The biggest problem with video games in the year 2011 was that it seems that most game developers are making games that fall into two or three genres and other genres are dying out. Some of the genres that are disappearing are some of my favorite genres. Other dying genres are not genres I particularly care about but I’m all for the video game industry having as much diversity as possible. Among these genres there are five that I hope can somehow rebound and have a new resurgence.
Beat Em Up
Many of today’s video game fans are my age and grew up playing video games in the arcade, on the NES and on the SNES and Genesis. Those people at some point in time loved Beat Em Up games. Of course in those days Double Dragon, Streets of Rage and other Beat Em Ups were a pretty new concept. Today the technology in the video game industry makes Beat Em Ups seem a little “simple” but if done correctly there could still be a great Beat Em Up game that is traditional but also new.
Music Games
Remember when every video game conversation was centered on Guitar Hero and Rock Band? Now it seems that the video game fans have moved past music games and have now moved on to dancing and fitness games. It’s a shame because Guitar Hero is largely responsible for this new genre of motion games. It’s also unfortunate because the technology has improved enough in the last few years that there are even cooler music games-like the Rocksmith-but most gamers have moved on.
JRPGs
For those that are not familiar with the lingo a JRPG is more of a traditional style roleplaying game where a menu pops up and you choose whether you want to attack, use magic, use an item or so on. Admittedly today’s RPGs are more advanced and are a lot of fun but I’d also still like to see some of the more traditional JRPGs too.
Survival Horror
I’ve never been a big fan of games where you just pick up a gun and start blowing things up. It just seems too simple. The reason I loved survival horror is because your weapons were always very limited and that heightened the stakes. When the survival horror genre started it was about being in closed dark spaces with just a few rounds of ammo while these creepy creatures came after you. Like so many of the other genres the survival horror genre has “evolved” and now Resident Evil is becoming more like Call of Duty except all the enemies are uglier.
Maze Games
Who doesn’t love Pac-Man? In those days there were a lot of maze games. Maze games were games in which you had a board with different directions the player could navigate in order to dodge enemies to reach some kind of item. There was Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Burger Time and many others. Perhaps this sort of game seems too simple to charge the hefty price of a full video game but I’d like to see some video game developer take a stab at a new enhanced 2012 style maze game.