Before I get started, to the administrators, and The Escapist community at large: I know calling this a review is stretching the definition a little bit, and I'm asking for some leeway regarding it. This seemed like really the best forum to put something like this, the place where it would be the most read, and possibly have the most effect. I appreciate it if you can cut me a little slack, and understand if you can't.
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This is a review of video gaming styles, and a sort of guide to help aspirant gamers determine where they ought to consider starting with gaming, lest they get frustrated by the experience and turn away from it forever.
A little about me: I'm 24 years old, and I've been a gamer of some kind for at least 18 years of that. I got my start on things like The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros., Caterpillar, and Marble Madness for the NES. Since then, I've owned or played to some extent on almost every major console system as it was released between the NES and the Playstation 3. My first PC experience came with Doom on the ancient Jaguar, and in arcades, I've probably fired over 5 million rounds in various shooters.
I'm hardly the best or even smartest gamer in the world, but I do think I have a fairly long and broad range of experience with the hobby, and I'd like to try and share some of what I've learned over the years without sounding too much like that little bald asshole from The Princess Bride.
So ya wanna be a gamer huh? You see the rest of us having a ball with things like Wii sports, blowing the heads off headcrab zombies, and running for our freaking lives from some guy with a HUGE ass butterknife and a pyramid for a head. You've heard about our gatherings like PAX and the now-defunct E3, you've heard how much fun gaming can be and you want in on that, but you're not sure where to start. Well, you've come to the right place.
Let's start with what the basic video gaming styles are. Nearly all video games, and the areas in which gamers regularly excel can broken down into five categories: Role-Playing Game, Strategy, Action/Adventure, Survival Horror, and First Person Shooter.
Keep in mind that list is very basic, and each one of those styles could easily be broken down into 10 different sub-styles.
LAYOUT:
1. Role-Playing games are generally games where you level up and increase/customize various performance aspects of a character you control. If that definition seems kind of broad, it's intentional. Properly categorizing RPG's would involve so many exceptions and addendums that this post would resemble a copy of Roget's Thesaurus by the time I was done. Most of it would just be fodder for debate between purists anyways. Trust me, you're better off without it.
2. Strategy games sometimes combine an element of RPG, like Everquest or World of Warcraft. but most like to stick with what they know. The Command and Conquer series is probably the best-known example of a strategy game, being what's called "Real Time Strategy", since events in the game happen while the player is struggling not to succumb to panic and make quick, organized decisions. Other strategy games are long time staples like the Civilization series, or the Medieval line of games. Heck, even Monopoly and Scrabble would fall under this heading.
3. Action/Adventure is a pretty general listing, and as such covers a long list of games. Assassin's Creed, Beyond Good and Evil, Legacy of Kain, every Mario and Zelda game ever made... the list goes on and on. With this type of game, linearity takes a back seat to gameplay, and the sheer fun of gaming leaps right to the front. These games often have time to focus on a decent story, and often move at a faster pace than something like strategy or RPG.
4. Survival Horror. To most gamers these two words almost universally equate to two franchises: Resident Evil and Silent Hill. These games are not for the faint of heart, they require people who can keep their cool under scary, high pressure situations, and who understand the concept of resource management. This style of game often puts you against overwhelming odds with only a minimum of armaments and your wits, and expects you to survive.
5. ...and that brings me to my personal style, First Person Shooters. This is sort of the "football league" of gaming, where all the "hardcore" gamers usually hang out. Your point of view is always through the eyes of the character you control, and this style emphasizes fast-paced combat and quick thinking above all other considerations. This is not where I'd recommend a new gamer to start honestly.
Spouting gamerspeak and quoting stats, facts, and trivia about the various gaming styles is fun to a point, but if you're new to this then you probably got bored after my first few sentences, which makes me wonder why the hell I wasted my precious time writing them.
So let's talk about what these styles might mean to you in a more practical sense, and maybe that'll help you decide where to start your hobby.
ROLE-PLAYING GAMES
Playing an RPG of any kind is like taking part in the creation of a great work of art, an epic story. There's a lot of fun, and sometimes a lot of thought-provoking situations to be coaxed from these, but bear in mind it will be awfully time consuming to do so. AWFULLY. Like "buy-a-pocket-rocket-say-goodbye-to-your-social-life-and-the-prospect-of-ever-having-sex-again" awfully. Most RPG's clock in at around 40-80 hours to complete. IF you skip the optional sidequests. The larger juggernauts can debit your life account of 120+ hours.
Of course you're not expected to play through something that long in one sitting, and most gamers don't, instead taking it in pieces. It's like reading a book, you accomplish a little, put it down, come back when you have some more time, and accomplish a little more. My first time playing Final Fantasy VIII, it took me three months of on-again off-again playing to finish.
*chuckles* People are gonna skewer me for this, but RPG's also don't require a whole lot of prescient thought to play. Japanese RPG's (JRPG's for you Yahtzee watchers) are pretty linear, sidequests notwithstanding, and about the only areas that'll force you to work your brain will be in the combat. Gathering intelligence and making the best tactical decisions you can, these sound like something you'd do on a battlefield, but RPG's, particularly those that use turn-based combat, require the same type of thought, even if not on the same level.
In my opinion the rewards are worth it, (particularly for the Final Fantasy series) even if you're just playing to complete the story, but if you don't have the time, or you don't want to commit the kind of time this style requires (understandable), then maybe it's best to leave these alone for now. They won't be going anywhere, so you can always come back if you have a change of heart.
STRATEGY GAMES
Strategy video games are a lot like chess, usually with at least two opposing sides, each trying to overcome the other in a series of tactical situations or individual battles. If you're a student of military doctrine, or like you studying the substance and tactics of historical battles, then this is a style that'll let you show off all you've learned in a real, high pressure world of combat.
Maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but strategy games will definitely make you think outside the box, and if you DO happen to be someone who knows the strategic value of an elevated position, or what "choke points" and "islands" are, then you'll certainly have an edge. But you don't have to be General Patton's long lost grandson to excel at these and have fun. Most strategy games are designed to be intuitive, helping a new player learn what to do, how to accomplish basic tasks, and otherwise ease them in without making them feel overwhelmed or stupid. While, as with most games, there will be experienced players who've mastered the finer details of this style, you don't have to be one of them to win and have fun.
All that said, strategy games require you to be able to manage resources, and multitask heavily. You will have to keep several tasks happening at once at the forefront of your thoughts, and be capable of monitoring three, four, five different things all happening and changing at the same time.
While you don't have to be a genius for this style, you do need to be able to handle at least that much, otherwise you'll find yourself getting frustrated when 17 things start going wrong all at once, and your fun time starts to crumble around you like a gingerbread house. On the upside, strategy games are nowhere near as long as RPG's. Rolling down the storyline/campaign mode of a strategy game might take you as long as 13-20 hours. It's still longer than you'd want to sit in a chair for, but by no means are you gonna donate months of your life away here. I think the longest I ever spent in a single battle for a real-time strategy game was two hours, and most clock in at around 40 minutes.
This would be a good place to start if you'd like a game that'll test your ability to operate under pressure. And the more comfortable you get with that, the more fun you'll ultimately have playing here.
ACTION/ADVENTURE
Some people are more carefree about the type of gaming they want to do. Managing resources, multitasking, and scrutinizing every piece of godawful plate metal and leather you trip over for benefits might appeal to some gamers, (obviously it must) but you're not one of them. You want your gaming experience simple and to the point, not because you're too thick for "deeper" gaming experience, but because doing all of the above amounts to menial busy work for you, and you get enough of that at the office.
Enter the action/adventure genre. As I mentioned above, the number of games than could fall under this heading are so numerous, and this categorization so vague that to try and comprehensively review it would be a waste of time. Instead, I'll just try to cover some of the more commonly encountered aspects of this gaming style.
This type of game is meant to give you the controls, give you an idea of what you're immediately supposed to do, and GO. Sometimes they include RPG elements such as leveling up, or optimizing certain stats with certain equipment, but these aspects are drastically simplified when compared to an RPG. Everything is more dynamic in an action/adventure game, from movement to combat, and even things like traveling great distances occur on a smaller, faster scale. Most of these games, you'll encounter enemies like any other, and combat will happen right there on the spot, as opposed to on some isolated battlefield you're whisked away to.
With a few notable exceptions (Legacy of Kain, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time) don't expect a particularly involving story to enthrall you here, especially for action games. The stories told by these games are rarely weak, but they also fail to reach the level of epic novel, finding a sort of happy medium in between.
An Action/Adventure game is a good start for a new gamer; there's very little to be intimidated by, the sheer functions of the game from start to finish are easy to figure out, and because they often move at a faster pace compared to other games, you can pick them up at almost any time and have at least a little bit of fun with a minimal of fuss.
SURVIVAL HORROR
Ah, now we're getting into some fun. At the opposite end of the spectrum from Action/Adventure lies this style, and with it a whole new list of surprises. Far from being as aloof and carefree as the Action/Adventure genre, Survival Horror games are always of a more serious tone, emphasizing use of your wits, your ability to carefully manage and deploy a very limited amount of resources, and your ability to remain calm under tense situations.
They're not necessarily difficult in the traditional sense, being that they revolve more around fright and waging psychological war on the player than ramping up a challenge, so if you feel like you've got the nerves, even a relatively new gamer could leap into these and be fine for the most part.
And I do mean "nerves". Some games in this style can be pretty intense as far the fear factor goes, Silent Hill 2 and F.E.A.R. being notable examples. Survival horror games are often worlds beyond the low-rent fear cinema often evokes, primarily because A) They take place in a more serious, real-world setting, and B) you're not just a spectator with these games, but a participant. Don't underestimate the psychological power of that principle, because if you let them (and you should), these games can take you on a horror carnival ride that'll have you scared to sleep with the lights off.
FIRST PERSON SHOOTER
Strictly action oriented, FPS gamers are kinda considered the jocks of the gaming world, but to assume this assigns a degree of simplicity to FPS games that really isn't fair. I know at first glance it's easy to call these "mindless shooters", but after you've played a few, you start realizing there's a depth of strategy, prescient thought, and creative problem solving involved that completely negates that moniker.
Suffice to say, surviving in an FPS is tough, and if you're a new gamer, and I mean new as in, "my only gaming experience up to this point has been Bejeweled and Duck Hunt", I EMPHATICALLY recommend you start somewhere else. The learning curve here is steep and unforgiving, and most new gamers are apt to get discouraged with gaming altogether after their eleventy billionth death at the hands of some imp five minutes in.
For example, in most modern FPS's, (that is an FPS made within the last five years) some of the most basic required skills are: Being able to fire while moving, circle-strafing, remembering to reload, and careful ammunition management. This isn't even getting into more advanced techniques, like using and firing from cover, or being able to spot environment advantages like exploding barrels and take advantage of them, or setting traps and springing them.
These are skills most gamers hone over many hours of gameplay, and even on the easiest difficulties, most modern FPS's will still frustrate new gamers until they get the hang of moving, shooting, and reacting quickly.
So now you have a basic rundown on what the most common gaming styles are, and in order of learning difficulty for a new gamer, it goes something like: Action/Adventure, RPG Strategy, Survival Horror, and FPS. Keep in mind that this isn't a comprehensive list, and the world of video gaming is varied enough that something can be found for even the most discerning of people. If you're a prospective gaming initiate reading this, don't get discouraged. No matter what you like doing, from the simplest tasks to performing university-level algebra, from killing to surviving to playing tic-tac-toe, there's something for you.
That said, welcome to the fold.
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This is a review of video gaming styles, and a sort of guide to help aspirant gamers determine where they ought to consider starting with gaming, lest they get frustrated by the experience and turn away from it forever.
A little about me: I'm 24 years old, and I've been a gamer of some kind for at least 18 years of that. I got my start on things like The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros., Caterpillar, and Marble Madness for the NES. Since then, I've owned or played to some extent on almost every major console system as it was released between the NES and the Playstation 3. My first PC experience came with Doom on the ancient Jaguar, and in arcades, I've probably fired over 5 million rounds in various shooters.
I'm hardly the best or even smartest gamer in the world, but I do think I have a fairly long and broad range of experience with the hobby, and I'd like to try and share some of what I've learned over the years without sounding too much like that little bald asshole from The Princess Bride.
So ya wanna be a gamer huh? You see the rest of us having a ball with things like Wii sports, blowing the heads off headcrab zombies, and running for our freaking lives from some guy with a HUGE ass butterknife and a pyramid for a head. You've heard about our gatherings like PAX and the now-defunct E3, you've heard how much fun gaming can be and you want in on that, but you're not sure where to start. Well, you've come to the right place.
Let's start with what the basic video gaming styles are. Nearly all video games, and the areas in which gamers regularly excel can broken down into five categories: Role-Playing Game, Strategy, Action/Adventure, Survival Horror, and First Person Shooter.
Keep in mind that list is very basic, and each one of those styles could easily be broken down into 10 different sub-styles.
LAYOUT:
1. Role-Playing games are generally games where you level up and increase/customize various performance aspects of a character you control. If that definition seems kind of broad, it's intentional. Properly categorizing RPG's would involve so many exceptions and addendums that this post would resemble a copy of Roget's Thesaurus by the time I was done. Most of it would just be fodder for debate between purists anyways. Trust me, you're better off without it.
2. Strategy games sometimes combine an element of RPG, like Everquest or World of Warcraft. but most like to stick with what they know. The Command and Conquer series is probably the best-known example of a strategy game, being what's called "Real Time Strategy", since events in the game happen while the player is struggling not to succumb to panic and make quick, organized decisions. Other strategy games are long time staples like the Civilization series, or the Medieval line of games. Heck, even Monopoly and Scrabble would fall under this heading.
3. Action/Adventure is a pretty general listing, and as such covers a long list of games. Assassin's Creed, Beyond Good and Evil, Legacy of Kain, every Mario and Zelda game ever made... the list goes on and on. With this type of game, linearity takes a back seat to gameplay, and the sheer fun of gaming leaps right to the front. These games often have time to focus on a decent story, and often move at a faster pace than something like strategy or RPG.
4. Survival Horror. To most gamers these two words almost universally equate to two franchises: Resident Evil and Silent Hill. These games are not for the faint of heart, they require people who can keep their cool under scary, high pressure situations, and who understand the concept of resource management. This style of game often puts you against overwhelming odds with only a minimum of armaments and your wits, and expects you to survive.
5. ...and that brings me to my personal style, First Person Shooters. This is sort of the "football league" of gaming, where all the "hardcore" gamers usually hang out. Your point of view is always through the eyes of the character you control, and this style emphasizes fast-paced combat and quick thinking above all other considerations. This is not where I'd recommend a new gamer to start honestly.
Spouting gamerspeak and quoting stats, facts, and trivia about the various gaming styles is fun to a point, but if you're new to this then you probably got bored after my first few sentences, which makes me wonder why the hell I wasted my precious time writing them.
So let's talk about what these styles might mean to you in a more practical sense, and maybe that'll help you decide where to start your hobby.
ROLE-PLAYING GAMES
Playing an RPG of any kind is like taking part in the creation of a great work of art, an epic story. There's a lot of fun, and sometimes a lot of thought-provoking situations to be coaxed from these, but bear in mind it will be awfully time consuming to do so. AWFULLY. Like "buy-a-pocket-rocket-say-goodbye-to-your-social-life-and-the-prospect-of-ever-having-sex-again" awfully. Most RPG's clock in at around 40-80 hours to complete. IF you skip the optional sidequests. The larger juggernauts can debit your life account of 120+ hours.
Of course you're not expected to play through something that long in one sitting, and most gamers don't, instead taking it in pieces. It's like reading a book, you accomplish a little, put it down, come back when you have some more time, and accomplish a little more. My first time playing Final Fantasy VIII, it took me three months of on-again off-again playing to finish.
*chuckles* People are gonna skewer me for this, but RPG's also don't require a whole lot of prescient thought to play. Japanese RPG's (JRPG's for you Yahtzee watchers) are pretty linear, sidequests notwithstanding, and about the only areas that'll force you to work your brain will be in the combat. Gathering intelligence and making the best tactical decisions you can, these sound like something you'd do on a battlefield, but RPG's, particularly those that use turn-based combat, require the same type of thought, even if not on the same level.
In my opinion the rewards are worth it, (particularly for the Final Fantasy series) even if you're just playing to complete the story, but if you don't have the time, or you don't want to commit the kind of time this style requires (understandable), then maybe it's best to leave these alone for now. They won't be going anywhere, so you can always come back if you have a change of heart.
STRATEGY GAMES
Strategy video games are a lot like chess, usually with at least two opposing sides, each trying to overcome the other in a series of tactical situations or individual battles. If you're a student of military doctrine, or like you studying the substance and tactics of historical battles, then this is a style that'll let you show off all you've learned in a real, high pressure world of combat.
Maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but strategy games will definitely make you think outside the box, and if you DO happen to be someone who knows the strategic value of an elevated position, or what "choke points" and "islands" are, then you'll certainly have an edge. But you don't have to be General Patton's long lost grandson to excel at these and have fun. Most strategy games are designed to be intuitive, helping a new player learn what to do, how to accomplish basic tasks, and otherwise ease them in without making them feel overwhelmed or stupid. While, as with most games, there will be experienced players who've mastered the finer details of this style, you don't have to be one of them to win and have fun.
All that said, strategy games require you to be able to manage resources, and multitask heavily. You will have to keep several tasks happening at once at the forefront of your thoughts, and be capable of monitoring three, four, five different things all happening and changing at the same time.
While you don't have to be a genius for this style, you do need to be able to handle at least that much, otherwise you'll find yourself getting frustrated when 17 things start going wrong all at once, and your fun time starts to crumble around you like a gingerbread house. On the upside, strategy games are nowhere near as long as RPG's. Rolling down the storyline/campaign mode of a strategy game might take you as long as 13-20 hours. It's still longer than you'd want to sit in a chair for, but by no means are you gonna donate months of your life away here. I think the longest I ever spent in a single battle for a real-time strategy game was two hours, and most clock in at around 40 minutes.
This would be a good place to start if you'd like a game that'll test your ability to operate under pressure. And the more comfortable you get with that, the more fun you'll ultimately have playing here.
ACTION/ADVENTURE
Some people are more carefree about the type of gaming they want to do. Managing resources, multitasking, and scrutinizing every piece of godawful plate metal and leather you trip over for benefits might appeal to some gamers, (obviously it must) but you're not one of them. You want your gaming experience simple and to the point, not because you're too thick for "deeper" gaming experience, but because doing all of the above amounts to menial busy work for you, and you get enough of that at the office.
Enter the action/adventure genre. As I mentioned above, the number of games than could fall under this heading are so numerous, and this categorization so vague that to try and comprehensively review it would be a waste of time. Instead, I'll just try to cover some of the more commonly encountered aspects of this gaming style.
This type of game is meant to give you the controls, give you an idea of what you're immediately supposed to do, and GO. Sometimes they include RPG elements such as leveling up, or optimizing certain stats with certain equipment, but these aspects are drastically simplified when compared to an RPG. Everything is more dynamic in an action/adventure game, from movement to combat, and even things like traveling great distances occur on a smaller, faster scale. Most of these games, you'll encounter enemies like any other, and combat will happen right there on the spot, as opposed to on some isolated battlefield you're whisked away to.
With a few notable exceptions (Legacy of Kain, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time) don't expect a particularly involving story to enthrall you here, especially for action games. The stories told by these games are rarely weak, but they also fail to reach the level of epic novel, finding a sort of happy medium in between.
An Action/Adventure game is a good start for a new gamer; there's very little to be intimidated by, the sheer functions of the game from start to finish are easy to figure out, and because they often move at a faster pace compared to other games, you can pick them up at almost any time and have at least a little bit of fun with a minimal of fuss.
SURVIVAL HORROR
Ah, now we're getting into some fun. At the opposite end of the spectrum from Action/Adventure lies this style, and with it a whole new list of surprises. Far from being as aloof and carefree as the Action/Adventure genre, Survival Horror games are always of a more serious tone, emphasizing use of your wits, your ability to carefully manage and deploy a very limited amount of resources, and your ability to remain calm under tense situations.
They're not necessarily difficult in the traditional sense, being that they revolve more around fright and waging psychological war on the player than ramping up a challenge, so if you feel like you've got the nerves, even a relatively new gamer could leap into these and be fine for the most part.
And I do mean "nerves". Some games in this style can be pretty intense as far the fear factor goes, Silent Hill 2 and F.E.A.R. being notable examples. Survival horror games are often worlds beyond the low-rent fear cinema often evokes, primarily because A) They take place in a more serious, real-world setting, and B) you're not just a spectator with these games, but a participant. Don't underestimate the psychological power of that principle, because if you let them (and you should), these games can take you on a horror carnival ride that'll have you scared to sleep with the lights off.
FIRST PERSON SHOOTER
Strictly action oriented, FPS gamers are kinda considered the jocks of the gaming world, but to assume this assigns a degree of simplicity to FPS games that really isn't fair. I know at first glance it's easy to call these "mindless shooters", but after you've played a few, you start realizing there's a depth of strategy, prescient thought, and creative problem solving involved that completely negates that moniker.
Suffice to say, surviving in an FPS is tough, and if you're a new gamer, and I mean new as in, "my only gaming experience up to this point has been Bejeweled and Duck Hunt", I EMPHATICALLY recommend you start somewhere else. The learning curve here is steep and unforgiving, and most new gamers are apt to get discouraged with gaming altogether after their eleventy billionth death at the hands of some imp five minutes in.
For example, in most modern FPS's, (that is an FPS made within the last five years) some of the most basic required skills are: Being able to fire while moving, circle-strafing, remembering to reload, and careful ammunition management. This isn't even getting into more advanced techniques, like using and firing from cover, or being able to spot environment advantages like exploding barrels and take advantage of them, or setting traps and springing them.
These are skills most gamers hone over many hours of gameplay, and even on the easiest difficulties, most modern FPS's will still frustrate new gamers until they get the hang of moving, shooting, and reacting quickly.
So now you have a basic rundown on what the most common gaming styles are, and in order of learning difficulty for a new gamer, it goes something like: Action/Adventure, RPG Strategy, Survival Horror, and FPS. Keep in mind that this isn't a comprehensive list, and the world of video gaming is varied enough that something can be found for even the most discerning of people. If you're a prospective gaming initiate reading this, don't get discouraged. No matter what you like doing, from the simplest tasks to performing university-level algebra, from killing to surviving to playing tic-tac-toe, there's something for you.
That said, welcome to the fold.
