Back in time, people were already happy playing with standard brick games. But as the video game industry expanded through time with the help of technology, it is more appealing to the players to play different genres as they measure there skills. In movies, we are looking for horror, suspense, action, comedy, drama, and other categories. Same in video games, we are searching for a specific genre.
The market produces different kinds of games. There are many available game installers found in different gaming stores. Choosing video games is another big decision. You are consuming your money and also your time in picking out what type of games do you prefer and in playing those things. A good game should get your interest, of course, and it can entertain you. Genres customarily describes the style of a gameplay. But do we know what genres of a game we are picking in the stores?
Upon my researching about the types of video games, I found an article entitled "Video Game Genres" written by Ted Stahl in a site "The History of Computing Project". Out of so many categories, he cited in this article at least 13 different genres of games. But I will just focus on five of it. The shooting games, adventure games, the role playing games, the platform and strategy or tactics.
The shooting game is one of the oldest games category because of the game Spacewar!. This game provide the player with an array of weapon to blow away the enemies in order to survive in the game. This game focuses on combat with missiles and guns. It may be a horizontal or vertical. But some games uses neither of this two methods. Other example of these games include Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Descent, Marathon, GoldenEye, Halo, Quake, and Time Splitters.
I remember when I was in my elementary days, I always play Space Invaders in the cellphone of my father. Then this 2010, my family became addicted in Plant vs Zombies game. A game that plants protected the brains from zombies by shooting them with their peas, fire, and others.
The adventure games which provides to solve a puzzle, to explore, but there is .of combat. The game that explores but initially these are text-based games like Colossal Cave Adventure. Years past, it became a puzzle-oriented text-based adventure but there is general lack of violence.
Next is the role-playing game or RPG that draws the gameplay from Dungeons and Dragons. It is a special type of adventure games. It is more on quest and adventure and also on combat unlike the adventure games. There are three elements in these games, the number one is the quest itself. Second is the evolution or the level upping of your character through their quest and last is the management of your inventories, how you manage your acquisition and selling of items.
The fourth is platform that began with the release of Donkey Kong on 1981. This game requires the timing and jumping to reach a certain goal or your destination while defeating your enemies. The most common and popular example of this game is the Super Mario Bros, which played in arcades, game boys and personal computers.
The Strategic and Tactic Games. This game tries to capture the sense of realism for the game player to experience. It emphasize the thinking and planning skill to achieve the victory of the game. In this game, victory is achieved through strategic and superior planning. Some video games-inspired about this category are Ogre Tactics, Command and Conquer, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Worms.
The article talks about the various types of games, highlighting the main features and explaining their categorization according to the gameplay involved.
While reading other articles about types of video games, a certain article caught my attention. The site is entitled "Robin Lionheart's Webpages" with an article "Genre and the Video Game" written by Mark J.P Wolf. In his subtopic 'Iconography versus Interactivity'.
In this topic, he compared the differences between the genres of games and films same also in dance. How does the iconography so much important in genres of film but sometimes it does not needed in games such as Tetris, Pinball or Scrabble or any games that are non-narrative activities or games that are not populated with characters. In Hollywood, iconography is an important tool in analyzing those films as well and video games. On the other hand, interactivity is an essential part of every game’s structure and a more appropriate way of examining and defining video game genres.
Just like in dancing, we have Foxtrot, Cha Cha, Zumba, Ballet and Jazz, video games also has its different genres that we may connect in film. For examples, Space Invader that is shooting game but a science fiction in films. Mortal combat as an action movie and as an action game. The Hotel 626, it can be a horror game and horror movie. As narrative games grow more complex and cinematic, iconographic and thematic generic classifications from film will be able to be applied more usefully, but interactivity will always be an important factor in the way the games are experienced.
The game’s objective is a motivational force for the player, and this, combined with the various forms of interactivity present in the game, are useful places to start in building a set of video game genres. The object of the game can be multiple or divided into steps, placing the game in more than one genre, just as a film’s theme and iconography can place a film in multiple genres or the hybrid category. For example, Pac Man, it is a collecting game but we can also classify this as an "escaping" and a "maze" game.
As society observe, there are too many categories that can be found in every subject. It can be in film, dance, music, literature, and of course, video games. Categories were not made to confuse or to mess up in our mind. It was made to pick what we want and what suits to our taste and to our mood. So just enjoy the categories that we are playing, watching, reading and dancing now.
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