The Gaming Club sounds off on the year in video games

Hope you like words, because there are plenty of them to be found in Slate's first annual Gaming Club piece. The newly inaugurated feature focuses on a once-around discussion of the year in games with some of game journalism's powerhouse personalities: Newsweek's N'Gai Croal, MTV's Stephen Totilo, the New York Times' Seth Schiesel, and Slate's Chris Suellentrop.

A light read this is not. Suellentrop, Totilo, Schiesel and Croal trudge deep into a spoiler-laden discussion of what 2007 will mean in the great big book of video game history. Triple-A titles like Bioshock, Halo 3, and Super Mario Galaxy are both praised and heavily critiqued, while smaller titles like Desktop Tower Defense and Everyday Shooter are discussed as having been more emblematic of 2007 than we realize.

Overall, the piece is a poignant look at the year behind us, and much more than simply a "game of the year" discussion. Further updates to the feature are forthcoming, with a total of eight letters between the four journalists arriving by Wednesday. Definitely worth the read.

Reader Comments (9)

Thats my favorite design in DTD =) the mutant 4 defense!

What scrub is playing on easy?

That's not Easy, there are two lines of creeps... but only six tower types? What gives? Earlier version?

Strangely, this is the first time I've really seen this Desktop Tower Defense. And I have to say, it's pretty addictive.

But damn, this year in games is a pretty big one. With the PS3 seeing poor sales and strife, the Wii is still nigh impossible to get a hold of, and the 360 is seeing rather good sales and lot's a great games.

All the big titles like Bioshock, Mass Effect, Halo 3, Super Mario Galaxy, Drake's Fortune, Ratchet & Clank, Orange Box with Portals being a HUGE SUCCESS! and internet phenomenon causing many memes to made.

Hardware revisions to the PSP, the DS Lite still printing money as always means the portable gaming market is still going strong.

Needless to say, this year has been a killer on the wallet, but a much enjoyable one for the gamers out there. Praise '07 and it's delights! May 2008 hold as many fortunes for us as this one has!

Jonathan Blow is an asshole.

I agree with the second guy. I don't buy into the "games as art" crap being spewn around nowadays.

Sure games can be art, but to reach that you have to sacrifice fun, and once you do that, you're losing the whole point of a game.

That's totally not the point.

I think you're misinterpreting 'art.' Games are an art form, and thus all games are art. Some games are better than other games (better art).

However, these more 'artistic' games aren't what people think they'd be. If you say art people think Okami, simply associating the word art with paint. It's dumb.

Games are an art on their own, they don't need to be judged like paintings. Most gamers know what good games are. That is to say, good games get more popular easily. This is different from a lot of paintings and movies in that, sucky movies get popular, and people still don't understand good art.

My point is, to judge a game as good art, gameplay has to be factored in, and not just story and presentation, because it's NOT a movie, it's a game, and we all know how to judge games already. We just get lost when people throw in the word 'art.'

Desktop TD 1.2 right there. Good times. Don't spend too much time with it at work kiddies.

http://www.handdrawngames.com/DesktopTD/game.asp

You can play the 1.5, 1.2, and 1.0 versions. I'm going back to my juggle setup now.

Desktop Tower Defense would be so much better if it wasn't a flash game, if it had smaller units or a larger area, thus giving us higher resolution area to play. That is really my only problem with the game, the big pieces. The same would apply to some older games. Imagine Sonic 3 zoomed out 2x, played on a higher resolution monitor or tv, widescreen. Or Diablo II for that matter. You could zoom out if you used 800x600 instead of 640x480, but that was the limit if I remember correctly. It was okay for those two games because the systems andor the engines couldn't handle it back then but the creators of DTD can really come up with a bigger and better retailworthy game. Of course, I can't complain if it's free. Or can I?

The Gaming Club sounds off on the year in video games

Reader Comments (9)

Posted: Dec 11th 2007 8:21AM Ghen said

Posted: Dec 11th 2007 9:25AM Shignami said

Posted: Dec 11th 2007 11:54AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 11th 2007 9:32AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 11th 2007 11:17AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 11th 2007 11:17AM mr nimblewick said

Posted: Dec 12th 2007 7:06AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 11th 2007 12:19PM tsoulx said

Posted: Dec 12th 2007 7:10AM (Unverified) said

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