HomeTop Tuesday: Favorite Video Game Genres
Top Tuesday: Favorite Video Game Genres
February 5, 2019 February 3, 2019 Rachel Home, Rachel, Top Tuesdayfavorite video game genres, gaming, video game genres, video games
Happy Tuesday & happy February!
I don't know why, but I was taking a look at the video games I've played throughout the years and wondered which genres of games I played the most of. Which, in turn, made me wonder which genres are my favorites. It's not exactly something I've really thought about before… there are just certain games I gravitate more so than others.
Looking at a list of video game genres to pin-point my favorites, I realized there's not a lot of "genres" but a lot of "subgenres." So, I've narrowed it down to just three to talk about.
No, I don't typically care for the sporty games where you play on a soccer team or basketball or anything of that sort. I mean I enjoy racing games and I'm good at them too. I loved Diddy Kong Racing back in the day and I absolutely love Mario Kart. That will always be a game I go back to. I'm not really sure why I enjoy racing games so much. I like the flow of them and I don't have to think as much, if that makes sense. Especially with Mario Kart, I enjoyed sitting back and turning the controller this way and that like a steering wheel and just cruise along the race track. It's casual and yet it can be totally tense at times. Plus, it's great to play with friends. Oh, any Wii Sports. I was in love with that game.
This one is no secret. I love a good role-playing game – Octopath Traveler and Pokemon are just a couple examples. It's funny though, because there aren't too many RPGs that I've really played. I've watched Kris play a ton, but I've never actually played a lot of them myself. Which I find interesting, especially since the main one I play is Pokemon and that doesn't seem to be your "typical" RPG. But, they're always fun to go back to and there's always plenty of things to do in the game which is one of the reasons I love them.
I don't want to rate any of these genres, but I think Simulation might be up there on being my all-time favorite. I can suck hours and hours into The Sims, Animal Crossing, and have found an appreciation for tycoon-type games, especially the business ones. These games are so relaxing and, if I'm to be brutally honest, I love being able to live a different life.It would be totally cool to write, edit, and publish a book in 30 hours like my Sim does.
You can't go wrong with action games. Fighting like Super Smash Brothers or platformers like any Super Mario game. I love adventure like The Legend of Zelda. I also enjoy strategy games to a certain point. I never really got into Fire Emblem, but I enjoyed what I played of them. Then again, I loved Pokemon Conquest. Go figure that one. I've also had a soft spot for party games and dance games.
Unless it's horror or rated M, I'll most likely try just about anything. But there will always be my certain favorites.
What are some of your favorite video game genres? Let me know in the comments below and if you liked this post, please share it around!
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2 thoughts on "Top Tuesday: Favorite Video Game Genres"
Ogreatgames.com says:
Hi Rachel. Neat post! I love racing games too, especially of course Forza Horizon games and Mario Kart particularly the eight installment. I've been wanting to try something new but similar to Mario kart and I've been eyeing on Crash Team Racing which is coming to Switch. As for RPGs, for me, Capcom's Dragon's Dogma and Nintendo's Breath of the Wild are unbeatable. Yeah, Octopath Traveler is good too. There's been a genre I'd also like to explore—Visual Novels.
quietschisto says:
My favourite genre by far ist Stealth. And I do not mean games where you have to stay hidden while killing bad guys (Sniper Elite, Assassin's Creed), but pure Stealth games where your objective is to leave absolutely no evidence of your presence (Splinter Cell, Mark of the Ninja, Hitman).
But the "king" of video game genre in my opinion is the RPG. There is just so much about them. First of all, they are meant to tell a story – your story. Video games have so many narrative advantages over "classic" media. Sure, there are other genres dedicated to storytelling (mainly Adventures), but most of the time they just tell one story, from start to finish and each playthrough is roughly the same.
But in RPGs, your actions have consequences. Each playthrough is different. Maybe you take a different team through Pokemon – wich changes the game completely. Maybe your decisions lead to completely different outcomes later in the story – which changes at least parts of the game completely. Maybe you play a different class/playstyle – which, again, changes your experience completely.
Which leads me to my second point – the diversity. No other genre can compete with the sheer range of gameplay possibilities in RPGs. You can have turn-based combat, more action-orented hack'n'slash gameplay, casting powerful spells, sneaking your way around, de-emphasize combat as much as you can, and much more.
Even without combat, there is a whole world to explore, people to talk to, items to collect and combine, pretty much anything you can dream up has been implemented into an RPG at one point or another. If the implementation made sense or was well executed…that's a whole other topic^^.
Wow, I REALLY went overboard there. Sorry. (I am not really sorry 🙂 )
Quietschisto