Roger Ebert kicks Clive Barker's dull ass to the curb

Hellraiser/Nightbreed/Lord of Illusions director Barker recently had some things to say about my fave Ebert writing that video games cannot be art. Ebert quotes and answers them in a commentary posted this past weekend.

He begins:

A year or so ago, I rashly wrote that video games could not be art. That inspired a firestorm among gamers, who wrote me countless messages explaining why I was wrong, and urging me to play their favorite games. Of course, I was asking for it. Anything can be art. Even a can of Campbell's soup. What I should have said is that games could not be high art, as I understand it.

There's some talk later in the commentary about the subject of being prejudiced (not against race, just prejudiced), so let me state mine definitively: Ebert is very clearheaded on this subject, and Barker is either unintelligent, or more likely simply acting so because he's got a game to sell.

That's a link to "First Impression" review of Clive Barker's Jericho. Excerpts:

It's a game that basically consists of squad-based apocaplyptica, complete with generous gobs of viscera splattering the camera, plenty of wisecracking banter between squad-mates, a mysterious and baroque sense of gloom and plenty of glistening gun metal and fancy lighting effects penetrating the murky shadows for good measure.

All of the conventional squad members are there: the deadly female; the gruff captain; the big bloke with big guns [and] a supernaturally fat renowned pervert.

Art.