What genres of video games do you think are in danger of extinction in the coming years?
Notable genres that have been lost since the advent of 3D are side scrolling beat-em-ups, 2D fighting games, point-and-click adventures… Ok, some of these exist today, but only in very, very limited quantities. Scrolling shoot-em-ups used to be everywhere… now you have to hunt them down.
Isometric platform games… GONE.
Button bashing Track and Field style games… GONE.
I reckon the genre most in danger now is the 3D fighting game… with only Virtua Fighter, Soul Calibre and Tekken flying the flag. These are popular titles, but without competition in the marketplace, they will quickly become stale. In ten years, will we be saying, “God, I wish someone would make a new 3D fighter… there hasnt been anything since Tekken 7”…
For a lot of these examples, it seems equivalent to saying, “The 8 bit genre is dying out!” Side-scrolling beat-'em-ups have been replaced by top-down beat 'em ups like X-Men Legends or Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance. It’s exactly the same sort of gameplay, except with extra axises of movement.
The Graphical Adventure game is pretty much disapearing. Of the two main companies that produced adventure games during the golden age in the 90’s, Sierra and LucasArts, Sierra is no more, and LucasArts doesn’t produce anything but StarWars games.
I would kill for a good adventure game like Loom, Sam&Max, DOTT, Fate Of Atlantis, the middle King Quests and Space Quests.
The isometric pixel style is around, especially in Strategy RPGs (Nippon Ichi games, anyone?).
New 2-D fighting games may not come out as often, but they’re still quite popular. (The Capcom versus and Guilty Gear titles especially.)
Point and click has pretty much migrated onto the web as Flash games.
Repeating what someone else has said about side-scrollers - they just have an extra dimension of movement now, that’s all. And with the DS being such a popular system, they’re not disappearing any time soon. (Note that the first games to appear on handhelds tend to be adaptations or straight ports of sidescrollers.)
I’m still waiting for another good 3-D adventure game that was as cool to play as Super Mario 64. (Luigi’s Mansion is fun, but I suspect that if I weren’t such a staunch Luigi fan I wouldn’t find it as amusing.)
Turned-based RPGs are not going away any time soon, because there’s still people who like to play in that style–me, for one. I dislike the frantic button mashing of real-time games; FF’s “Active Battle System” irks me a bit as being neither fish nor fowl, but most of the time I can live with it.
Anyway…I was going to nominate other pure “simulation” games, but with the “Tycoon” series, and some upcoming works by Maxis, I suppose it’s still got some life in it yet. (I still want SimEarth 2000, though.)
Anyway…I was going to nominate other pure “simulation” games, but with the “Tycoon” series, and some upcoming works by Maxis, I suppose it’s still got some life in it yet. (I still want SimEarth 2000, though. )
2d fighting games are still coming out, although the interest is somewhat niche. Guilty Gear has a new iteration come out every few months. Samurai Shodown (sic) keeps coming out, and they are still 2d as far as I know.
This is absolutely correct. I can’t imagine why they haven’t done it yet. With the advances both in planetary sciences, and in computing power and graphics, this game could be AWESOME!!!
WATCH! As lifeforms slowly spread across the planet.
GAZE! In awe as evolution gradually brings intelligence to the world.
OGLE! In wonder as cities gradually spread across the face of the planet.
and of course…
LAUGH! As you drop volcano’s, earthquakes, meteor strikes and nuclear blasts to the party!
Hie thee to a Nintendo Wii and its Virtual Console series. I’m seriously debating whether to get Streets of Rage and Gradius this week…
Here’s one that was just released a few months ago.
Try Rayman Raving Rabbids for the Wii. Lots of minigames/events that involve frantically waving your controllers with the same ol’ Track-and-Field intensity.
IMO, the games are still there, you just need to know where to look. I’m personally thrilled at the current resurgence of 2D platform titles on the Nintendo DS – New Super Mario Bros., Yoshi’s Island DS, and the upcoming Wario: Master of Disguise are just the tip of the iceberg.
City builder games are pretty much dead, and I don’t mean God games like Spore and Black & White. Caesar IV just game out but it’s pretty mediocre.
Adventure games, while on life support, have shown promise in the past few years. Some of the excellent recent titles are:
Sam & Max episodes 1 and 2
Syberia 1 and 2
The Longest Journey 1 and 2
Runaway
The Moment of Silence
Keepsake
Phoenix Wright (for DS)
justadventure.com is a great resource for adventure games. I spent months scouring the bottom shelves of EB looking for tasty unwanted gems.
I’d kill for a good PC RPG with deep turn based battles like Fallout. None of that pseudo real-time crap that’s in Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights.
The glorified delivery-person type games, such as Kings Quest are gone. I won’t really miss them. Collect a bunch of stuff. Redistribute it. Win! Yeah, I won’t miss that genre at all.
The [often isometric] party based, turn based, RPG is just about gone. Isometric isn’t such a huge loss as long as the camera controls allows you to get a view to your liking. But classic turn based RPG’s are gone if favor of various degrees of action RPG’s. After years of success, and soon after examples of real excellence such as BGII and Planescape: Torment, these games are gone. These I’ll miss.
Mashing the buttons real time in a game like Oblivion is fun. But I also like the quite different experience of strategizing your way through a difficult battle without time constraints. I also prefer party interaction to a solo wanderer.
I agree with what people have said about role playing games, flight simulators, and adventure games. All of those genres were thriving when I “came of age” playing video games and now they are extinct. That makes me sad.
Does anyone else remember wargames? Like, turned-based, hex-based strategy games? Panzer General and such? Whatever happened to those? I never played them and I don’t do so now, so I lack perfect knowledge of that area.
Here’s a couple of thousand you can download for free. There’s a hobbyist community that keeps writing new ones, but its a labor of love. No makes any money off it.
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