me in the dusk. It was like the end of Platoon, and I was Charlie Sheen. Then the waterworks started.