(Redirected from Computer and video game genres)
'
Video games' are categorized into
genres based on their
gameplay. Due to a general lack of commonly agreed-upon genres or criteria for the definition of genres, classification of games are not always consistent or systematic and sometimes outright arbitrary between sources. Within
game studies there is a lack of consensus in reaching accepted formal definitions for game genres, some being more popular than others. For example, some schemas are largely
semiotic, while others rely more strongly on configurative patterns of interface and mechanics.
Following is a listing of commonly used video game genres with brief descriptions and examples of each. This list is by no means complete or comprehensive. As with nearly all varieties of genre classification, the matter of any individual
video game's specific genre is open to personal interpretation.
Many of these categories overlap due to the subjective nature of many genres. For example, the ''
Legend of Zelda'' series has elements of action,
adventure and
role-playing. This overlapping is further pronounced as more games are being produced and styled as ''hybrids'', blending elements characteristic to one or more popular genres (for example, action-RPGs like ''
Diablo'', ''
Vagrant Story'', and ''). Sometimes themes can determine a genre.
Major genres
Action games
Main articles: Action game
Action games are perhaps the most basic of gaming genres, and certainly one of the broadest. Action games are characterized by gameplay with emphasis on combat. Fighting and first-person shooters both fall into this category.
Action-adventure games
Main articles: Action-adventure game
Action-adventure games focus on exploration, and usually involve item gathering, simple puzzle solving, and combat.
The first action-adventure game was the
Atari 2600 game ''
Adventure'' (1978). It was directly inspired by the original
text adventure,
Colossal Cave Adventure, but in adapting a text game to a console with only a joystick for control, designer
Warren Robinett created a new genre.
Because of their prevalence on
video game consoles (and the absence of typical adventure games), action-adventure games are often confusingly called "
adventure games" by console gamers.
First-person shooter games
Main articles: First-person shooter
First-person shooter video games, commonly known as FPSs, emphasize shooting and combat from the perspective of the character controlled by the player. This perspective is meant to give the player the feeling of "being there", and allows the player to focus on aiming. Most FPSs are very fast-paced and require quick reflexes on high difficulty levels.
The fast-paced and 3D elements required to create an effective looking FPS made the genre technologically unattainable for most consumer hardware systems until the early 1990s. ''
Wolfenstein 3D'' was the first widely known FPS, and ''
Doom'' was the first major breakthrough in graphics; it used a number of clever techniques to make the game run fast enough to play on consumer-grade machines.
Since the release of
Doom, most FPS games now have a multi-player feature to allow competition between multiple players. To ensure decent performance, it is common for the games to limit the number of players at between 8-64 players in the same game. A notable exception is
World War II Online, which was the first game to bring fast paced first-person shooter action to MMOG framework, allowing thousands of players to simultaneously play in the same world.
Third-person shooter games
Third-person shooter video games, known as TPSs or 3PSs, emphasize shooting and combat from a third-person perspective of the character the player is controlling.
Tactical shooter games
Tactical shooters are shooters that simulate combat in squads, with the player commanding
AI controlled characters like in a
strategy game.
Adventure
Main articles: Adventure game
''
Zork'', an early text adventure running on a modern emulator.
s were some of the earliest games created, beginning with ''
Colossal Cave Adventure'' in the 1970s. That game was originally titled simply "Adventure," and is the namesake of the genre. Adventure gaming is not defined in the same way as adventure movies or adventure novels, and has nothing to do with content, but rather on existing on a mode similar to ''Colossal Cave Adventure''. The interfaces have evolved over the years, but adventure games still have much in common with their early ancestors. It is considered a "purist" genre and tends to exclude anything which includes action elements beyond a
mini game.
They cast the player as the protagonist of a story, normally requiring the player to solve various puzzles by interacting with people or the environment, most often in a non-confrontational way. The earliest adventure games (like the popular
Zork series) were
text adventures or
interactive fiction. In these early adventure games, the player uses a keyboard to enter commands such as "get rope" or "go west" and the computer describes what is happening.
As graphics became more common, adventure games began to supplement and later on replace textual descriptions with visuals (for example, a picture of the current location). These graphical adventure games still used text-parsers to input commands. There is still an active community of
interactive fiction authors and players, although major commercial enterprises are rare.
The growing use of
mice led to the '
point-and-click' genre of adventure games, where the player would no longer have to type commands. The player could, for example, click on a hand
icon and then on a rope to pick up the rope. These games still commonly featured vestiges of text adventures. For example, the point and click interface was usually based on a list of verbs that could be clicked in conjunction with objects such that they still represented sentence-like commands. Also, the vast majority of these games had a
narrator who would describe the actions on-screen. Adventure games are perhaps the only genre to make frequent use of this literary device.
Because they put little pressure on the player in the form of action-based challenges or time constraints, adventure games have had the unique ability to appeal to people who do not normally play videogames. The genre peaked in popularity with the 1993 release of
Myst. The simple point and click interface, detailed worlds and casual pace made it accessible, and its sense of arty surrealism helped it escape the stigma that games are for children. It had four proper sequels, but none managed to experience the same level of success. The success of ''Myst'' also inspired many others to create similar games with first person perspectives, surreal environments and minimal or no dialogue, but these neither recaptured the success of ''Myst'' nor of earlier personality-driven adventures.
In the late 1990s the genre suffered a large drop in popularity, mass-market releases became rare, and many proclaimed the adventure game to be dead. More accurately, it has become a niche genre. Adventure games are not entirely uncommon, but they tend to be very low budget in anticipation of modest sales. However, as of 2005, the adventure game genre is showing signs of a revival, with games such as
Trace Memory,
Fahrenheit, , and
Dreamfall being produced.
Fighting
Competitive fighting games
Main articles: Fighting game
Competitive
Fighting games (also known as beat 'em ups, particularly in the UK) emphasize one-on-one
combat between two characters, one of whom may be computer controlled. These games usually are controlled by linking together long chains of button presses on the controller to use physical attacks to fight. Many of the movements employed by the characters are usually dramatic and occasionally physically impossible.
This genre first appeared in
1976 with the release of
Sega's Heavyweight Boxing and later became a phenomenon, particularly in the arcades, with the release of ''
Street Fighter II''. The genre is still popular today, although it has failed to see the extreme popularity it once did.
Combat is almost always one-on-one, though the
Super Smash Bros. Series is a notable exception, pitting up to four combatants in the fight at one time. Most battles are one-on-one, though teams can be set up in any combination.
Beat 'em up games
Main articles: Beat 'em up
Scrolling beat 'em up (or brawler) games have an emphasis on one-on-many close quarters
combat, beating large numbers of computer-controlled enemies. The fighting style is usually simpler than for versus fighting games. This genre became popular in
1987 with the release of ''
Double Dragon'', leading to a large number of similar games. Gameplay in these
side-scrolling beat 'em ups involves the player fighting through a series of increasingly difficult levels. Critics denounced this genre as being repetitive and boring.
[1][2]
In recent times, the genre has largely merged with that of action adventure, with side-scrolling levels giving way to more open three-dimensional areas, and the melee combat co-existing with shooting, puzzles and missions.
Role-playing games
Main articles: Role-playing game (video games)
Computer role-playing games (CRPGs or simply RPGs) draw their gameplay from traditional
role-playing games like
Dungeons and Dragons. Most of these games have the player acting in the role of a specific type of "adventurer" or "adventurers" who specializes in a certain set of skills (such as combat, or casting
magic spells) while moving through a linear predetermined storyline.
Since the emergence of affordable
home computers coincided with the popularity of pencil and paper role-playing games, this genre was one of the first in video games and continues to be popular today. Gameplay elements strongly associated with RPGs, such as statistical character development through the acquisition of
experience points (or EXP), have been widely adapted to other video game genres such as
action-adventure games.
Though nearly all of the early entries in the genre were
turn-based games, modern CRPGs have introduced a real-time aspect. Thus, the CRPG genre has followed the
strategy game's trend of moving from turn-based to real-time combat. The move to real time combat emerged with the release of
Square Co.'s (now
Square Enix)
Final Fantasy IV, which was the first game to use the ''Active-Time Battle'' system.
There are two different types of RPGs. The first of these involves the player creating a character and a
non-linear storyline in which the player could make his own decisions. The second type is one in which the player controls a party of pre-made characters through a
linear storyline. These styles are sometimes referred to as
Western and
Japanese Role-Playing Games respectively, although there are numerous exceptions to these descriptors.
Tactical role-playing games
Main articles: Tactical role-playing game
This sub-genre is principally used to refer to strategy-derived games as an alternative to the traditional RPG system. In such titles, the system has been tailored to incorporate gameplay from
strategy games. The genre has its origins in
tabletop role-playing games, where each player has time to decide his or her character's action. The term "tactics" was not widely used to describe such titles until ''
Final Fantasy Tactics'' was released, where it popularized the genre in North America, although games such as ''
Shining Force'' were part of the genre years beforehand.
: ''See also:
Tactical games''
Action role-playing games
Main articles: Action role-playing game
An 'action role-playing game' or 'Action RPG' is a type of
computer and
console role-playing game which incorporates elements from
action games or
action-adventure games. So-called "''
Diablo'' clones" are also part of this genre (see
History).
Although the precise definition of the genre varies, the typical action RPG features a heavy emphasis on combat, often simplifying or removing non-combat attributes and statistics and the effect they have on the character's development.
[1] Additionally, combat always takes place using a real-time system (hence the "action") that relies on the player's ability to perform particular actions with speed and accuracy to determine success, rather than mainly using the player character's attributes to determine this. However, RPGs that use this style of combat system but give equal focus to non-combat elements such as
non-player character interaction and character development (such as '') are instead referred to as
computer role-playing games.
Fighting role-playing games
Fighting RPG games combine the elements of traditional RPG elements and traditional fighting game elements into this fighting game sub-genre.
Legend of Legaia and ventured in the Fighting/RPG sub-genre with a combination of 3D fighting and traditional turn based RPG elements to create the 'Tactical Arts System'.
Samurai Showdown RPG defined the fighting/RPG style in 2D, but unlike Legaia, its system is strictly turn-based like Final Fantasy. The
Tobal series 'Quest Mode', although short, has a type of Fighting/RPG gameplay in the form of dungeons. These games are the only games to define this role-playing sub-genre.
Platform games
Main articles: Platform game
A gameplay screenshot of ''
Super Mario World'', one of the most popular platform games
s, also called ''platformers'', are games in which the gameplay involves traveling between platforms by jumping (very occasionally other means are substituted for jumping, like swinging or bouncing, but these are considered variations on the same mechanic). It is most associated with the iconic cartoon "mascots" like
Sonic the Hedgehog,
Mario and
Rayman, though platform games may have any theme.
This is one of the earlier genres of video games, and, at their peak, they were the most popular games on the market. The genre experienced a sharp decline as 3D games became more popular. Although there are many 3D platform games, few have proven to have the universal appeal of their older games. Despite this, it is still a viable genre, with popular new games, such as those of the
Mario,
Metroid, and
Mega Man series.
Traditionally, platform games were
2D, viewing the environment from a profile, 'cutaway' perspective. This could be done easily with
sprites and was simple for early computers to handle.
3D computer graphics have opened these games up for movement in all directions. However, 3D perspectives make it more difficult to judge distance, which is an important part of platformer. Because of this many 3D platformers use crutches to make this easier (for example, nearly all of them will use a player shadow that will always be cast straight down, so the player can use it to determine if he will land safely). While some 3D platformers like
Mario 64,
Tomb Raider, and
Sonic Adventure have sold millions of units, the number of successful 3D platformers have dwindled to a fraction of what they once were.
Today, 2D platformers exist primarily on handheld consoles, such as New Super Mario Brothers for the Nintendo DS, and Ultimate Ghosts & Goblins for the PSP.
Traditional elements of platform games include running, jumping, and climbing ladders and ledges. Platformers frequently borrow elements from other genres like fighting and shooting (such as in the case of
Castlevania, where they incorporate role-playing).
See also
List of platform games
Simulation games
Main articles: Simulation games
Simulator games aim to simulate an experience, such as flying an
aircraft or driving a
tank, as realistically as practically possible, taking into account
physics and other real-world limitations. Such games might include
Microsoft Flight Simulator (Flight Cockpit Simulation), or
Tanarus (Tank Cockpit Simulation)
Flight
Main articles: Flight_simulation#Flight_simulators_at_home
Combat flight simulators are the most popular subgenre of simulation. The player controls the plane, not only simulating the act of flying, but also combat situations. ''
Falcon 4.0'' and ''
IL-2 Sturmovik'' are examples of the genre.
There are also civilian flight simulators that do not have the combat aspect, ''
Microsoft Flight Simulator'' and ''
X-Plane'' being the most popular examples.
Military
There are simulation games built around different types of warfare, or covering a wide range of types. Well-known games with such simulation include ''
Abrams'' or ''
Tanarus''. Ships and submarines simulators like ''
Silent Hunter'' are among the more popular. '' is a general combat simulator, including simulation of just an infantry soldier along with tanks, aircraft and boats. Its improved version, ''
VBS1'', is used for actual military training.
Military FPS games that aim to be realistic are referred to as a ''
Tactical shooter'' because they usually require strategy and cooperation to win, compared to skill and reflexes in other less realistic games.
Space
Main articles: Space simulation
Space Combat Sims are a subgenre on border with action or strategy games. Examples include ''
the Elite series'' that founded the genre, then such games as '', '', ''
Independence War'', ''
Wing Commander'', ''
Freelancer'', '' and ''
Homeworld''. Space simulators are different from other subgenres, and are not generally considered to be simulators, as their simulated objects do not always exist and often disregard the laws of physics. However, simulators of real spacecraft do exist: ''
Orbiter'' is one example.
Train
Main articles: Train simulation
Train simulators simulate the vehicles, environments and often economics associated with railway transport. These are frequently historical in nature, reminiscing on the evolution and emergence of the railroad in various countries and the economic booms that often accompanied them. Examples of train simulators include
Microsoft Train Simulator and
Trainz.
God games
Main articles: God games
A subgenre of simulation games is
god games, Unlike other genres of games, god games often do not have a set goal that allows a player to win the game. The focus of a God game tends to be control over the lives of people, anywhere from micromanaging a family to overseeing the rise of a civilization.
★ Examples of god games include the genre-setting ''
Populous'', the more recent ''
The Sims'' (which generally simulates home-life and social interactions), an up-and-coming game
Spore,
SimAnt, and
SimEarth.
Economic simulation games
Main articles: Economic simulation game
Economic simulation games generally attempt to simulate an economy or business, the player controlling the economy of the game.
City-building games
Main articles: City-building games
In
city-building games, which is really a specialised sub-genre of
economic simulation games, the player acts as overall planner or leader to meet the needs and wants of game characters by initiating structures for food, shelter, health, spiritual care, economic growth, etc. Success is achieved when the city budget makes a growing profit and citizens experience an upgraded lifestyle in housing, health, and goods. While military development is often included, the emphasis is on economic strength.
Perhaps the most known game of this type is ''
SimCity'', which is still popular and has had great influence on later city-building games. ''SimCity'', however, also belongs to the ''God Games'' genre since it gives the player god-like abilities in manipulating the world.
Government simulation
Main articles: Government simulation game
A
Government simulation game (or "political game") involves the simulation of the policies, government or politics of a country, but typically excludes warfare. Recently, these types of games has gained the moniker "
serious game".
Sports
Main articles: Sports game
Sports games emulate the playing of traditional physical
sports. Some emphasize actually playing the sport, while others emphasize the strategy behind the sport (such as ''
Championship Manager''). Others satirize the sport for comic effect (such as ''
Arch Rivals''). One of the best selling series in this genre is the
Madden NFL series.
This genre emerged early in the history of video games (e.g., ''
Pong'') and remains popular today.
Racing
Main articles: Racing game
Racing games typically place the player in the driver's seat of a high-performance vehicle and require the player to race against other drivers or sometimes just time. This genre of games is one of the staples of the computer gaming world and many of the earliest computer games created were part of this genre. Emerging in the late 1970s, this genre is still very popular today and continues to push the envelope in terms of graphics and performance. There are two main sub-genres within racing: arcade and simulation. Arcade racers tend to have exaggerated physics, fantastical settings and course layouts, and unrealistic damage handling. Simulation racers focus more on accurate handling and performance of real-world cars, many times allowing the player to simulate partaking in real-world racing events, such as the
Indianapolis 500 or the
Dakar Rally. Simulation racers tend to allow the player to alter the performance of the vehicles, from the displacement of the engine to the gear ratios of the transmission, but this has also been applied in a more arcade-style racing game ''.
A popular subgenre of the racing game is the
kart racing game, which simplifies the vehicle handling and introduces various obstacles and other quirks to the racetrack.
Notable arcade style racing games include ''
Out Run'' and the ''
Mario Kart'' series.
Notable simulation style racing games include ''
Gran Turismo'' and ''
Forza Motorsport''.
Strategy
Main articles: Strategy game
Strategy games focus on gameplay that requires careful and skillful thinking and planning in order to achieve victory. Strategy games may be either
turn-based or
real-time, and may be considered either "strategy" or "tactical" games. Most strategy games place a specific region or army under the player's control, with factors such as commerce, construction, and management of diplomatic affairs which the player can influence. Some, such as the ''
Civilization'' series, simulate notable time periods in history. In comparison, tactical games focus entirely on combat.
Real-time strategy and turn-based strategy games
Main articles: Real-time strategy,
Turn-based strategy
There are two distinct types of strategy games. They are classified into
real-time strategy games, which are played in a real-time environment, and
turn-based strategy games, which are played in rounds or turns. Both of these distinctions, though, tend to retain the same aspects of gameplay: gathering or harvesting resources, micro-managing an economy, and producing units.
★ Examples of real-time strategy games are: ''
Age of Empires'', ''
Axis & Allies RTS'', ''
Command & Conquer'', ''
Company of Heroes'', ''
StarCraft'', ''
Total Annihilation'', ''
Warcraft'', and upcoming ''
Sins of a Solar Empire'', ''
Supreme Commander''.
★ Examples of turn-based strategy games are: the ''
Advance Wars series'', the ''
Heroes of Might and Magic series'', ''
Shattered Union'', ''
Brigandine'' and ''
Sid Meier's Civilization''.
Tactical games
Main articles: Real-time tactics,
Turn-based tactics
Tactical strategy games focus on gameplay that only requires the use of the combat forces provided to the player beforehand. There are two distinct types of tactical strategy games: real-time tactical games (RTT) and turn-based tactical games (TBT). Real-time tactical games are played in a real-time environment, while turn-based tactical games are played in short-timed rounds or turns. Tactical strategy gameplay consists of employing various tactics and strategies to achieve victory. This genre eliminates the focus of economic gameplay from strategy games.
★ Examples of real-time tactical games are: the ''
Close Combat series'', ''
Ground Control'', the ''
Total War series'', and ''.
★ Examples of turn-based tactical games are: the ''
Combat Mission series'', ''
Silent Storm'', and the ''
Steel Panthers series''.
:''See also:
Tactical role-playing games''
Strategy wargames
Main articles: Tactical wargames
Strategy wargames is a category of strategy games that defines the simulation of strategic
military operations. Wargames can either be
turn-based or real-time.
Web-based strategy games
Web-based strategy games are a variant of strategy games. Game play does not require any software to be installed on a computer because the games are played on website interfaces. Web-based games can often last for several months before the game ends. Some of these web-based games are extremely popular and hosts hundreds of thousands of players.
★ Examples of web-based strategy games are ''
Planetarion'' and ''
Ogame''.
4x strategy games
Main articles: 4x
''4x'' is a popular sub-genre of strategy games. Games defined as 4x usually involve four primary phases: eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate.
★ Examples of 4x strategy games are: ''
Master of Orion'', ''
Galactic Civilizations'', ''
Sid Meier's Civilization'', and ''
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri''.
Massively multiplayer online games
Main articles: Massively multiplayer online games
Massive-multiplayer online games ('MMO's or 'MMOG's) are a category of game that may belong to any genre. A MMOG differs from games in its parent genre in the number of players that can be playing at once. They are
virtual worlds in which potentially thousands of players may interact together over the
Internet. Most of these games are subscription-based, but recently some MMOGs have allowed for players to purchase the game one time and play online with no monthly fees.
MMORPGs emerged in the mid to late 1990s as a commercial, graphical variant of text-based
MUDs, which had existed since around
1979. The massively multiplayer concept was quickly combined with other genres. Fantasy
MMORPGs are the most popular type of MMOG; though other types of MMOG are appearing, this category still remains by far the most popular. Sci-fi
MMORPGs hold a smaller part of the MMOG Market. One of the first examples of this type of MMOG is ''
Anarchy Online''. Many other sci-fi MMORPGs have launched with the popular space sci-fi game ''
EVE Online'' being the most notable.
MMOFPSs are a category of MMOG that combines
first-person shooter gameplay with a virtual world in which a large number of players may interact over the
Internet. ''
World War II Online'' and ''
PlanetSide'' are a few notable games of this genre.
MMOHNSs are a category of MMOG that are not quite RPG but only 'Hack and Slash'. The gameplay revolves around the constant killing of computer controlled NPCs (non-player characters) and mobs (creatures in a game) to make your characters more powerful. Many games that are classified as MMORPG probably fall into this category more than they fall into the MMORPG category. The main difference between the two being the social interaction aspect. Where an RPG should have more social interaction between players and NPCs the HNS requires little or no interaction between them. This term is coming into more and more widespread usage as more and more MMOG are created that lack the full characteristics of an RPG. This is still a hotly debated area in that many game developers believe the RPG needn't focus on actual role-playing.
Other notable genres
Adult
Adult video games, like
adult movies or other media, are intended for an adult audience. There exists a wide variety of adult games, though many lack mainstream appeal and represent a niche category. The object of an adult game may differ from a mainstream video game, in that the reward can be a visual representation of nudity, partial nudity, or sexual activity rather than points, etc. Some games may focus on humor or drama rather than arousal, or simply have normal gameplay accompanied by nudity.
Arcade
Main articles: Arcade game
Arcade games are traditionally the coin-operated video games found in
arcades during the 1970s and 1980s. These games were characterized as quick play action games that had an addictive quality. Arcade games are easy to learn, yet difficult to master, one such example could be
Tanarus, although not coin-operated it is considered by
Sony to reflect the gameplay relative to an
arcade game, in the fact that it is very addicting and can be played for hours on end. Since the decline of coin-operated games, "arcade" has become a genre in its own right. Arcade games can now be found in many sites that contain
browser-based games.
Advergame
Advergames are a hybrid genre that has most recently become a popular due to the
Burger King,
King Games Collection. But Advergames, like the
7up ''
Cool Spot'' game and the Dominoes ''
Yo! Noid'' games, were around much earlier. The majority of Advergames are found online and mostly include simple and cheaply made
Flash games, it is expected that advergamimg will become a very popular and far more highly invested subgenre in the coming years as TV ad revenue lessens and video games are shown to have a greater and greater impact on public opinion.
Artillery
Artillery games are
turn-based ballistics-simulation games in which players fire upon each other or at specific targets by specifying the angle of their salvo and at what force. Shots are affected by gravity and usually wind. These games are usually two-dimensional, but occasionally they are three-dimensional. Some examples include
Gunbound,
Scorched Earth, and
Tanarus.
Educational
Educational games, as the name implies, attempt to teach the user using the game as a vehicle. Most of these types of games target young user from the ages of about three years to mid-
teens; past the mid-teens, subjects become so complex (e.g.
Calculus) that teaching via a game is impractical. Numerous subgenres exist, each for a different field (math games, typing games and so on).
Light-gun games
Light gun games use a
pointing device for
computers and a
control device for arcade and
video games. The first light guns appeared in the 1930s, following the development of light-sensing
vacuum tubes. It wasn't long before the technology began appearing in
arcade shooting games, beginning with the
Seeburg Ray-O-Lite in
1936. These early light gun games used small targets (usually moving) onto which a light-sensing tube was mounted; the player used a gun (usually a rifle) that emitted a beam of light when the trigger was pulled. If the beam struck the target, a "hit" was scored. Modern screen-based light guns work on the opposite principle — the sensor is built into the gun itself, and the on-screen target(s) emit light rather than the gun. The first light gun of this type was used on the
MIT Whirlwind computer. Some "light gun" games actually use guns mounted on joysticks, giving the illusion of using a light beam, but all control is transferred through the movement of the stick; a notable example of this is ''.
Music
The main gameplay screen of ''
Stepmania'', a music game.
are typically
arcade games that challenge the player to follow sequences of movement or develop specific rhythms. Some games require the player to tap out rhythms using a
game controller or
keyboard while others require the player to actually dance in sync to music. This genre arose in the late 1990s with the increasing popularity of
rap music and the success of ''
Dance Dance Revolution'' and ''
Guitar Hero''.
''See also:''
★
Audio game
★
Dance pad
★
List of dance video games
Party
Party games are video games developed specifically for multiplayer games between many players. Normally, party games have a variety of different types of
mini-games that range between collecting more of a certain item than other players or having the fastest time at something. Versus multiplayer games are not generally considered to be party games.
Pinball
Screenshot of a pinball game
Pinball games are, essentially, pinball table emulators, designed to replicate the look and feel of your common
pinball table. Most pinball games feature the same gameplay style, where the player controls a right and left flipper, and tries to make the ball hit various parts of the
playfield to gather up points. One significant way that video game pinball games can progress beyond pinball table emulation is the inclusion of features impossible to incorporate in a real pinball table (multiple table layouts, or direct ball control for example), although some games strive to provide a more realistic experience and avoid this type of game play.
The control scheme in pinball games is, for the most part, the same. In today's consoles, left and right "shoulder" buttons are often used to approximate the left and right flipper buttons of a real-world pinball game. Some games automatically fire the ball into the playfield, while others require the player to press a button to pull down the spring-loaded plug and fire the ball into the playfield.
In some cases, a pinball game may feature more than two flippers. Two are generally located at the bottom of the playfield, and others (generally only one or two more) are found above the bottom two.
Pinball games have become more popular in recent years on handheld systems, as opposed to consoles.
Puzzle
Puzzle games require the player to solve logic puzzles or navigate complex locations such as
mazes. This genre frequently crosses over with adventure and educational games. Some arcade games, in particular
Tetris-variants, are often labeled puzzle games, despite the fact that gameplay depends on hand/eye coordination and quick reflexes, rather than thought and logic.
Puzzle is a very inclusive genre, and is often used as a general default for games not otherwise easily categorized, especially those with abstract concepts. Before they became commonplace, music games were sometimes called puzzle games, for example.
Scrolling shooters
Scrolling shooters, a sub-genre of "
shoot 'em ups" or "shmups", place emphasis on shooting, and usually simplify other gameplay aspects of in deference to this. Several of the earliest arcade games (such as ''
Galaxian'') could be classed as precursors to shoot 'em ups or scrolling shooters, though generally lacking some key aspect.
The games that typify the shoot 'em up genre are scrolling shooters - shoot 'em ups that are traditionally played on a long, 2D, scrolling playing area. Scrolling shooters are generally classified by their direction of scroll: the most common are horizontal (side view) and vertical (top view) shooters.
Zaxxon may have been the first genuine scrolling shooter.
The scrolling shooter has a long history, with its roots in the early 1980s. It has a mixed following nowadays, however, classic-style 2D shooters are still being made, commonly rendered in
3D graphics. ''
Star Fox'' is a popular modern shoot 'em up with a clever gameplay twist.
Stealth
Main articles: Stealth game
A somewhat more recent genre, sometimes referred to as a "sneaker" to make contrast with the action-oriented "shooter" subgenre. These games have much in common with the first- or third-person shooter types, but tend to emphasize subterfuge and precision strikes over the more overt mayhem of shooters.
Survival horror
Survival horror games focus on fear and attempt to scare the player via traditional
horror fiction elements such as atmospherics,
death, the
undead,
blood and gore. Many of these games include first-person shooter elements.
The first game to be made in this Genre was the mixed Survival Horror/RPG game, ''
Sweet Home'', and the genre was popularized by the ''
Resident Evil'' series.
Traditional
Most popular
board games,
card games, and the like have been computerized to some degree or another. Computer game programs can be worthy opponents and can help improve one's skill at traditional games.
★
Chess,
Checkers,
Othello (also known as
Reversi), and
Backgammon have world class computer programs.
★
Mah-jongg and related games are immensely popular in
China,
Japan.
★
Go, popular in
East Asia. It is infamously difficult to program a computer to play Go well: see
Computer Go.
★ has had computer versions for some time.
★
42 All-Time Classics is a game for
Nintendo DS that features online play through
Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.
Vehicular combat
Vehicular combat (or ''car combat'') games focus on fast-paced action, as the player operates a
car or other vehicle and attempts to disable or destroy
CPU or human opponents. Vehicular combat games often allow a player to choose from a variety of potential vehicles, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Vehicular combat was born out of racing/shooter combinations like ''
Spy Hunter'', ''
RoadBlasters'' and ''
Rock 'N' Roll Racing'', but differs in that the players can, if desired, take their vehicles off predefined routes and do battle wherever they please.
A subgenre of vehicular combat is ''
Mecha'' combat, where vehicles generally include giant robot-like tanks.
Superseded genres
These genres are generally seen as defunct, although some examples may still exist.
Interactive movies
Interactive movies came about with the invention of
laserdiscs. These games are pre-filmed
full-motion cartoons or live-action sequences, where the player controls some of the moves of the main character. For example, when in danger, the player decides which move or action, or combination to choose. In these games, the only activity the user has is to choose or guess the move the
designers intended him to make.
Interactive movies usually differ from games that simply use FMV extensively between scenes in that they try to integrate it into the gameplay itself. This has been used in everything from racing games (
Megarace) to fighting games (
Supreme Warrior). Because of this, it is arguable that the term is more of an antiquated buzzword (like how many early 3D games were tagged as "virtual reality") than a real genre.
The term itself has come to be associated with a lot of clumsy, poor quality games from the early-to-mid 90s, and thus it is rarely ever used. A few
adventure games have tried to use the term to liken the storytelling of their games to those in movies, most notably the later ''
Tex Murphy'' games, and the more recent ''
Indigo Prophecy'' but few would include these in the same genre as games that used FMV in their gameplay.
Notable games of this category include ''
Dragon's Lair'', ''
Space Ace'' and ''
Night Trap.
Maze
Maze games have a playing field which is entirely a
maze. Some may be simple puzzle games in which the player must navigate to the exit, others may be action-based.
An example sub-genre of the action-based maze game is the ''maze chase game'' in which the player needs logical thinking to foresee where the enemies come. One must be able to foresee hostile attacks about the flanks to escape from them. The most famous game of this genre is ''
Pac-Man''. This genre frequently crosses over with Puzzle, but it often gets by completely without puzzle elements and demands only reaction and planning. Notable games include the ''
Pac-Man'' series.
See also:
List of maze video games and
List of maze chase games.
References
1. The Action RPG Revolution
★
Crawford, Chris (1982). "
Chapter 3: A Taxonomy of Computer Games". ''
The Art of Computer Game Design''. Wolf & Peron. ISBN 0-88134-117-7
★ Lindley, Craig A. (2003). "
Game Taxonomies: A High Level Framework for Game Analysis and Design, ''Gamasutra, October 3, 2003''
★ Wolf, Mark J. P. (2002). "
Chapter 6: Genre and the Video Game". ''The Medium of the Video Game''. University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-79150-X
★ Apperley, Thomas H (March 2006). . ''
University of Melbourne'' and ''
Simulation & Gaming'', Vol. 37, No. 1, 6-23.
★
"A Guide to Computer Game Genres" Bateman, Chris and Boon, Richard
★
"A Detailed Cross-Examination of Yesterday and Today's Best-Selling Platform Games" Boutros, Daniel
★
"What's wrong with serious games?" Terdiman, Daniel
See also
★
Audio game, games based on sound
★
Game classification
★
List of gaming topics
★
Serious game
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