A stealth game is a type of video game in which the player primarily uses stealth to avoid or overcome opponents. Games in the genre typically allow the player to remain undetected by hiding, sneaking, or using disguises. Some games allow the player to choose between a stealthy approach or directly attacking antagonists, but rewarding the player for greater use of stealth. The genre has employed espionage, counter-terrorism, and rogue themes, with protagonists that are special forces operatives, special agents, secret agents, thieves, ninjas, or assassins. Some games have also combined stealth elements with other genres, such as first-person shooters and also platformers.
Shoot 'em ups are a sub-genre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of character movement, while others allow a broader definition including characters on foot and a variety of perspectives.
Centipede is a 1980 fixed shooter arcade video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. Designed by Dona Bailey and Ed Logg, it was one of the most commercially successful games from the golden age of arcade video games and one of the first with a significant female player base. The primary objective is to shoot all the segments of a centipede that winds down the playing field. An arcade sequel, Millipede, followed in 1982.
Battlezone is a first-person shooter tank combat game released for arcades in November 1980 by Atari, Inc. The player controls a tank which is attacked by other tanks and missiles, using a small radar scanner to locate enemies around them in the barren landscape. Its innovative use of 3D graphics made it a huge hit, with approximately 15,000 cabinets sold.
Virtua Cop is a 1994 light gun shooter game developed by Sega AM2 and designed by Yu Suzuki. It was originally an arcade game on the Sega Model 2 system, and was ported to the Sega Saturn in 1995 and Windows in 1996. The Saturn version included support for both the Virtua Gun and Saturn mouse, as well as a new "Training Mode" which consists of a randomly generated shooting gallery.
Shinobi (忍) is a side-scrolling hack and slash video game produced by Sega, originally released for arcades on the Sega System 16 board in 1987. The player controls ninja Joe Musashi, to stop the Zeed terrorist organization from kidnapping students of his clan.
A sports video game is a video game that simulates the practice of sports. Most sports have been recreated with a video games, including team sports, track and field, extreme sports, and combat sports. Some games emphasize actually playing the sport, whilst others emphasize strategy and sport management. Some, such as Need for Speed, Arch Rivals and Punch-Out!!, satirize the sport for comic effect. This genre has been popular throughout the history of video games and is competitive, just like real-world sports. A number of game series feature the names and characteristics of real teams and players, and are updated annually to reflect real-world changes. The sports genre is one of the oldest genres in gaming history.
1983 has seen many sequels and prequels in video games, such as Mario Bros. and Pole Position II, along with new titles such as Astron Belt, Champion Baseball, Dragon's Lair, Elevator Action, Spy Hunter and Track & Field. Major events include the video game crash of 1983 in North America, and the third generation of video game consoles beginning with the launch of Nintendo's Family Computer (Famicom) and Sega's SG-1000 in Japan. The year's highest-grossing video game was Namco's arcade game Pole Position, while the year's best-selling home system was Nintendo's Game & Watch for the third time since 1980.
Defender is a horizontally scrolling shooter video game developed by Williams Electronics in 1980 and released for arcades in 1981. A side-scrolling shooter, the game is set on either an unnamed planet or city where the player must defeat waves of invading aliens while protecting astronauts. Development was led by Eugene Jarvis, a pinball programmer at Williams; Defender was Jarvis' first video game project and drew inspiration from Space Invaders and Asteroids. Defender was demonstrated in late 1980, before entering production in early 1981. It was distributed in Japan by Taito.
The golden age of arcade video games was the period of rapid growth, technological development and cultural influence of arcade video games, from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. The period began with the release of Space Invaders in 1978, which led to a wave of shoot 'em up games such as Galaxian and the vector graphics-based Asteroids in 1979, made possible by new computing technology that had greater power and lower costs. Arcade video games transitioned from black-and-white to color, with titles such as Frogger and Centipede taking advantage of the visual opportunities of bright palettes.
In computer graphics, a sprite is a two-dimensional bitmap that is integrated into a larger scene, most often in a 2D video game. Originally, the term sprite referred to fixed-sized objects composited together, by hardware, with a background. Use of the term has since become more general.
Fueled by the previous year's release of the colorful and appealing Pac-Man, the audience for arcade video games in 1981 became much wider. Pac-Man influenced maze games began appearing in arcades and on home systems. Pac-Man was the highest-grossing video game for the second year in a row. Nintendo's Donkey Kong defined the unnamed platform game genre, while Konami's Scramble established forced-scrolling shooters. The lesser known Jump Bug combined the two concepts into both the first scrolling platform game and the first platform shooter. Other arcade hits released in 1981 include Defender, Frogger, and the Galaxian sequel Galaga.
1979 saw many sequels and prequels in video games, such as Space Invaders Part II and Super Speed Race, along with new titles such as Asteroids, Football, Galaxian, Head On, Heiankyo Alien, Monaco GP, Sheriff and Warrior. For the second year in a row, the highest-grossing video game was Taito's arcade game Space Invaders and the best-selling home system was the Atari Video Computer System.
Space Fury is a 1981 multidirectional shooter arcade game developed by Gremlin. Sega/Gremlin released the game in North America in June 1981, and then Sega released it in Japan in July 1981. It is the first game with color vector graphics, and it was Sega's second game to use speech synthesis. Coleco published a ColecoVision version with raster graphics in 1983.
SubRoc-3D is a first-person arcade shooter game released in 1982 by Sega. It is the second commercial video game in stereoscopic 3-D. It uses a periscope-shaped display with a different image for each eye. It was jointly developed by Sega and Matsushita Electric, who developed its active shutter 3D system. The game has stereo sound, and also changes the backdrop to reflect day, night, dawn, and dusk.
Gremlin Industries was an American arcade game manufacturer active from 1970 to 1983, based in San Diego, California. Following its acquisition by Sega in 1978, the company was known as Gremlin/Sega or Sega/Gremlin. Among Sega/Gremlin's most notable games are Blockade and Head On, as well as being the North American distributors for Frogger and Zaxxon. The company's name was subsequently changed to Sega Electronics in 1982, before its operations were closed in 1983.
An overworld or a hub world is, in a broad sense, an area within a video game that interconnects all its levels or locations. They are mostly common in role-playing games, though this does not exclude other video game genres, such as some platformers and strategy games.
The 1990s was the third decade in the industry's history. It was a decade of marked innovation in video gaming. It was a decade of transition from sprite-based graphics to full-fledged 3D graphics and it gave rise to several genres of video games including, but not limited to, the first-person shooter, real-time strategy, survival horror, and MMO. Arcade games, although still relatively popular in the early 1990s, began to decline as home consoles became more common. The fourth and fifth generation of video game consoles went on sale, including the Super Nintendo, Sega Saturn, PlayStation, Nintendo 64, and Game Boy Color. Notable games released in the 1990s included Sonic the Hedgehog, Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, GoldenEye 007, Unreal Tournament, Half-Life, Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario 64, Pokémon Red and Blue, Daytona USA, Ridge Racer, Gran Turismo, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Super Metroid, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Metal Gear Solid, Virtua Fighter, Final Fantasy VII, Sega Rally Championship, Nights into Dreams, Panzer Dragoon, Gunstar Heroes, Battletoads, Micro Machines, Donkey Kong Country, Wipeout, Lemmings, Banjo-Kazooie, PaRappa the Rapper, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Soulcalibur, and Dance Dance Revolution.
Turbo is a racing game released in arcades in 1981 by Sega. Designed and coded by Steve Hanawa, the game received positive reviews upon release, with praise for its challenging and realistic gameplay, 2.5D color graphics with changing scenery, and cockpit sit-down arcade cabinet. It topped the monthly Play Meter arcade charts in North America and ranking highly on the Game Machine arcade charts in Japan.
