Ico

Roger Ebert, last year made a bit of a mess when he said that video games could not be art. That of course begs the question of what is art, a highly subjective debate. I know in my heart that video games can be heart because I have been emotionally moved by the best of them. Ico is one of them. It's a deceptively simple puzzle game. There is no dialogue. You are not given a back story. You simply know you are a boy in a huge haunted castle and you find a girl and you want to help her. Yet, from that simple set up a close bond forms between you and the characters. You find yourself caring about them as you try to get them to run in the right direction. That seems like art to me.