Epic storylines, deep characters and gripping action or another Damian Hirst? No-brainer.

I feel kinda bad for having this badly-scrawled Paint picture-pun done on the Angel of the North as I do actually quite like Antony Gormley, but it was easier than getting it on Tracy Emin's Bed at least.

It's probably about bloody time more people gave games a defence in the art world, don't you think? I'm hardly saying that we should have a 7 foot statue of Lara Croft on the fourth plinth of Trafalgar Square, but I think by now we've got to start not only reconsidering what is art, but what our apparent art is even saying any more. 

Let's be frank; modern art is shite. I'm not the stereotypical ignorant teenager who thinks anything deeper than a shot glass is stupid, but in all honesty, is anything we actually put on at the Tate Modern any more holding any meaning? Art is meant to be a visual or physical representation of the mind of the artist. It's meant to convey emotion and make a connection with the viewer. You have to wonder when that went out the window now that you go to London to see blocks of hot wax pushed through doorframes, or dissected cows, or just big metal bars in a big room. All it's suggesting is that artists are nothing more than mentally unstable. Doesn't help that the art scene has been eaten up, spat out, eaten again, and shat out by apocalypti-prick Damian Hirst who sees art as nothing more than another way to roll in enough money for another line of coke, and can only get stupid unnecessary attention by making stupid unnecessary 'art' pieces, such as the diamond-encrusted skull which, ironically enough, replicates the skull from the abysmal 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand. 

... but games don't? On the contrary, anyone who plays a lot of games could tell you they certainly do, especially in this day and age. For me, as I bring up time and again, it's Fallout 3 and the Max Payne games, but fans of Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid and Legend of Zelda games (anc only a few examples amongst many) could tell you that a huge deal of games connect with player, in some ways, far more than films do with the viewer or art does to the (as it has come to be) ticket buyer. Sure, games which are either very non-fictional or plain dumbed down like FIFA and Call of Duty do not and are not meant to, but the potential in the array of developer companies to create incredible, immersing stories and gameplay is mindblowing. Yet not art, so said by the critics and the elite. A disgrace? Probably. Add it to the list...