Video games are very much a part of the way we choose to entertain ourselves these days, and we all have our favourite types of games. There are many different video game genres, but most stem from three main ones. Here is a quick introduction to the three biggest video game genres.
First-Person Shooter
The first-person shooter is a genre that has been responsible for defining modern video games. It simply refers to a video game that you play as if you are looking through the eyes of the character you’re playing as. Today, many sub-genres use a first-person view, but the traditional FPS is one that usually involves the player holding and shooting a gun throughout its playtime.
Trailblazers in the genre like id Software’s Doom and 3D Realms’ Duke Nukem 3D laid down the groundwork for modern titles like Valve’s Half-Life to shine, brought to life by the capabilities of modern computer systems, like these Prebuilt Lenovo Gaming Desktops.
A slight modification to the first-person shooter is the third-person shooter, which is very much the same, though it usually sees the camera positioned above and slightly behind the protagonist.
Real-Time Strategy
The real-time strategy game genre is another hugely popular one. The term was first used to describe Westwood Studios’ Dune II on its release in 1992. It wasn’t the first game to occupy the genre, but it was responsible, along with Westwood’s other titles like Command and Conquer, for defining the genre’s most recognisable features. To best describe it, think about playing a board game, but instead of taking turns, all players control their pieces at the same time. Typically, players will need to focus on building a base, amassing an army and managing their resources in a battle against others to be the last player standing.
Big titles in the genre are Blizzard’s Warcraft and StarCraft, and the aforementioned Command and Conquer series from Westwood. Microsoft’s Age of Empires also deserves a mention here.
Role-Playing Game
The role-playing game, as the name suggests, puts you in control of a character for which you play the role in a story-rich game. It usually features a character progression system that sees you gaining experience and levelling up your character to become more powerful as you play to match the threat of the enemies you’ll encounter as you do. Randomly generated or distributed weapons and armour and the mechanic of having to equip the best ones you find is another feature present in most RPGs. Game developers like Bethesda Game Studios are masters at their craft of creating rich RPGs like the Elder Scrolls and Fallout game series.
Many variations on the classic RPG have been released over the years, most notably the MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game), where you take control of your character and interact with many thousands of other players in a shared world, often forming teams to tackle bigger computer-controlled enemies and villains.
No matter what your favourite genre of game is, there are many different titles to choose from!