Computer and Console Video Games

A video game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device. The electronic systems used to play video games are known as platforms; examples of these are personal computers and video game consoles. These platforms range from large computers and consoles to small handheld devices.

It all started simple games which has low quality graphics and sounds. They were played on devices like Amiga, Commodore 64, Atari… Later, lots of consoles like Sega Genesis, Sega MegaDrive, SNES bring games with much better 2D graphics in lots of colors and with nice music and sounds. Today, we have very powerful consoles like Sony Playstation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, etc with very realystic 3D graphics in millions of colors and you can enjoy high quality music and sounds that makes you feel like you’re in the game.

The input device used to manipulate video games is called a game controller, and varies across platforms. For example, a dedicated console controller might consist of only a button and a joystick. Another may feature a dozen buttons and one or more joysticks. Early personal computer games often needed a keyboard for gameplay, or more commonly, required the user to buy a separate joystick with at least one button. Many modern computer games allow, or even require, the player to use a keyboard and mouse simultaneously.

Video games typically also use other ways of providing interaction and information to the player. Audio is almost universal, using sound reproduction devices, such as speakers and headphones. But other feedback may come via haptic peripherals, such as vibration or force feedback, with vibration sometimes used to simulate force feedback.

A video game, like most other forms of media, may be categorized into genres based on many factors such as method of game play, types of goals, and more. Because genres are dependent on content for definition, genres have changed and evolved as newer styles of video games are created. As the production values of video games have increased over the years both in visual appearance and depth of story telling, the video game industry has been producing more life-like and complex games that push the boundaries of the traditional game genres. Some genres represent combinations of others, such as massively multiplayer online role-playing games. It is also common to see higher level genre terms that are collective in nature across all other genres such as with action or horror-themed video games.

Common Genres:

- Action
- Adventure
- Action-adventure
- First Person Shooter (FPS)
- Third Person Shooter (TPS)
- Fighting
- Real Time Strategy (RTS)
- Tactical Strategy
- Simulation
- Racing
- Role Playing Game (RPG)
- Fantasy RPG (FRP)
- Puzzle games
- Card games
- and many more…