Roger Ebert has once again made a pronouncement that video games cannot ever be art. He is wrong, and his manner of defending his contentious belief is extremely irritating. Essentially, he relies on dismissing his opponent’s definitions of ‘art’, while doggedly using his very narrow criteria to label games as not-art. It’s really perplexing that he can disqualify a whole medium because of its interactivity. The ability to become immersed in a story and feel the emotions that the protagonist and the other characters are experiencing is a hallmark of art.

It is really a stupid argument at the end of it, because there can never be a cut and dry, point by point definition of ‘art’. If it moves you, if it affects you, and you want to call it art,  it is art. Why waste time bickering? Go do something that makes you feel like a part of something bigger.

I’ve been playing a bit of Splinter Cell: Conviction, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised at my level of enjoyment with it. Normally, I have very little patience for stealth games, primarily because I am terrible at them, and since the cause of my terribleness is my impatience, it’s a nice circular arrangement.

Splinter Cell has so far given me a lot of room to succeed in sneaking. In the interests of full disclosure, I should mention that I am playing on the easiest difficulty level, so that’s probably helping my success and lack of frustration. The stealth system is clearly communicated and obvious: if the screen goes black and white, you’re in a shadow and ready to commit spy shenanigans. When you see colour, you are potentially in trouble. To facilitate the onset of forgiving, cloaking darkness, I endeavor to shoot out every light that I can. even in rooms that have no enemies and are far removed from my destination, I still crouch and methodically murder every glowing bulb I can see. At times, I’ve found myself wistfully looking at the full moon, wishing I could shoot it out too. It’s relieving to have some control over my stealth environment.

I have to also commend the cover system.  You can clearly see which location you will scoot to next when you hit the cover button, and you can weigh your options well ahead of time. In other games I’ve found myself stuck on the wrong wall as someone shoots my sensitive bits, so I give up on cover pretty quickly. Not so this time.

I know that the level I am about to play is the type I really dislike. If you are seen, you lose the level immediately, and I am far too sloppy to get through this one the first go. Especially if they ban me from indulging in my anti-light fetishism.