If you don't know, now you know.
--Notorious B.I.G.

Cancel all your appointments and lock yourself in your room because if you want to read this in one sitting, it's going to take a while. I suggest a section a day. I would be really flattered if you read a section of this post a day. You'd be spending so much time with me. Ah, I can dream, can't I?

Party people, I'm discussing the software of video games today with those of you who don't necessarily play video games in mind. Perhaps some of you think it's okay to be a gamer, but it just isn't your thing. Some of you still hate the whole idea. Sitting at home. Stuck to the TV. Looking like pale ghosts. Turn on the lights, you say! Go outside and play! Break those chains, oh, you slaves of digitized fantasy. Damned this modern technology world and what it has done to my friends!



Well, as I talked about before, more and more games and game companies have found a good niche. They have located particular audiences who will buy and share their stuff, which is good. Unlike many exclusive cultures based on beliefs and systems, based on how you look and act, this Gaming Culture thrives on difference. The more unique, the better. Indeed, any culture based on Art thrives off of difference and uniqueness. You can have the extremely fun and understandable and the extremely weird and incoherent (ah, Japanese games)at the same time. This is why the Gaming Culture is so special. Other than a culture based on Art, what other culture awards you instead of punishes you from going outside the norm?

Let's look even deeper to see the diversity within each niche itself:

PLATFORM

This is the original gaming niche, I'd argue. Usually 2 Dimensional, the character moves in simple directions--up, down, left, right-- across the screen and there is no real visual depth to it.



Ah, the ultimate platform game, Mario Bros. Mario moves across a 'platform' to get to the castle and kick the king lizard's ass to save Princess Toadstool. This, you can say, is a sub-genre called a 'side scrolling game'. He progresses simply from one side of the level to the other side, left to right, left, right, left, right, A, B, B, A. ahem. Sorry. Was it Princess Peach in the original Mario? No, it was Toadstool. Peach came later. Then again, there was also Princess Daisy. Damn, Mario.

Take a look at this newer platform game. Really, it's beautiful. . .




FIRST PERSON SHOOTER

Simple enough. Just like the first person point of view in written story(shout out to all you literary party people out there. Extra special shout out to you party people who read and play video games at the same time. That's Maverick. Screw stupid airhead politicians. . . shout out to all you party people who hate airhead politicians. Ooo). . . sorry, just like the first person point of view in a written story, you see the videogame world through the eyes of the character you're controlling. It's a great concept. It provides a whole new style of controlling your character, different from all other genres of video game.

Check out one of the older FPS games, Wolfenstein 3D:



Wolfenstein 3D is regarded as THE first person shooter to herald the genre. If you're into first person shooters and are feeling retro, check out Doom and Duke Nukem 3D too. Wait, is that really mecha-Hitler? Yes, it is.

Look at the first person genre as it can be today:



As the guy says, this is actually a game making movement in another direction for the genre. Ah, yes. Fresh. Mirror's Edge.

ACTION/ADVENTURE

This is another big genre. A whole lot of games can fit here, but, they all have a certain aire of. . . well. . . action and adventure. Expect all the games that were made after Action/Adventure movies, such as the new Indiana Jones video game, to fit here. Basically, these games are another alternative from film, books and plays to fill the action/adventure need within a lot of us.



We find that one of the oldest adventure games was also a platform and a side-scrolling game: Pitfall. To take it further into irony, Pitfall's main character resembled Indiana Jones. He was a jungle trekking, vine swinging, treasure hunter who laughed at fear and shrugged death off his shoulder like the dust of a forgotten cave.

I have a certain interest with Pitfall. Just a point of trivia, the main character, Harry, or, Pitfall Harry, made a recent appearance some years ago in a 3D version of Pitfall. The voice actor was Bruce Campbell. Here's a picture of the original game:



The Action Adventure accounts, however, for any game that has action and adventure as the main element. Mario Bros., Mirror's Edge, Little Big Planet, one can very well argue that all these games fall under this genre as well. What does that mean for all these genres we have established? Does the whole classification system come tumbling down? Party people, we don't think in black and white, do we?

It's no real surprise if you think about it. Art is Art. Film can fall under horror, independent, cult and comedy at the same time. . . think Army of Darkness. Coincidentally enough, Bruce Campbell, voice actor for Pitfall Harry, was the lead actor in that movie. Good times.

Check out this one:



Oh yes, you can do all that as Darth Vader's secret apprentice. Oooh, the nerdiness never ends with me.

ROLE PLAYING GAME

This is the genre of gaming that I find the closest relation to actual literature. A gamer finds tension, mounting slowly through pivotal points along the gameplay story. All characters have impressively deep back stories. And a lot is given through dialogue. Let's take an RPG main character archetype and follow his story--

In the beginning of the game, the character is part of a resistance group bent on the destruction of a tyrannous energy conglomerate which strips the earth of its natural resources. He has amazing talent in combat and everyone is amazed by him. The problem is, he's lost his memory. While trying to hide out after a strategic bombing of a conglomerate factory, he meets a mysterious woman who may be the key to unlocking his memory. Turns out, this woman may also well be connected to a bigger plot to destroy the planet; and he must come to grips with the secrets of his past before time runs out, because the world depends on it.

Did that catch your attention? This is the premise for one of the greatest RPG's ever made. Squaresoft's Final Fantasy VII:



One of the main elements of an RPG is the openness of it. You literally have a WORLD to explore, and unlike other games where you have to go from point A to B, you can go from A to L to D to 3 to Z to U to 8 before you even get to point B. You do almost anything you want. At the same time, RPG's set out to have you learn so much about the main character that you care about his actions (sound familiar, literary folk?). The decisions you make are the decisions you want your main character to make.

You experience towns and villages and cities with their own economies, their own unique people with whom to interact. You experience social, economic, political and inconsequential issues and they almost always contribute to the overall story. Especially for Final Fantasy VII, you get a real sense that your actions effect this world, and when you save it, you save these people and their way of life--good and bad.

The basic elements of RPG's are as follows:

-- Your main character slowly builds a band of 'supporting characters' who all have their own back story, and their own fighting and technical abilities to help you progress.

-- More often than not, your story explodes into something bigger than the individual wants of the characters. Usually of proportions of saving the world.

-- There is a lot of dialogue, ranging from dialogue that moves the story along to the mundane dialogue from the every day people you interact with in the RPG world.

-- You choose where to go, when to do something, what items you want to have, what weapons you want. A trend in recent RPG's is the customizable feature, where you can change your weapons to inflict more damage on enemies, etc.

-- You'll lose the most time playing this genre just because of the all encompassing nature of the story and the world it inhabits. More time just sitting there and customizing weapons.

I have to tip my hat to Squaresoft (now Square Enix, but let's save the game companies for another time) for creating another RPG, Chrono Trigger, dating back to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in the 1990's. Way before the idea of customizing weapons and the like. This game focused more on the story line, and told its story very well. This is why I appreciate it more than any other RPG I've played.

Chrono Trigger is also a prime example of how creative one can get with the genre. This story introduces time travel. The time travel layer of game mechanics allows you to, for example, set a stone in the ground and travel to the future to dig it up and find that it has transformed into a diamond. Now you can buy that expensive weapon you need to fight the boss. Sounds complex? It is. However, Squaresoft did a GREAT job of making this mechanic simple enough to grasp and utilize in gameplay, making it very, very fun.



Recently, another wave of RPG's have begun to affect gaming, taking the focus away from weapons and technical mumbo jumbo like that. Bioware, who has created a successful series of Star Wars RPGs, introduced a game system based more on the decisions you make. Taking Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for example, your agressiveness or justice-minded actions throughout the game will turn your character to the Light or the Dark side of the Force (ah, more nerdiness), depending on the decisions that you make. Bioware has also released Mass Effect recently, which uses that same innovative decision-making system, among other innovations like Space Travel. But I'll end the nerdiness about that here. Check out my other blog Amalgamonster for video of Mass Effect gameplay.

FIGHTING GAMES

The original tournament genre. Who here has heard of Street Fighter? I remember when there was a Street Fighter II arcade machine at the Cloverleaf Bowl in Fremont (Bay Areaaaa!!!). My cousins would put their quarters up on the edge of the screen to let the two playing the game know that they were going to take the spot of whoever lost.

Then I'd watch them kick ass. It was fun.

One of the cool aspects of Fighting Games is that you don't have to play to enjoy it (if you dig fighting games in the first place). It's like watching a real fight.

Not much has changed about fighting games when they were first introduced. It's usually one-on-one. Punch, Kick, perhaps power moves like magical fireballs and throws. Combinations of attacks. Whoever can do it best usually wins. I wonder now what is so intriguing to me about witnessing violence, whether in video games or in the real world. Why do action movies have so much appeal? Why is war war? Hmm.

Check out footage of the new Street Fighter. It's beautiful. I say beautiful because it has a certain deliberate brush stroke element to it. The developers have taken the concept of the brush stroke, color slashing onto the canvas as a violent concept, and made it their own.



SPORTS GAMES

I'm kind of bias here. Probably because I suck at sports games. But, I also find it ironic that some people would rather play sports games than actually go outside and play sports. Perhaps there's a fantasy element here, for those who suck at actual physical sports (I suck at physical sports too, but I do enjoy watching a good boxing or MMA match from time to time).

Sports games have become super realistic, far from Tecmo Bowl, released in the 80's.



Nowadays, when you're playing an NFL or NBA video game, your team's ability to perform will be affected by the real life team's performance. Real life game stats are downloaded from the internet and the video game system translates the numbers into your player's ability to make that free throw, or to make that punt. How does the game do that? I have no idea. But, it's fun for those who buy them.

Another realistic aspect about contemporary sports games is the draft and player trade. You can actually trade players with other teams like the real team owners do. To me, things like that are too much, like customizing weapons in RPG's. Really, do you need things like that? Some people say hell yeah, some people say not really. It's diversity at work here, party people. Difference. And that's beautiful.

Particularly, John Madden Football video games have been around since the 80's and have been evolving ever since. A big national video game tournament has been created using the Madden football game and has lasted through the 90's to now. Culture at work here, people meet from all around the country to share gaming tips, to play against one another, and really enjoy an aspect of gaming in a peaceful manner.



Other sports games have been released from the super realistic Grand Turismo racing game where you can customize your cars down to the weight differential, to the cartoon boxing game Facebreaker. Google them up if you'd like. I'm not going to spend time with them here. I've taken a lot of your time already.

PARTY GAMES

Ah, the last niche to fill. Party games have been around for a very long time. My personal reccolection begins at Anticipation, which was released on the Nintendo Entertainment System.



The game when something like: you or another player rolled the dice and your marker (think the dog, thimble or cannon in Monopoly) jumped square by square to land on a 'mini-game'. I remember one mini-game where you had to guess what the pencil was drawing before time ran out. Things like Ice Cream, or Horn, etc. If you win, you get points. The one with most points in the end wins the bigger game. Can you dig it? I knew that you would.

Party Games, however, never really had a large following until the late 90's. Games like Mario Party came out, which followed the 'roll-the-dice and mini-game' model, and the momentum just built from there. Now, Dance Dance Revolution and Rock Band are out and Party Games have become a dominating genre in video games. This is because of the wide appeal of party games. You don't have to know specific control configuations or how certain game mechanics work. With party games, you usually only have to press buttons at a certain time, or you have dance a certain (goofy) way.





With party games, or 'casual games', I've mentioned Nintendo a lot. This is because unlike the Sony Playstation 3 and the Microsoft XBOX 360, Nintendo has focused aggressively on party games and, in my opinion, has been dominating this genre. That is a cool choice to make, as a gaming company. It definitely draws more people to play video games who are hesitant to play any other genre. As long as they can have fun with it, I believe, that's all that matters.

It also allows more open dialogue about video games. Some may think it's nerdy and anti-social, but then they pick up a guitar for Rock Band and say, "hey, I'm playing a video game and I'm having fun." I say, "in your FACE." Just kidding. Seriously, though, I do think that the gaming culture is a legitimate culture. As I said before, conventions and tournaments have been created to celebrate the artistic achievements of games and game developers. This is why I'm spending so much time talking to you about it, party people. I hope some will come away with this discussion at least respecting it. You don't have to like it, but you must respect it. Because there's a lot of us gamers out there. And we'll get you one way or another. Just kidding again. But seriously. . .

Peace and God Bless.

P.S. Party People, I might get yelled at for not mentioning this: there are many more genres of video games out there. I chose to discuss the ones that have gotten a lot of mainstream exposure and have a very large following in my opinion. But there are the 'indies' and 'special subjects' of video games too. Check out Massive Multiplayer Online games or Real Time Strategy games and you'll understand that this study can go on forever. I leave it up to those who are really interested. Can we say, The Great Build, pt. 3?