The Art of Video Games: From Pac-Man to Mass Effect

*After Washington D.C., the exhibition travels to several cities across the United States, including Boca Raton (Museum of Art), Seattle (EMP Museum), Yonkers, NY (Hudson River Museum) and Flint, MI (Flint Institute of Arts). Over 100 composite images, created by Patrick O’Rourke, and drawn directly from the games themselves, illustrate the evolution of video games as an artistic medium, both technologically and creatively. Criteria included visual effects, creative use of technologies, and how world events and popular culture manifested in the games. As a testament to the cultural impact of the game industry’s mega morph, the Smithsonian American Art Museum,

The friendship grew as careers diverged bringing O’Rourke to Los Angeles to produce photo shoots for Smashbox Studios. Now a freelance graphic designer, photographer, and video editor, O’Rourke continues his gaming ways and likes to deliver angry lectures on game strategy to pets and friends, both real and imagined, while maintaining his status

When next your parents ask why you play video games, just give them a copy of this book and I’m sure they’ll apologize for ever questioning your love for this truly special and important medium. ­– Kaitlin Tremblay, MediumDifficulty, 3/27/12. I highly recommend it to any gamer or fan of games. Slick and gorgeous, the book offers an important permanent, widely distributable, inexpensive complement to the exhibition. You cant’ go wrong with this book. In Chris Melissinos and Patrick O’Rourke’s book The Art of Video Games: From Pac-Man to Mass Effect — the accompanying book to the Smithsonian exhibit of the same name on display starting in March 2012 – the authors offer a compelling read, intriguing to both the gaming nerd and pretentious art student in me, that reads like a warm meet-and-greet

The Evolution of Video Games into Art This is an excellent book, and a delightful visual guide to the progress of video game art through the last The Evolution of Video Games into Art Rocco Dean This is an excellent book, and a delightful visual guide to the progress of video game art through the last 40 or so years. It is written with passion and visually engaging. It's also very informative and includes interviews with many early video game programmers. It makes for a great coffee table book, and if you are someone who is amazed at the evolution of video game art like I am, this is a great addition to yor library.Overall I love it, but here are some things I was slightly disappointed with.• The book deals with home consoles only. It only refer. 0 or so years. It is written with passion and visually engaging. It's also very informative and includes interviews with many early video game programmers. It makes for a great coffee table book, and if you are someone who is amazed at the evolution of video game art like I am, this is a great addition to yor library.Overall I love it, but here are some things I was slightly disappointed with.• The book deals with home consoles only. It only refer. "Another history book" according to Nitwit. I thought the title was a bit misleading, as others have mentioned. I felt the book didn't directly discuss the topic of the art of video games, but is more of another history of video games. While there is some passing mention here and there about how this or that game was pushing the technological boundaries of the visual medium at the time, I feel like the book could have stood out from the rest or the history books by actually focusing on the design ethic or ethos behind the visual and aural aspects of creating a video game, or telling a story with a vide. "What an experience-- and book!" according to AJF. I was pissed. Got my copy. About half-way through, I had a bunch of missing pages. Amazon was no help, but I found one of the authors (Chris) on Twitter, and he got me through. Amazon sent a fresh and complete book.The book is beautiful. It is an art book. Your friends will like it. It covers console video games, but no arcade games. Although the copy deals with arcade stuff too. It's a perfect book to read and display in your game room. Fun to flip through after you read from cover-to-cover. Highly recommended for a gaming library.