Gaming Genres You Haven’t Heard Of In a While

Fast-Paced 3D Deathmatch Shooters

You know, online multiplayer in shooting games used to be a much more straightforward affair. Players tearing around chunky corridors at breakneck speeds, firing overpowered weaponry at everything that moves, and using brief moments of downtime to type curse-words to strangers, all over a dial-up internet connection. A simpler time. Things have become a little more complicated since the days of Quake and Unreal. First they added flags that needed capturing, then weapon upgrades and vehicles, and the next thing you know you’re calling in bombing runs or building bases on the fly. Don’t get me started on dance emotes and purchasable skins, either. Of course, this does not compare to the current gaming economy, where players can even use third-party game boost service, but still. Honestly, while the purity of these old-school high-speed deathmatch shooters does have its merits, if you want to test something other than your caffeine-fueled trigger finger and ability to memorise extremely similar-looking corridors, you’re better off with a modern shooter. They have features like strategy and tactics to mix things up a bit. Not to mention chest-high walls. Now that’s excitement.

Helicopter Games

Alright, we know that these are more likely to be considered part of a larger genre, but bear with us for a moment. You see, there was a time when you couldn’t move for helicopter games, and do you know why? Because helicopters are cool. I mean, just look at them! They’ve got rotors, they’ve got smaller rotors, they can literally fly! It’s true. I’ve seen it. From Choplifter and Silkworm to Super Thunder Blade and Desert Stirke, whirlybird enthusiasts once had an embarrassment of riches to sate their rotor-based needs. While these chopper action games haven’t completely disappeared, they’re certainly fewer in number today. Buzzing all over like flies, they were. Pretty difficult to swat, though. The fact is, if a helicopter does show up in a mainstream game nowadays, It’s likely to happen in an on-rails, mounted-gun section of a cinematic FPS. They’re also very likely to crash. The helicopter that is, not the game. Well, unless we’re talking about the helicopter mission in Cyberpunk 2077, I’m right?

Extreme Sports Games

Hold on; I just need to turn my cap around for this one. There, radical. It wasn’t so long ago that every other game seemed to be giving players the opportunity to shred some crisp powder, do a fakie-flip 720, or carve a tubular wave … sorry, I have no idea what I’m saying. The point is, games based on extreme sports have fallen out of favour quicker than me falling off an actual skateboard. Ubisoft’s Steep appeared to be the swansong for the genre in mainstream gaming, although it could be argued that the likes of MX Vs. ATV and certainly Riders Republic are keeping things going. It does depend on your definition of extreme sports, though. Some people even classify Mirror’s Edge as an extreme sports game.  These people are wrong. It’s clearly a … well, it’s … right, I don’t know what it is, but it’s not sports; I can say that much. Despite the recent Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 rerelease doing well at retail, and EA’s Skate series still holding a special place in many people’s hearts, the extreme sports genre seems to have gone the way of the radical 90s slang that so often accompanied it.  And that, my dudes, is a total bummer.