A Golden Ducat
In a game review or preview, the author tries to describe certain elements of the game to the reader assuming they know a bit about the subject. They still try to keep the text accessible to the lay person while allowing the seasoned gamer to not be too insulted. However, this balancing act can last for only so long. Saying a game's camera is bad may make sense and panders to the novice reader looking for a game where the camera is not bad, but it doesn't say much about the actual in-game camera mechanics, displeasing the veterans.
I'd like to take a minute to lay down some popular gaming terms and give them a quick definition to help our casual gamers speak the language of the gaming world. I'm sure those of you who know a gamer but aren't one may find this information valuable, and for you gamers out there, it's never a bad idea to brush up on the basics.
Let's begin by continuing the camera example. Some of you may be thinking, Camera? There are cameras in games?\ Well, of course there are. How else do you think you see what's happening in the game? The camera may not be a physical, light-capturing device like for movies and television, but it is the metaphorical point inside the software that views what is happening from a certain perspective.
Sometimes this is the perspective from the eyes of the player, called first-person and most often used in first-person shooters or FPSs. Sometimes the camera is situated outside the main character, as if a third person were watching. In this case, the camera has a few options.
To make a game feel more cinematic, the camera controls are pre-determined. Moving a character along a path or to a certain area tells the camera to follow him/her and readjust itself according to a planned map. This can be difficult, though, as accounting for every position in the game can be tedious and there is no way to fix a bad perspective in the end product.
A more popular camera method is to leave it up to the player to sight his own objectives. In intense action, worrying about what you're going to see may be the last thing on your mind, so each method has its advantages and disadvantages. But in the future, a bad camera means—for whatever reason —it is hard to focus on the elements of the game you need to focus on.
Now that you know how to view a game, it may be helpful knowing what kind of game you are looking at. First are the obvious: racers and puzzle games. Racers involve usually cars and, unsurprisingly, racing. Puzzle games usually revolve around gameplay that isn't centered on a particular story or character, like Tetris. Some other terms may get thrown around willy-nilly. Adventure and action games may not seem like two different entities—at first. In fact, they can be infused to create an action-adventure game, but typically adventure games focus on exploration and problem solving with light combat elements. Whereas action games focus on, well, action, including fighting and combat while making problem-solving a secondary task.
Shooters, first-person or otherwise, are a sub-genre of action whose combat is, almost entirely gun or projectile related. ""Doom"" is a shooter from the first-person perspective, and ""Contra"" is a shooter from a side-scrolling perspective. Games like ""1942"" or ""Gradius,"" where you fly little airplanes and shoot down enemies, are also shooters but are commonly referred to as vehicular shooters.
There's a lot more to talk about as far as terminology goes. Hopefully these few concepts will help you see eye-to-eye with the gamer in your life. Heck, why not go out and play a few games yourself now that you know what you're looking at.
Still confused? Need to know what RPG stands for? E-mail Jason at jmducat@gmail.com.\
