The Video Game Critic

There are some genres of video games that are 'mostly gone'. I can't say extinct, as some, like text adventures, are still being made, just mostly by indie hobbyist.

Maze Games - One of the most iconic games of all time, Pac-Man, is a maze game, many of which had some 'cat and mouse' components. Is that genre mostly extinct now. It seems to have been tied pretty strongly with an overhead 2D view.

Rail-shooters - One of my favorite genres, but with the loss of CRTs, they seem to have gone away for the most part. Shoot off screen to reload!

Text Adventures - These have evolved mostly into point-and-click adventures, but a text adventure has a different (and usually much harder) focus on puzzle solving. Personally, I was usually stumped on these, so its not a genre I pine for in particular.

Any others? Are there types of games that have mostly gone away you remember well or wish were around in a larger way?

How about arcade racing games like Ridge Racer and Excite Truck? It seems like all the racers today are ultra-realistic. No fun!

3D platformers are a dying breed. And it makes me sad.

FMV games.

"3D" games done with sprites eg. Space Harrier and Outrun.

VideoGameCritic wrote:How about arcade racing games like Ridge Racer and Excite Truck? It seems like all the racers today are ultra-realistic. No fun!

I agree with you here on arcade racers . Just very simple controls, no Mario Kart silliness, put in some fun locations and checkpoints and away you go.

For FMV - its interesting that in this day and age that amateur movie makers and video game players aren't trying to do a little full motion video for games. Alternatively, use a public domain movie like Night of the Living Dead, and slice out content that way.

For the 3D sprite games. Wow. Imagine what a Space Harrier version of R-Type or something could look like today. Or a first person view Tempest or something.

One that comes immediately to mind are point-and-click and graphic adventure games (Myst, Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, Longest Journey, Grim Fandango, etc). Shmups feel like a dead genre, though I know they make rare and under-the-radar appearances here and there. Rail Shooters (House of the Dead, Virtua Cop) died and then made a comeback with the Wii thanks to the controller...but it's virtually dead again. And construction games seem to have disappeared too, like SimCity and the Tycoon games.

I'd like to see more 2d run and gun and platformers. It seems like the only ones out are Mario games. And of course there's the amateur developers with no money in their basement cranking out classic after classic, filling the screen with 1 or maybe 2 sprites.

This was never a very popular genre but gallery shooters are very rare (always have been). Games like wild guns are a rare commodity.

VideoGameCritic wrote:How about arcade racing games like Ridge Racer and Excite Truck? It seems like all the racers today are ultra-realistic. No fun!

I love the ultra-realistic racing games that we have. After all, the first video game I ever played was the original Gran Turismo (PS1). Still, I also get my kicks from arcade-style racers. And I really wish they would re-release the arcade version of Cruis'n Exotica (along with the rest of the Cruis'n trilogy) on PSN and Xbox Live (preferably with the original licensed vehicles, unlike the N64 version). Seriously, if anyone here can start a petition to make it happen, that'd be great!

How about the Brick and Paddle games like Breakout? It seems to have been a dead category for a while.

I have a feeling that every genre we are mentioning probably has a presence in the Indy scene, or at least in the downloadable phone game scene.