Action game

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Action games
Subgenres Action-adventure Metroidvania Battle royale Fighting Beat 'em up Hack and slash Platform fighter Platform Rhythm Action RPG Shooter Artillery Arena First-person Hero Light gun Third-person Tactical Shoot 'em up Bullet hell Twin-stick Sports Racing Stealth Survival Vehicle sim
Topics Capture the flag Cover system First-person shooter engine Free look Quick time event WASD keys
Lists List of battle royale games List of beat 'em ups List of fighting game companies List of fighting games List of first-person shooters List of freeware first-person shooters List of third-person shooters List of survival games List of light gun games List of maze video games List of platform games
v t e

An action game is a

The action genre includes any game where the player overcomes challenges by physical means such as precise aim and quick response times.[1] Action games can sometimes incorporate other challenges such as races, puzzles, or collecting objects, but they are not central to the genre. Players may also encounter tactical and exploration challenges, but these games first-and-foremost require high reaction speed and good hand–eye coordination. The player is often under time pressure, and there is not enough time for complex strategic planning. In general, faster action games are more challenging. Action games may sometimes involve puzzle solving, but they are usually quite simple because the player is under immense time pressure.^[2]

Game design

Levels

Players advance through an action game by completing a series of

Levels in an action game may be linear or nonlinear, and sometimes include shortcuts. For levels that require exploration, the player may need to search for a level exit that is hidden or guarded by enemies. Such levels can also contain secrets—hidden or hard-to-reach objects or places that contain something valuable. The prize can be a bonus (see below) or a non-standard exit that allows a player to access a hidden level, or jump ahead several levels. Action games sometimes offer a teleporter that will cause the player's avatar to re-appear elsewhere in the same level. Levels often make use of locked doors that can only be opened with a specific key found elsewhere in the level.^[2]

Action games sometimes make use of time restrictions to increase the challenge. However, game levels typically do not react to time passing, and day/night cycles are rare.^[2] When the timer expires, the player typically loses a life, although some games generate a difficult enemy or challenge. If the level is completed with time remaining, this usually adds to the player's score.^[2]

Character abilities

In most action games, the player controls a single avatar as the protagonist.^[2] The avatar has the ability to navigate and maneuver, and often collects or manipulates objects. They have a range of defenses and attacks, such as shooting or punching. Many action games make use of a powerful attack that destroys all enemies within a limited range, but this attack is rare.^[2]

Players may find a power-up within the game world that grants temporary or permanent improvements to their abilities. For example, the avatar may gain an increase in speed, more powerful attacks, or a temporary shield from attacks. Some action games even allow players to spend upgrade points on the power ups of their choice.^[2]

Obstacles and enemies

In action games that involve navigating a space, players will encounter obstacles, traps, and enemies. Enemies typically follow fixed patterns and attack the player, although newer action games may make use of more complex artificial intelligence to pursue the player. Enemies sometimes appear in groups or waves, with enemies increasing in strength and number until the end of the level. Enemies may also appear out of thin air. This can involve an invisible spawn point, or a visible generator which can be destroyed by the player. These points may generate enemies indefinitely, or only up to a certain number.^[2] At the end of a level or group of themed levels, players often encounter a boss. This boss enemy will often resemble a larger or more difficult version of a regular enemy. A boss may require a special weapon or attack method, such as striking when the boss opens their mouth or attacking particular part of the boss.^[2]

Health and lives

In many action games, the avatar has a certain number of hit-markers or health, which are depleted by enemy attacks and other hazards. Sometimes health can be replenished by collecting an in-game object. When the player runs out of health, the player dies. The player's avatar is often given a small number of chances to retry after death, typically referred to as lives. Upon beginning a new life, the player resumes the game either from the same location they died, a checkpoint, or the start of the level. Upon starting a new life, the avatar is typically invincible for a few seconds to allow the player to re-orient themselves. Players may earn extra lives by reaching a certain score or by finding an in-game object. Arcade games still limit the number of player lives, while home video games have shifted increasingly to unlimited lives.^[2]

Graphics and interface

Action games take place in either 2D or 3D from a variety of perspectives. 2D action games typically use a side view or top-down view. The screen frequently scrolls as the player explores the level, although many games scroll through the level automatically to push the player forward. In 3D action games, the perspective is usually tied to the avatar from a first-person perspective or third-person perspective. However, some 3D games offer a context-sensitive perspective that is controlled by an

Action games tend to set simple goals, and reaching them is obvious.[2] A common goal is to defeat the end-of-game boss. This is often presented in the form of a structured story, with a happy ending upon winning the game. In some games, the goal changes as the player reveals more of the story.^[2]

Many action games keep track of the player's score. Points are awarded for completing certain challenges, or defeating certain enemies. Skillful play is often rewarded with point multipliers, such as in Pac-Man where each ghost that the avatar eats will generate twice as many points as the last. Sometimes action games will offer bonus objects that increase the player's score. There is no penalty for failing to collect them, although these bonus objects may unlock hidden levels or special events. In many action games, achieving a high score is the only goal, and levels increase in difficulty until the player loses. Arcade games are more likely to be unbeatable, as they make their money by forcing the player to lose the game. On the other hand, games sold at home are more likely to have discrete victory conditions, since a publisher wants the player to purchase another game when they are done.^[2]

Subgenres

Action games contain several major subgenres. However, there are a number of action games that do not fit any particular subgenres, as well as other types of genres like adventure or strategy games that have action elements.^[2]

Character action games (also called "character-driven" games, "character games" or just "action games") are a broad category of action games, referring to a variety of games that are driven by the physical actions of

• Beat 'em ups (also called "brawlers") are games that involve fighting through a side-scrolling stage of multiple adversaries, using martial arts or other close-range fighting techniques.^[6][7]
• sports games such as boxing and wrestling games which attempt to model movements and techniques more realistically.^[2]
• Golden Axe,^[11][12] classic Ninja Gaiden (Shadow Warriors),^[8] Strider,^[13] and Dragon's Crown.^[10] Popular 3D examples include Devil May Cry, Dynasty Warriors, modern Ninja Gaiden, God of War, and Bayonetta.^[14][15]
• Maze games such as Pac-Man involve navigating a maze to avoid or chase adversaries.^[16]
• Platform games involve jumping between platforms of different heights, while battling enemies and avoiding obstacles. Physics are often unrealistic, and game levels are often vertically exaggerated. They exist in both 2D and 3D forms such as Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario 64.^[2]
• run and gun video games like Rolling Thunder^[4] and Gunstar Heroes.^[19]

Middle East conflicts) or fictional (such as space warfare). Shooter games do not always involve military conflicts; other settings include hunting games, or follow the story of a criminal (as seen in the popular Grand Theft Auto franchise). Although shooting is almost always a form of violence, non-violent shooters exist as well, such as Splatoon

which focuses on claiming more territory than the opposing team by covering the playable environment with colored paint or ink.

Hybrid action games are games that combine elements of action games with elements from other genres.

• Action-adventure games mix elements of both action and adventure game genres such as The Legend of Zelda. Action-adventure games are the most popular subgenre.^[20]
• Action role-playing games include features of role-playing games, such as characters with experience points and statistics
  .
• Japanese film Battle Royale
  (2000).
• Multiplayer online battle arena games (also called MOBA, "hero brawler"^[21] or "action real-time strategy" games)^[22] are a subgenre of real-time strategy (RTS) games with action game elements similar to brawlers or fighting games.
• Rhythm action games challenge the player's sense of rhythm, and award points for accurately pressing certain buttons in sync with a musical beat. This is a relatively new subgenre of action game.^[2] Rhythm games are sometimes classified as a type of music game.^[23]
• open-world environment, and require them to collect resources, craft tools, weapons, and shelter, in order to survive as long as possible. Many are set in procedurally-generated environments, and are open-ended with no set goals. Survival games often feature a crafting system, which allows players to engage in tool-making to convert raw resources into useful items such as medical supplies for healing, structures which shelter the player from a frequently hostile environment, weapons to defend themselves with, and tools to create more complex items, structures, weapons and tools. The survival game genre may overlap with the survival horror
  genre, in which the player must survive within a setting traditionally associated with the horror genre, such as a zombie apocalypse. The genre also has similarities to action-adventure games.

Physical impact

Studies have shown that people can improve their eyesight by playing action video games. Tests by scientists at the University of Rochester on college students showed that over a period of a month, performance in eye examinations improved by about 20% in those playing Unreal Tournament compared to those playing Tetris.^[24] Most arcade games are action games, because they can be difficult for unskilled players, and thus make more money quickly.^[2]

Researchers from

Helsinki School of Economics have shown that people playing a first-person shooter might secretly enjoy that their character gets killed in the game, although their expressions might show the contrary. The game used in the study was James Bond 007: Nightfire.^[25]

History

1970s

gun games

.

A major turning point for action video games came with the 1978 release of Taito's

high score.^[31] It also had a basic story with animated characters along with a "crescendo of action and climax" which laid the groundwork for later video games, according to Eugene Jarvis,^[32] who said many games "still rely on the multiple life, progressively difficult level paradigm" of Space Invaders.^[33]

Following the mainstream success of Space Invaders, the industry came to be dominated by action games,

genre in video arcades and on game consoles through to the present day. Space Invaders set the template for later games in the shooter subgenre,^[26][34] and it is considered one of the most influential games of all time.^[35]

During the arcade golden age, from the late 1970s to early 1980s, a wide variety of new subgenres were created.[4] The success of Space Invaders led to space shooters becoming the dominant genre in arcades for a few years, before a new genre of character-driven action games emerged in the early 1980s.^[36]

1980s

side-scrolling beat 'em up

The term "action games" began being used in the early 1980s, in reference to a new genre of character action games that emerged from Japanese arcade developers, drawing inspiration from manga and anime culture. According to Eugene Jarvis, these new character-driven Japanese action games emphasized "character development, hand-drawn animation and backgrounds, and a more deterministic, scripted, pattern-type" of play. Terms such as "action games" or "character games" began being used to distinguish these new character-driven action games from the space shooters that had previously dominated the video game industry.^[3][4][5] The emphasis on character-driven gameplay in turn enabled a wider variety of subgenres.^[4]

platform game subgenre,^[38] as well as Konami's Frogger (1981)^[3] and Universal Entertainment's Lady Bug (1981).^[36] Martial arts action games eventually emerged in the mid-1980s, with Data East's Karate Champ (1984) establishing the one-on-one fighting game subgenre.^[39]

While Japanese developers were creating a character-driven action game genre in the early 1980s, American developers largely adopted a different approach to game design at the time.

Defender (1981)^[3] and Robotron: 2084 (1982)^[2] as well as Atari's Asteroids (1979).^[40]

In the mid-1980s,

run and gun video games such as Namco's Rolling Thunder (1986), and beat 'em ups such as Technōs Japan's Renegade (1986) and Double Dragon (1987).^[4]

Shigeru Miyamoto combined the platforming of Donkey Kong and Mario Bros. (1983) with side-scrolling elements from racing game Excitebike (1984) and beat 'em up Kung-Fu Master to create Super Mario Bros. (1985) for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).^[44][45] It went on to have a significant impact on the video game industry, establishing the conventions of the side-scrolling platformer sub-genre and helping to reinvigorate the North American home video game market (after it had crashed in 1983).^[4]

Alongside side-scrollers,

shooting gallery games such as Nintendo's Duck Hunt (1984), pseudo-3D third-person rail shooters such as Sega's Space Harrier (1985) and After Burner (1987), and Taito's Operation Wolf (1987) which popularized military-themed first-person light gun rail shooters.^[46][47]

1990s

A trend that was popularized for action games in the early 1990s was competitive

online games.^[50]

In the 1990s, there was a "3D Revolution" where action games made the transition from

Descent (1995).^[55]

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External links

• Media related to Action video games at Wikimedia Commons