Benoit Sokal

In general, video games are extensions of a mediascape that glorifies and sensationalizes violence. It’s not surprising that adventure games have gotten lost in the shuffle amongst wars and headshots in our news media and our video games. Point-and-click games are a dying breed compared to 1st and 3rd person shooters and their market continues to decrease. Should we really be surprised that games requiring some amount of thinking are being replaced by mindlessness and completely passive experiences?

It was the distaste for these topics that lead me to the work of game developer (although he’s described himself primarily as a “story teller”) Benoit Sokal.

Sokal takes us beyond the long-clichéd World War 2 battlefield or terrorist detention center and gives us something more. Whether in quaint village toy factory full of automatons, or the vast Siberian tundra, or a fictional African country or in an abandoned Art Deco hotel, Sokal’s environments are striking in their beauty, variation and scope.

Instead of scantily glad women like Lara Croft, Sokal’s heroines are first and foremost intelligent women with strong personalities. This is far from the norm in video games as well, and that’s what makes it so refreshing.

His creations are far more than video games. Aside from challenging puzzles and casts of memorable characters, they are works of art. In 2001’s Syberia, Sokal created an entire world full of beauty and mystery along with highly developed story lines. Can a video game be art? “As far as it creates emotion, it is 'art,’” according to Sokal.

Here is an example of that art that is already eight years old.