New York Times space game blows up ads

Pew! Pew! Online game lets you blow up New York Times ads.

/ New York Times

(CBS News) In order to make its point on hyper-addictive casual games, The New York Times embedded a game that lets players shoot and blow up ads, comments and links on their website. Brilliant!

A bold move, considering the article is a seven-page commentary on the evolution and implications of addictive casual games on our society. The article begins with the classic game Tetris and goes on to mention Angry Birds and Farmville.

The author Sam Anderson admits he was lured into the darkness of video game addiction with Drop7, a game that's a mix of Tetris and Sodoku. Anderson's search to make sense of his addiction brings him to indie game designer Zach Gage, who laments over modern-day game design.

"Today we are living, for better and worse, in a world of stupid games," Anderson writes. His journey attempts to make sense of casual game addiction and poor game design, but ultimately, isn't that just like asking why anyone likes anything?

While Anderson waxed poetic about the implications of "stupid games," we were busy shooting ads on the site. 

The game was created for the Times and based on a game called "Kick Ass." It's highly addictive, but don't take our word for it, check it out at NYTimes.com.

[venusvegasvada]

I would love to destroy General Electric "feel good" ads, trying to sidestep their not paying taxes. Or even better, the latest round of Goldman Sach's, "we aren't greedy money grubbing parasites ads". See! we financed this and that, see how great we are!

Whatever. Before this game, all you could do is just shake your head. But now you can lock-n-load!