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It’s easy to define a game into genres. Publisher, journalists and the public do it all the time. But breaking a game down and really identifying the style that composes it, that makes it fit into that genre is a bit more difficult. I’ll try to describe sever different game styles that make up the majority of games on the market. First, there is the free range exploration game. This is a world that is made for the games, with several quests inside the world. Donkey Kong 64, Banjo Kazooie, Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2, and Pikmin all do that. The style could never really take shape until the 3D age, where the size of games, and the processing speeds of the systems could keep up with the demands games such like this face. The style had been used briefly before, but instead of the focus on adventure titles, the sprite equivalent of this style was found in RPGs. Perhaps the first, and one of the best examples of the pre-N64 free-range exploration game is the Legand of Zelda. These games set some guidelines and restrictions as to how to advance through the game, and because no game has yet to feature environments that change randomly, some sort of goal must be presented, and there usually has to be some restrictions on your advancement in the world. The main reason these games did not become widestream before N64 generation is more because of the space needed for all this interaction to occur.
There is a variation of the free range exploration game, where our path is restricted much much more. I shall call it a Quasi Free Range Exploration style, where there is interaction, but you path is really more predetermined. These games can either have very limited variation in the pattern of the goals you complete, or there is a set path with loads of stuff you can go off to the side and do. Games that fall into the first category are usually 3D platform games, such as Conkers BFD, and Mario 64. Games that fall into the second, include any semi-decent first person shooter. Unlike the full free range exploration game, these have been around for quite awhile. They’ve always been possible, and space hasn’t been a big issue in the games. Early RPGs were all “quasi’s”, and almost all modern platformers and FPS’s are.
Restricted paths, or start to finish games let you make little choices, except the immediate action. Almost all platformers up until the N64 fell into this category, where you started, at one end, and you went to the other, and did it again. Games breaking out of this mold was the before it’s time Zelda 2, and the ever popular Castlevania series. With few exceptions, it was nearly a given that all games in which you jump followed this pattern. The style however was not exclusive to platformers. In the beginning of Atari and the NES, nearly all games did this. Pong gave you absolutely no choices, and Tetris actually made your decisions for you, and worked to boggle your decisions. Any game in which there are no side quests, in which there is a given path, in which everything is as it seems, is a restricted path game. Not many of these are seen on the market today.
The Checkpoints found in nearly all arcade racing games, and several console titles, is, besides a way to make you run out your time in the arcade faster, a way to present the problem. A good racing game that implements this style will pace the checkpoints, so the ones near the finish line have longer intervals in between one another, causing you to either drive much better the second half of the race, or learn to drive reasonably well the entire time. The second is what the developers try to aim for, as it also becomes its own learning curve. When it is the whole game however, the title usually becomes rather boring, and so to try to liven the game weapons are sometimes added, or the checkpoints become near impossible to beat. The checkpoint game usually won’t occupy ones attention for too long, as it soon becomes a bore.
The set race is what most of the current kart games feature. You drive around the track to a goal or multiple goals, and the first one to reach the end winds. These games implement some of the set track ideas, and the focus is set to passing your opponents. Weapons are usually added to make the battle between you and your opponent more interesting, and so that your attention is diverted from the fact that you’re driving in circles. Every now and then a game comes by that implements this and really wows people, but it doesn’t happen often, and it’s because of this that there are so many games on the market that most people don’t care enough for to buy, that were made in an attempt to be the next Grand Turismo or Mario Kart.
Finally, the last racing style is free style. These games usually always implement points, and the don’t always have to have opponent racers. There’s always some resistance in these games, whether it’s a time limit, other opponents, or trick difficulty. If you pay attention, most mainstream free style racing games have two of these things in, in an attempt to keep the games life up. Tony Hawk, SSX, and Matt Hoffmans BMX all do this, and it seems to be the latest fad in racing games.
Many times a game will attempt to dupicate a real life event. It is this which one would think isn’t constrained to these categories fall into their own. The simulation has found widespread popularity on the computer and consoles alike. From mosquito and dating sims, to sports games these simulations appeal to people who get to experience something that they otherwise never would. How many of us will play in the Super Bowl, how many of us will become mayor of a large developing, who amongst us will experience the thrill that is the hunt for blood a mosquito experiences, and finally how many editors for Nintendo websites will experience dating? It is because of this that the genre and style was created, and many traits of the sims can be found in more “unrealistic” games. Gravity is the one thing similar throughout all 3D games, yet it is a simulation of the real thing. Weather and textures are simulated, even in the most whimsical game.
Finally, decision making has become a large part of games. RPGs, RTS’s both require extensive thought by the player. The use of strategy in videogames was unheard of until the dawn of Final Fantasy, Warcraft, and Dragon Quest. With greater artificial intelligence this has become an area new and exciting, where careful planning beat out the quick reflexed. With Advance Wars, Pikmin, and Animal Leader, this use of strategy has become welcomed, and accepted as a part of regular gameplay.
I know I have not covered absolutely everything that can be found in videogames. I have attempted to give you the reader a sense of the different decisions and planning that goes into making a game, that it is much more then deciding a genre and building an engine. As I write this I look at my game collection, and think “What have I missed”. Nearly every game out there falls into one of these categories, a sub genre beneath the surface.
So all of you now can finally make up your mind if I am crazy or not.
There is a variation of the free range exploration game, where our path is restricted much much more. I shall call it a Quasi Free Range Exploration style, where there is interaction, but you path is really more predetermined. These games can either have very limited variation in the pattern of the goals you complete, or there is a set path with loads of stuff you can go off to the side and do. Games that fall into the first category are usually 3D platform games, such as Conkers BFD, and Mario 64. Games that fall into the second, include any semi-decent first person shooter. Unlike the full free range exploration game, these have been around for quite awhile. They’ve always been possible, and space hasn’t been a big issue in the games. Early RPGs were all “quasi’s”, and almost all modern platformers and FPS’s are.
Restricted paths, or start to finish games let you make little choices, except the immediate action. Almost all platformers up until the N64 fell into this category, where you started, at one end, and you went to the other, and did it again. Games breaking out of this mold was the before it’s time Zelda 2, and the ever popular Castlevania series. With few exceptions, it was nearly a given that all games in which you jump followed this pattern. The style however was not exclusive to platformers. In the beginning of Atari and the NES, nearly all games did this. Pong gave you absolutely no choices, and Tetris actually made your decisions for you, and worked to boggle your decisions. Any game in which there are no side quests, in which there is a given path, in which everything is as it seems, is a restricted path game. Not many of these are seen on the market today.
The Checkpoints found in nearly all arcade racing games, and several console titles, is, besides a way to make you run out your time in the arcade faster, a way to present the problem. A good racing game that implements this style will pace the checkpoints, so the ones near the finish line have longer intervals in between one another, causing you to either drive much better the second half of the race, or learn to drive reasonably well the entire time. The second is what the developers try to aim for, as it also becomes its own learning curve. When it is the whole game however, the title usually becomes rather boring, and so to try to liven the game weapons are sometimes added, or the checkpoints become near impossible to beat. The checkpoint game usually won’t occupy ones attention for too long, as it soon becomes a bore.
The set race is what most of the current kart games feature. You drive around the track to a goal or multiple goals, and the first one to reach the end winds. These games implement some of the set track ideas, and the focus is set to passing your opponents. Weapons are usually added to make the battle between you and your opponent more interesting, and so that your attention is diverted from the fact that you’re driving in circles. Every now and then a game comes by that implements this and really wows people, but it doesn’t happen often, and it’s because of this that there are so many games on the market that most people don’t care enough for to buy, that were made in an attempt to be the next Grand Turismo or Mario Kart.
Finally, the last racing style is free style. These games usually always implement points, and the don’t always have to have opponent racers. There’s always some resistance in these games, whether it’s a time limit, other opponents, or trick difficulty. If you pay attention, most mainstream free style racing games have two of these things in, in an attempt to keep the games life up. Tony Hawk, SSX, and Matt Hoffmans BMX all do this, and it seems to be the latest fad in racing games.
Many times a game will attempt to dupicate a real life event. It is this which one would think isn’t constrained to these categories fall into their own. The simulation has found widespread popularity on the computer and consoles alike. From mosquito and dating sims, to sports games these simulations appeal to people who get to experience something that they otherwise never would. How many of us will play in the Super Bowl, how many of us will become mayor of a large developing, who amongst us will experience the thrill that is the hunt for blood a mosquito experiences, and finally how many editors for Nintendo websites will experience dating? It is because of this that the genre and style was created, and many traits of the sims can be found in more “unrealistic” games. Gravity is the one thing similar throughout all 3D games, yet it is a simulation of the real thing. Weather and textures are simulated, even in the most whimsical game.
Finally, decision making has become a large part of games. RPGs, RTS’s both require extensive thought by the player. The use of strategy in videogames was unheard of until the dawn of Final Fantasy, Warcraft, and Dragon Quest. With greater artificial intelligence this has become an area new and exciting, where careful planning beat out the quick reflexed. With Advance Wars, Pikmin, and Animal Leader, this use of strategy has become welcomed, and accepted as a part of regular gameplay.
I know I have not covered absolutely everything that can be found in videogames. I have attempted to give you the reader a sense of the different decisions and planning that goes into making a game, that it is much more then deciding a genre and building an engine. As I write this I look at my game collection, and think “What have I missed”. Nearly every game out there falls into one of these categories, a sub genre beneath the surface.
So all of you now can finally make up your mind if I am crazy or not.
It’s easy to define a game into genres. Publisher, journalists and the public do it all the time. But breaking a game down and really identifying the style that composes it, that makes it fit into that genre is a bit more difficult. I’ll try to describe sever different game styles that make up the majority of games on the market. First, there is the free range exploration game. This is a world that is made for the games, with several quests inside the world. Donkey Kong 64, Banjo Kazooie, Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2, and Pikmin all do that. The style could never really take shape until the 3D age, where the size of games, and the processing speeds of the systems could keep up with the demands games such like this face. The style had been used briefly before, but instead of the focus on adventure titles, the sprite equivalent of this style was found in RPGs. Perhaps the first, and one of the best examples of the pre-N64 free-range exploration game is the Legand of Zelda. These games set some guidelines and restrictions as to how to advance through the game, and because no game has yet to feature environments that change randomly, some sort of goal must be presented, and there usually has to be some restrictions on your advancement in the world. The main reason these games did not become widestream before N64 generation is more because of the space needed for all this interaction to occur.
There is a variation of the free range exploration game, where our path is restricted much much more. I shall call it a Quasi Free Range Exploration style, where there is interaction, but you path is really more predetermined. These games can either have very limited variation in the pattern of the goals you complete, or there is a set path with loads of stuff you can go off to the side and do. Games that fall into the first category are usually 3D platform games, such as Conkers BFD, and Mario 64. Games that fall into the second, include any semi-decent first person shooter. Unlike the full free range exploration game, these have been around for quite awhile. They’ve always been possible, and space hasn’t been a big issue in the games. Early RPGs were all “quasi’s”, and almost all modern platformers and FPS’s are.
Restricted paths, or start to finish games let you make little choices, except the immediate action. Almost all platformers up until the N64 fell into this category, where you started, at one end, and you went to the other, and did it again. Games breaking out of this mold was the before it’s time Zelda 2, and the ever popular Castlevania series. With few exceptions, it was nearly a given that all games in which you jump followed this pattern. The style however was not exclusive to platformers. In the beginning of Atari and the NES, nearly all games did this. Pong gave you absolutely no choices, and Tetris actually made your decisions for you, and worked to boggle your decisions. Any game in which there are no side quests, in which there is a given path, in which everything is as it seems, is a restricted path game. Not many of these are seen on the market today.
The Checkpoints found in nearly all arcade racing games, and several console titles, is, besides a way to make you run out your time in the arcade faster, a way to present the problem. A good racing game that implements this style will pace the checkpoints, so the ones near the finish line have longer intervals in between one another, causing you to either drive much better the second half of the race, or learn to drive reasonably well the entire time. The second is what the developers try to aim for, as it also becomes its own learning curve. When it is the whole game however, the title usually becomes rather boring, and so to try to liven the game weapons are sometimes added, or the checkpoints become near impossible to beat. The checkpoint game usually won’t occupy ones attention for too long, as it soon becomes a bore.
The set race is what most of the current kart games feature. You drive around the track to a goal or multiple goals, and the first one to reach the end winds. These games implement some of the set track ideas, and the focus is set to passing your opponents. Weapons are usually added to make the battle between you and your opponent more interesting, and so that your attention is diverted from the fact that you’re driving in circles. Every now and then a game comes by that implements this and really wows people, but it doesn’t happen often, and it’s because of this that there are so many games on the market that most people don’t care enough for to buy, that were made in an attempt to be the next Grand Turismo or Mario Kart.
Finally, the last racing style is free style. These games usually always implement points, and the don’t always have to have opponent racers. There’s always some resistance in these games, whether it’s a time limit, other opponents, or trick difficulty. If you pay attention, most mainstream free style racing games have two of these things in, in an attempt to keep the games life up. Tony Hawk, SSX, and Matt Hoffmans BMX all do this, and it seems to be the latest fad in racing games.
Many times a game will attempt to dupicate a real life event. It is this which one would think isn’t constrained to these categories fall into their own. The simulation has found widespread popularity on the computer and consoles alike. From mosquito and dating sims, to sports games these simulations appeal to people who get to experience something that they otherwise never would. How many of us will play in the Super Bowl, how many of us will become mayor of a large developing, who amongst us will experience the thrill that is the hunt for blood a mosquito experiences, and finally how many editors for Nintendo websites will experience dating? It is because of this that the genre and style was created, and many traits of the sims can be found in more “unrealistic” games. Gravity is the one thing similar throughout all 3D games, yet it is a simulation of the real thing. Weather and textures are simulated, even in the most whimsical game.
Finally, decision making has become a large part of games. RPGs, RTS’s both require extensive thought by the player. The use of strategy in videogames was unheard of until the dawn of Final Fantasy, Warcraft, and Dragon Quest. With greater artificial intelligence this has become an area new and exciting, where careful planning beat out the quick reflexed. With Advance Wars, Pikmin, and Animal Leader, this use of strategy has become welcomed, and accepted as a part of regular gameplay.
I know I have not covered absolutely everything that can be found in videogames. I have attempted to give you the reader a sense of the different decisions and planning that goes into making a game, that it is much more then deciding a genre and building an engine. As I write this I look at my game collection, and think “What have I missed”. Nearly every game out there falls into one of these categories, a sub genre beneath the surface.
So all of you now can finally make up your mind if I am crazy or not.
There is a variation of the free range exploration game, where our path is restricted much much more. I shall call it a Quasi Free Range Exploration style, where there is interaction, but you path is really more predetermined. These games can either have very limited variation in the pattern of the goals you complete, or there is a set path with loads of stuff you can go off to the side and do. Games that fall into the first category are usually 3D platform games, such as Conkers BFD, and Mario 64. Games that fall into the second, include any semi-decent first person shooter. Unlike the full free range exploration game, these have been around for quite awhile. They’ve always been possible, and space hasn’t been a big issue in the games. Early RPGs were all “quasi’s”, and almost all modern platformers and FPS’s are.
Restricted paths, or start to finish games let you make little choices, except the immediate action. Almost all platformers up until the N64 fell into this category, where you started, at one end, and you went to the other, and did it again. Games breaking out of this mold was the before it’s time Zelda 2, and the ever popular Castlevania series. With few exceptions, it was nearly a given that all games in which you jump followed this pattern. The style however was not exclusive to platformers. In the beginning of Atari and the NES, nearly all games did this. Pong gave you absolutely no choices, and Tetris actually made your decisions for you, and worked to boggle your decisions. Any game in which there are no side quests, in which there is a given path, in which everything is as it seems, is a restricted path game. Not many of these are seen on the market today.
The Checkpoints found in nearly all arcade racing games, and several console titles, is, besides a way to make you run out your time in the arcade faster, a way to present the problem. A good racing game that implements this style will pace the checkpoints, so the ones near the finish line have longer intervals in between one another, causing you to either drive much better the second half of the race, or learn to drive reasonably well the entire time. The second is what the developers try to aim for, as it also becomes its own learning curve. When it is the whole game however, the title usually becomes rather boring, and so to try to liven the game weapons are sometimes added, or the checkpoints become near impossible to beat. The checkpoint game usually won’t occupy ones attention for too long, as it soon becomes a bore.
The set race is what most of the current kart games feature. You drive around the track to a goal or multiple goals, and the first one to reach the end winds. These games implement some of the set track ideas, and the focus is set to passing your opponents. Weapons are usually added to make the battle between you and your opponent more interesting, and so that your attention is diverted from the fact that you’re driving in circles. Every now and then a game comes by that implements this and really wows people, but it doesn’t happen often, and it’s because of this that there are so many games on the market that most people don’t care enough for to buy, that were made in an attempt to be the next Grand Turismo or Mario Kart.
Finally, the last racing style is free style. These games usually always implement points, and the don’t always have to have opponent racers. There’s always some resistance in these games, whether it’s a time limit, other opponents, or trick difficulty. If you pay attention, most mainstream free style racing games have two of these things in, in an attempt to keep the games life up. Tony Hawk, SSX, and Matt Hoffmans BMX all do this, and it seems to be the latest fad in racing games.
Many times a game will attempt to dupicate a real life event. It is this which one would think isn’t constrained to these categories fall into their own. The simulation has found widespread popularity on the computer and consoles alike. From mosquito and dating sims, to sports games these simulations appeal to people who get to experience something that they otherwise never would. How many of us will play in the Super Bowl, how many of us will become mayor of a large developing, who amongst us will experience the thrill that is the hunt for blood a mosquito experiences, and finally how many editors for Nintendo websites will experience dating? It is because of this that the genre and style was created, and many traits of the sims can be found in more “unrealistic” games. Gravity is the one thing similar throughout all 3D games, yet it is a simulation of the real thing. Weather and textures are simulated, even in the most whimsical game.
Finally, decision making has become a large part of games. RPGs, RTS’s both require extensive thought by the player. The use of strategy in videogames was unheard of until the dawn of Final Fantasy, Warcraft, and Dragon Quest. With greater artificial intelligence this has become an area new and exciting, where careful planning beat out the quick reflexed. With Advance Wars, Pikmin, and Animal Leader, this use of strategy has become welcomed, and accepted as a part of regular gameplay.
I know I have not covered absolutely everything that can be found in videogames. I have attempted to give you the reader a sense of the different decisions and planning that goes into making a game, that it is much more then deciding a genre and building an engine. As I write this I look at my game collection, and think “What have I missed”. Nearly every game out there falls into one of these categories, a sub genre beneath the surface.
So all of you now can finally make up your mind if I am crazy or not.
Gah, post this in FOG chat and you'll win a GAD.
this is the real spam, babbling on about something which could be said in about 1 paragraph,