as always with these things, you can take it with a grain of salt. i like strategy (really tactical) rpgs, for instance, but i can't stand action rpgs. most adventure games are lol to me, but then there's that whole "metroid prime" thing. (you know, the one that caused us all to meet and build these things.)

cool idea though. works great too. need to see more of this out there.

yeah mine's also pretty weird because i ranked strategy relatively low even though several strategy games are among my favorite ever (the heroes of might and magic series comes to mind). rpgs are also very hit or miss for me; some are mind-numbingly atrocious while others are again among my favorite games. same with shooters really.


like the page says, i'm working on adding more categories— the 10 on there are the ones from nintendo power several years ago, scanned icons and all.
i want to keep it fairly general though so there won't be more than 15, max. only reason there aren't more there already is because i don't have the time to make original icons.

rhythm/music definitely warrants an icon, as well as extreme sports to differentiate from games like madden or nhl. i don't really care for those games, but i love eg tony hawk's pro skater, and the gameplay's way different.
also thinking about survival horror and separating fps from other shooters. any thoughts?

yeah that's what i want to avoid. might change arcade to "arcade shooters" (ie shmups) because other arcade games usually fall into one of the other genres.

That's a good point about shooters and FPS games, because there's a huge difference between something like Half-Life and Super Metroid, for example. Took me a minute to realize shmups is shoot-em-ups, which would be a Duke Nukem style game right? That would basically turn SHOOTER into three categories if I'm seeing this right, but it is one of the more diverse genres in gaming so it may be warranted.

The only thing I'd possibly suggest with RPGs, if you split it even once, would be something like American/Western RPG vs Japan/Eastern RPG, because I believe there are pretty different play styles in them if I understand right. (I don't play Final Fantasy or many JRPGs so I couldn't tell you how different they really are in the end.)

Ouch: Even with these few changes you'd already be at what, 13 or 14 categories even before the ones you already plan on adding? I definitely agree with Nate though about not going crazy with these, because not only would they be so focused it's not funny, but trying to sort anything over perhaps 20 max would be insane in my opinion, since I had a hard enough time with these ones. Depending on how much you're willing to split these 10 categories I'd say 20 of them would be adequate. Basically, if you split anything it should be because there are definite diversities between games in the same base genre, like the shooter/FPS idea.

I kinda agree with Prime Hunter. When I think "W RPG" I actually think "Baldur's Gate" - don't think that can be put into the same genre with J RPGs.



Adventures rated highly because of Metroid Prime. I forgot the Zelda games are adventures too, so whatever.

Tells you how much I know about shmups huh? (I was thinking more along the lines of the old-school FPS games where you're a superpowerful guy simply blowing away enemy after enemy without much of a plot or story involved, but that really is an FPS at its core even to this day.) You're talking about the ones like Galaga where you're one fighter against thousands of enemies and you can gain more firepower as you go along, right? I'd definitely consider those different from most other games.

And as far as shooter is concerned, Metroid was a bad example. Contra would probably be a better choice though, or something like Star Fox. (Typically called an on-rails shooter... How'd I forget that last night?) Either way they're still different from FPS/shmup games. (Although Star Fox kind of does the same thing as Galaga but from a different perspective, now that I really stop to think about it.)



I had something like KOTOR or Mass Effect in mind for Western RPG, but turn based VS action probably fits better as a divider since I think that's what I really had in mind here. Something like Pokemon, which is still an RPG at its most basic form, is clearly different from those two I mentioned. (Or a Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment kind of game. Too bad I never did play Torment though, but from what I remember seeing it fits into that description.)

heh, contra's a platformer i guess, but i'd call it more of a run-and-gun (which some people call shoot-em-up). metal slug even more so.

I've considered Super Metroid more of an action/adventure because of its focus on exploration and bossfights. Then again I've also considered Mega Man a platformer, but is it technically a shooter? Does Jackal count as an Arcade/Shmups? It's hard to say.

Of course if you ask my brother, Dr. Mario is a Role Playing Game. >_<

I guess the distinction comes from the emphasis on each action within each game.  Megaman has more focus on jumping to negotiate the platforms toward a given goal, where as Contra is aimed more at gunning everything down while negotiating the level.

Shooters is incorporating all of them at the moment, as it doesn't distinguish between first person (Half Life, Unreal) or scrolling shooters (R-Type, Gigawing).

That's why I moved it down my list, as if it were just FPS's, I'd have them at the top.

what would i consider a shooter? any shmup (r-type, ikaruga), any on-rails shooter (house of the dead, star fox), any third-person action game with a focus on shooting (re4, gears of war), any fps (doom, half-life). i generally don't classify most side-scrollers as shooters because they usually are just platformers with guns. there are some exceptions though, like metal slug, which is definitely a shooter.

'arcade' is vague but i think it serves a good purpose. defender is a shooting game yes, but it's got very simple gameplay, graphics, lives system, difficulty, etc that put it under 'arcade'. totally different feel from later shooters. the same can be said for other arcade games.