Is it even possible to have a Citizen Kane of gaming?

[PucePikmin]

Yeah, I think you're more or less right. Perhaps there will come a time when graphics achieve a more-or-less photorealistic standard, when the constant upgrading of technology won't really be necessary anymore, at which point maybe the Citizen Kane of gaming can happen. But until then, even something like The Last of Us, which is maybe the closest thing to qualifying for the Citizen Kane of gaming, is starting to look and feel pretty dated.

I mean, a thing to consider -- this is still a very young art form. Essentially it's about 40 years old. Movies were invented in the 1880s and Citizen Kane wasn't made until 1941, so games aren't necessarily even that far behind the curve. If they follow the same trajectory, maybe our first true masterpiece will arrive sometime around 2040.

 

[RedSwirl]

Seriously, if it ever had a chance of happening it was probably somewhere during the transition to 3D on home consoles. Probably somewhere in the nexus between Mario 64, Ocarina, and Half-Life. But almost everywhere you look during the early-to-mid 90s you see pieces of modern 3D gaming being built, with no single work upending the table and setting standards like Kane did for cinema. Ultima Underworld in 1992 alone established so much of what we see in first person games today.

 

[Nickerbocker98]

I think we need to boil down specifically why Citizen Kane is highly regarded. While the film itself isn't bad by any definition, it is more influential for how it told its narrative and its cinematography, both of which were very innovative for its time.

In that sense, games like Deus Ex, Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64, or the first Halo could easily be regarded for being "Citizen Kanes of gaming" because of how ground-breaking and innovative they were for video games as a whole.

I think people get too caught up in other areas like scripts and narratives to realize that gaming as medium more than just that.

 

[Xwing]

...even something like The Last of Us, which is maybe the closest thing to qualifying for the Citizen Kane of gaming...

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[BossAttack]

Not really! It's incredibly overblown.
You know what else is? 2001: A Space Odyssey.

You know what else? I like 2001, but I recognize how goddamned slow and boring it can be. But I also enjoy it for what it is in all of its narrative structure, camerawork and overall craft. At least it's better than Kane, in that regard, IMO.

There are a ton of movies that people love or think are fantastic crafts of work that are just outright boring or a chore to watch. There are a ton of games the same way.

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I don't even know how to respond to this.

 

[zeitgeist]

No but I really enjoy getting in some deep eyerolls every time I see someone claim that there is one.

 

[Cheesebu]

The closest we have is Super Mario 64.

 

[Aurica]

What's the Citizen Kane of painting? What's the Citizen Kane of poetry? What's the Citizen Kane of music? See how silly this idea is?

 

[Deleted member 42484]

Not really, no. Because gaming isn't film. You can't have a "Citizen Kane of gaming" any more than you can have a "Super Mario 64 of film".

It's an apples to oranges comparison, and the faster we start avoiding directly comparing film to games, the better.

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Toy Story was the Super Mario 64 of film.
Metroid Prime is the Citizen Kane.

 

[jonjonaug]

If "Citizen Kane of X" means "thing in a medium that came out significantly after the start of said medium and either pioneered or refined just about everything in it, which has influenced everything after", then that would be Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time taken together.

 

[EvilBoris]

Insomniac should make a licensed Citizen Kane game

 

[Good4Squat]

What is the Thor: The Dark World of gaming?

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Knack 2

 

[Cheesebu]

Insomniac should make a licensed Citizen Kane game

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'Citizen Kane, a Telltale joint'.

 

[Undeniablybiased]

The language of interactive entertainment is too broad to have something like that. No matter how different one film is from another they all convey information in essentially the same way with mostly similar techniques (of course there are exceptions).

But video games? Or more properly, interactive entertainment? They couldn't be more different from each other. So, a genre could have a "citizen Kane moment", but the industry as a whole hasn't and can't.

 

[BossAttack]

If "Citizen Kane of X" means "thing in a medium that came out significantly after the start of said medium and either pioneered or refined just about everything in it, which has influenced everything after", then that would be Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time taken together.

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Metal Gear Solid 1 came out the same year as Ocarina. The lasting impact of SM64 is the control of 3D movement, but it certainly didn't change every other aspect about game development and game design.

 

[Glio]

Video games need not and should not continue to be compared to cinema as an insecure little brother.

 

[Pearljam and Earl]

We already got it, and it's actually better than the film, because the movie version didn't even have Citizen Lynch in it.

 

[Crayon]

It's Ocarina. Straight up.

 

[Peter Ian Staker]

 

[WrenchNinja]

Time to dunk on IGN and their Metroid Prime is the Citizen Kane of gaming article from 2009

There are many eerie parallels between Metroid Prime and Citizen Kane. Both were produced under disastrous rumors and flirted with cancellation repeatedly. Kane was the work of an eclectic bunch: an unproven genius from radio, a jaded drunk of a screenwriter, an unsurpassed cinematographer, and an array of little-known actors from the theater world. Welles was given carte blanche by RKO Studios because of his successes in radio, but tales of excess and missed deadlines nearly undid the production.

Likewise, Retro Studios was a new venture with a vibrant array of developers pulled from around the games industry, with credits as diverse as Half-Life and NBA Jam. The studio formed amid great fanfare and convinced Nintendo to let them try a dramatic 3D reinvention of a core franchise. During production, three of the studio's games were canceled by Nintendo, the company president was bought out, there were a string of firings, and the game-changing decision to move from third-person to first person was made. Up until the game was finally released, gossip spread through the industry, suggesting the game would be a disaster and the ruin of a once-promising studio.

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Citizen Prime: Is Metroid Prime Our Citizen Kane? - IGN

The game industry is not waiting for its formative masterpieces to materialize from the hazy future. They're here, right now, walking among us. The future was 2002, and in many ways we have yet to surpass it. Like Citizen Kane, Metroid Prime is a landmark in both technical innovation and pure...

www.google.com

 

[Deleted member 12352]

Sure, there have been tons of games that are very technically impressive but also a boring experience to actually sit through.

 

[Soulsis]

I don't even think Citizen Kane is the Citizen Kane of movies

 

[-Tetsuo-]

no please stop with this shit

 

[Unknownlight]

I will continue to be highly skeptical that Ocarina of Time was a catalyst for game design paradigm shift and not just a really good representative of changes and innovations happening everywhere already.

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True, but everything Citizen Kane did would have been done by other filmmakers in time too. Just not as rapidly, I guess.

 

[Cheesebu]

Metal Gear Solid 1 came out the same year as Ocarina. The lasting impact of SM64 is the control of 3D movement, but it certainly didn't change every other aspect about game development and game design.

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I think all three had a huge effect on gaming. The structure and gameplay of Ocarina may seem obvious because of previous Zelda titles, but it's still the framework for a huge number of games.

MGS basically created a genre, or at least defined the 3D version of it. Maybe not one that's copied as often, but it also had an effect on budgets.

 

[Sanka]

What has been the last citizen kane in film in the last 20 years?

 

[Uzzy]

Citizen Kane revolutionised what creators could even consider creating in a visual medium. Gaming, as a visual medium (for the most part) has had to live in the shadow of that, and benefited from the 70 years of progress since.

I'd argue that there have been other revolutions in film since then, how they're created and experienced. The popularisation of the digital camera, pioneered most notably by George Lucas in Attack of the Clones of all things, ended up democratising film making in quite profound ways, and new distribution networks have changed the game too. But I digress.

Purely in a visual sense, I'd argue that only Half-Life, specifically Half-Life 2, is the Citizen Kane of gaming, in that it revolutionised what could be accomplished in terms of story telling in the first person perspective, the most unique perspective to video games. You're in the driving seat of the action at all times, but you can still have a narrative presented to you by the creators, who learnt the lessons of all the FPS games that came before, the DOOM's and Wolfenstein's and Halo's and Marathon's and led to everything from walking simulators to giant open worlds.

If you want to broaden the 'Citizen Kane of Gaming' to mechanical choices, then that spreads the net much wider. But visually, nothing changed the game like Half-Life 2.

 

[Unknownlight]

Time to dunk on IGN and their Metroid Prime is the Citizen Kane of gaming article from 2009

Citizen Prime: Is Metroid Prime Our Citizen Kane? - IGN

The game industry is not waiting for its formative masterpieces to materialize from the hazy future. They're here, right now, walking among us. The future was 2002, and in many ways we have yet to surpass it. Like Citizen Kane, Metroid Prime is a landmark in both technical innovation and pure...

www.google.com

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Man, I wish Metroid Prime was the Citizen Kane of gaming. The problem with Metroid Prime is that it's phenomenal and yet almost no other games are like it. Its biggest influence on the medium is "hide story in item descriptions rather than showing it directly", which is its least-interesting innovation to me.

 

[Starlatine]

What has been the last citizen kane in film in the last 20 years?

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C1T1Z3N K4N3 III - This Time Is Digital

 

[Uzzy]

What has been the last citizen kane in film in the last 20 years?

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Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. And no, I'm not joking. It wasn't the first film entirely filmed on digital cameras, but it was the first that everyone took notice of and opened up huge new possibilities for film, revolutionising what creators could do with film.

 

[EvilBoris]

Giants : Citizen Kabuto is the Citizen Kane of gaming

 

[gifyku]

Its Tetris.

Too often, the 'x' of 'y' questions are actually bringing in a paradigm (x) that is foreign or not representative of the genre (y) of which its being asked.

As far as electronic gaming is concerned, I would say its Tetris

 

[Qudi]

 

[N.47H.4N]

Its The Last of Us

 

[thecouncil]

Citizen Kane 64

 

[Serpens007]

Citizen Kane revolutionised what creators could even consider creating in a visual medium. Gaming, as a visual medium (for the most part) has had to live in the shadow of that, and benefited from the 70 years of progress since.

I'd argue that there have been other revolutions in film since then, how they're created and experienced. The popularisation of the digital camera, pioneered most notably by George Lucas in Attack of the Clones of all things, ended up democratising film making in quite profound ways, and new distribution networks have changed the game too. But I digress.

Purely in a visual sense, I'd argue that only Half-Life, specifically Half-Life 2, is the Citizen Kane of gaming, in that it revolutionised what could be accomplished in terms of story telling in the first person perspective, the most unique perspective to video games. You're in the driving seat of the action at all times, but you can still have a narrative presented to you by the creators, who learnt the lessons of all the FPS games that came before, the DOOM's and Wolfenstein's and Halo's and Marathon's and led to everything from walking simulators to giant open worlds.

If you want to broaden the 'Citizen Kane of Gaming' to mechanical choices, then that spreads the net much wider. But visually, nothing changed the game like Half-Life 2.

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We live in a world where some games have already changed it again, in other genres. In gaming there can't be a Citizen Kane, but multiple in different genres.

 

[Soapbox Killer]

It's Ocarina.

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Yes, it's Ocarina of Time.

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"IF" it's anything, Its Ocarina of Time!

 

[EntelechyFuff]

Surprised by all the ardent "no" in the thread.

Films and games are fundamentally different, but both have examples that pioneer techniques that become used for decades. Citizen Kane is the most recognized film for this, but it's also kind of obvious to me that the original Legend of Zelda occupies a similar space for games.

That doesn't mean no other games have had influence on a similar scale. Zelda is just the oldest example where it's DNA can still be seen in games releasing even today.

 

[ToddBonzalez]

Metal Gear Solid 2

 

[Rayman not Ray]

We can't really have a Citizen Kane of video games until a AAA developer makes a game that directly antagonizes a business tycoon, and then said person tries to prevent the game from coming out. That person would probably be Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates.

 

[werezompire]

I feel like it'd be an early NES game like SMB or Zelda 1.

 

[Dekuman]

We already have the Citizen Kane of gaming. Several genre and industry defining titles exist to take that mantle. It's just not the gritty mature cinematic game some people want so these people keep nominating the latest mature cinematic game as a potential citizen Kane of gaming.

 

[RecRoulette]

If Telltale wants to step up to the plate and make a Citizen Kane game I'd be there day 1

 

[Belthazar90]

Not really, no. Because gaming isn't film. You can't have a "Citizen Kane of gaming" any more than you can have a "Super Mario 64 of film".

It's an apples to oranges comparison, and the faster we start avoiding directly comparing film to games, the better.

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This post nails it. The gaming industry should stop trying to find validation from other mediums.

 

[Xagarath]

If we're talking about defining narrative techniques that are still being used today, it'd be something like System Shock or Ultima VII.
Games are still relying on System Shock-style audio logs and many haven't even caught up with Ultima NPC schedules.

 

[Deleted member 37928]

I've been thinking exactly the same thing, OP. If we ever were to come to a similar conslusion it would be a lot more complicated. Every gaming generation has its benchmarks that inspire many games to come, and due to the advancement of technology it's practically never-ending.

But I will say that narrative on its own has very little to do with the greatness of interactive media. If the media you're using has the power to change by the actions of the user then surely that must be the bare minimum when you're trying to label it "The Citizen Kane of gaming". That's why a game like The Last of Us will never be in this category for me personally, because it has barely anything to offer the medium in terms of interactivity. A game like Undertale on the other hand bases it's entire narrative structure on the actions of the user and it has the confidence to oppose a lot of convensions that usually restrict the medium (like the act of violence). But then there's the cultural impact which a game like Undertale largely lacks so it doesn't really fit this category in the same sense as Citizen Kane. And this is another issue with this topic; indie games are making great progress and innovation but due to being in the shadows of bigger productions they rarely get mentioned as the true hallmarks of the medium that they usually are.

 

[Tak(●´ϖ`●)]

I don't understand that reference.
I mean Citizen Kane is not even the greatest film of all time, nor the best film of Orson Welles.

 

[BossAttack]

If we're talking about defining narrative techniques that are still being used today, it'd be something like System Shock or Ultima VII.
Games are still relying on System Shock-style audio logs and many haven't even caught up with Ultima NPC schedules.

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I'd say MGS1 is the "Citizen Kane" of cinematic storytelling. Its basically one of the first games to truly bring cinematography techniques to games, hence the comments at the time that it "looked like a film." Every game that has opening credits play over gameplay or a late drop title card owes that to MGS1.

 

[BrunOz]

I don't know but who / when is "The Dark Side of The Moon" of videogames?

 

[Deleted member 2317]