An overview of greatness

There’s one year every generation when everything comes together. Sometimes it’s near the beginning, when developers stop taking their first faltering steps with the new technology and really get a feel for how to get the best out of it. Sometimes it’s later on, when after a few years of doing comfortably well with the hardware some experienced designers learn some new tricks and give everything an unexpected new lease of life (One word: SNES).

There was an overwhelming feeling in the second half of 2007 that this was one of those special years. More than just a year when a lot of good games came out, it was a year when new ideas and new approaches started firing on all cylinders. It was a year when innovations became much-loved conventions. It was a year when brillantly fresh game design startled long-time gamers and caught the attention of a lot of new ones. Summed up, it was the year that next gen became current gen, and boy is living in the future fun!

The Wii has made gaming acceptably mainstream. The Xbox 360 has become required hardware and Gamertags are rivalling MySpace addresses as a form of identification. The PS3 has had a shakey start but has still produced some solid gold and set itself up for a good 2008 in the process. And the PC has shown us just why it's such an evergreen format with a collection of some of the most inventive, innovative, and technically impressive games we've seen in years.

The games industry has now overtaken Hollywood in terms of profits and looks set to catch up with the music industry in a few years. The biggest game releases have been capturing the attention of the mainstream press in the same way that movies do, and the UK's prestigious BAFTA film and TV awards gave them their own ceremony this year. This is the year that videogames truly arrived, and that's made all the better for the fact that we brought so many fantastic titles with us as a statement of intent.