Category:Mark Hadley

Hark Hadley's Parsec Man 3D

I’m always impressed when an artist takes some kind of a stance with his work — be it technical or political or social or personal. Well, let me buffer that. I’m impressed when an artist has something to say, and choses to use his chosen medium to explore that idea rather than just get caught up in the trappings of the medium for its own sake. If you give me, for instance, a really excellent, polished shooter that plays like a remix of four other games I’ve already played, then okay — that’s some decent craft there, but to what end? It’s not saying anything. Then if you give me something simple and awkward, that tries its hardest to translate something unrelated into the language of the medium — say, the artist’s obsession with physics or an overactive curiosity about the man who sells hot dogs down the street, then I feel like I may get something out of the work. Maybe not a whole new perspective on life, but maybe a few angles I hadn’t noticed before.

I don’t mean to big up Mark Hadley’s games too much, but I find it curious that his games try to have a sort of a point to them beyond simply being another videogame. Given the limitations of the software, whether they succeed is almost beyond the point. The effort is what counts.