The sandbox game

Writing the "Gated game" post got me thinking more about video game genres.  While most AAA titles are variations on the gated game, there is a particular type of game where gates are not central to the game.  Like the gated game,  this genre of video game has so far gone without a proper name--you'll find them mostly in PC RPG's, inspired by the Ultima franchise and D&D.

I don't like the genre name "Role-Playing Game."  The name itself is both redundant and ambiguous, and the definition has been lost somewhere along the line.  RPG fans can contemplate what the standard is for a video game to be called an RPG; I'll make up my own definitions.

It doesn't matter if it's not gameplay

I'm not trying to be the blind man telling the others what an elephant looks like, but I think it's pretty clear so far that the aspect of video games I am most interested in is the game aspect.  By this I mean almost entirely the rules of the game.

The rules of a game are as central to the game (any game, not just a video game) as a plot to a novel and a melody to a song.  A game cannot be separated from its rules.  Anything that can be termed a game has rules.  The only question is, how good are they?

Versus Series 2: Games vs. Film

Since we've already established what a game is in the first installment of the Versus Series, we'll begin this one by looking at films first and then comparing the two.

The gated game

As mentioned briefly in Versus Series 1, there are four components to every game: 1) a goal; 2) a way to achieve the goal; 3) obstacles to the goal; and, 4) a way to bypass the obstacles.  Readers of that post may have wondered which video games I felt were lacking in one or more of these areas.  At this juncture, I won't fall into the trap of calling out specific titles--instead, I'm going to go after an entire genre: "action games."

Versus Series 1: Games vs. Toys

We're back after a hiatus caused by my limited access to the Internet.  During that time, I wrote more posts that I'll be posting on a more than weekly basis.

"Video games," "gamer," "gamertag," "Games for Windows," "GameStop," "Game Spot," "G4."  Anyone taking a casual survey of the "gaming" industry would say that its primary focus was making games.  You couldn't blame this casual surveyor, then, for being the blind man who judged the elephants of the gaming world according to how favorably they compared to non-electronic games.

That is, until your favorite "games" started coming up short.