Watch this: the influence of cinema and technology on 22 years of video game titles

Art of the Title’s latest video takes a walk through 22 years of video game title screens, showing sea changes in game design in the process. Some of these changes came about as a result of loftier storytelling ambitions: Full Throttle uses lingering character shots to indicate its narrative intentions. Some of them came about as a result of advancing technological capability: Metal Gear Solid and Half-Life were able to produce the cinematic game openings their creators desired thanks to the power of the PlayStation and PC respectively.

This filmic focus was the topic of a talk given by Art of the Title’s editor and managing editor at the Gamercamp Conference last week. The presentation — called “Talking Titles: How the Language of Cinema Changed Video Games” — also used the site’s 2011 video, A Brief History of Title Design, to put video game titles in context of other media: to show where they converged with film and TV, and where, in recent years, they broke away to demonstrate their unique interactivity.