Like some people hee mentioned, when a game is considered art, its not the screenshots that is the art but the game itself.

Great graphics alone don't tend to make me think "art" when I play a game. The fact a game has great artwork doesn't make me feel like calling a game a piece of art. Game has to strike some kind of emotional chord. I haven't played Journey, but even just watching the videos, that game stirs something in me for some reason, even with no dialogue/typical action.

....for me personally, I think the music score (and to lesser degree, the sound effects) in a game has the most effect. I could play Stronghold or Majesty all day because of the music. Games with older style top-down graphics (which were nice for the time, actually)...nothing like all the fancy "realistic" 3D of today...but because of the music, I felt emotion during battles, feel oddly attached to my duplicated units and peasants, blah blah. If I listen to those scores, I relive game moments. Or something.

I agree wholeheartedly. I miss when Final Fantasy was less about pretty graphics, and more about memorable stories and emotionally gripping music.

After you posted this, I fell in love with that site. Such beautiful, beautiful pieces of art. Makes me wish I had the talent and the brain to think up and create worlds as wonderful as those.

I'm sure you've had a crazy dream where something absolutely insane happened. You can thank your brain for rendering such things!

I dream in 640x480.

As far as the look of the game, and which ones have stood out to me, I'd say the Uncharted series, Bulletstorm, Mass Effect (especially 3), Skyrim, and Rage all have had some amazing panoramic backgrounds.

For visual style, Mirror's Edge comes to mind, as does Alan Wake.

I haven't played a lot outside the RPG genre but best artistic game for me so far is The Witcher 1. I loved the loading screens. Some of the environments were so detailed that you could almost feel or smell things. Skyrim is probably my 2nd favorite for the art quality.

I hate the trend toward cel shading and stylization. Yuck.

To me it seems obvious that games like these are art- a dynamic, interactive form.

Did you set a new years resolution?

Ba dum tss

Nice collection.