Pocky Central

And by recent, I mean the past ten years or so.

There used to be (and still is, to a point) a large multitude of game genres. Adventure, sports, role-playing, shooting (the side-scrolling kind, not the first person kind), you name it. Lots of different people were making games for lots of different audiences, and chances were you could find something you wanted to play.

Fast forward to today.

These days, there seem to be four major game genres, for both PCs (and by this, I mean Windows machines, Macs, and yes, even Linux boxes) and consoles.

Those four genres are First Person Shooters (FPS), Real-Time Strategy (RTS), Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG), and Sports (sorry, no need acronym here).

Let’s look at these, one at a time, in no particular order.

Sports: there is no way to get around the fact that the sports genre is possibly the highest selling one of them all right now. Look at Madden, look at the NBA games, and the various driving games. I don’t know exact numbers, but I do know that there are tournaments dedicated to Madden with big prizes. That’s got to count for something.

MMORPGs: World of Warcraft. Everquest 2. Ragnarok Online. City of Heroes/Villains. There are hundreds of MMORPGs (and similar MMO-(type of game)s) out in the world now. Some are pay-to-play. Others are free-to-play, pay-for-neat-stuff. In the end, they’re all ’social’ games, where you play with other people. And some call them the ‘wave of the future’.
RTSs: Starcraft. Warcraft. Command and Conquer, Age of (noun of your choice). There are a lot of real time strategy games, some good, many not so good. While they’ve waned in popularity, they’re still fairly profitable. Some of the games are still very popular, like Starcraft, which is played at world level tournaments.
FPSs: There are simply too many to list. But since they’ve been called ‘killing trainers’ by some, I don’t think I really need to go into them. (If I do, let me know, and I will, though)
Of these, I only personally enjoy one - MMORPGs. I’ve never really liked sports games on consoles or PCs, with the exception of goofy ones, like Mario Tennis or Need For Speed. FPS games give me headaches, and unlike most Koreans (or so I am told), I suck at RTS games.

So what about puzzle games? Role playing games? Platformers and the others? I’ll get to those some other time. (But I will say - I love them all)

Computers. Nearly everyone I know uses them in one way or another. I for one can’t imagine my life without at least one. (I own four right now, long story)

I got into computers when I was very young, thanks to the influence of one of my earliest friends, D, and his father, who worked for a local computer company at the time. Thanks to them, I got my first exposure to a computer - an Apple ][ to be precise.

Soon after, my family bought me a Commodore Vic 20, which I happily messed around with. I played a game or two, but I mainly tried to figure out Basic. In the end, I discovered that programming was fun, but tough. This led to me becoming even more interested in computers, and eventually getting an Apple ][ C, which only fairly recently left my home. (My uncle, who works with computers as well, took it to his place)

Fast forward to high school, where I’m fairly computer savvy and a fully-fledged computer geek. (Not a nerd - I couldn’t tell you how the chips worked or anything, but I could fix an error you had, and I was pretty good at games) Sometime in my senior year (Grade 12 for you folks up in lovely Canada), I decided that I loved computers enough to make them a major part of my life.

Even though I’m not an I.T. professional (I kind of missing saying ‘I’m a computer tech’) anymore, I do try to keep up with the latest news and information on them. Which means I’m scanning around for stuff on XP, Vista, going from XP to Vista, and the problems thereof. I also look at Mac news, just so I know what’s going on in general.

I don’t have a Mac because they’re too expensive for what you’re getting, in my opinion. But they’re very pretty.

I’ve even tinkered with the idea of getting my A Plus certification, just because.

Yes, I’m strange.