The first commercially available video game, Computer Space, was released in 1971. Five decades later, video games look and feel extremely different from their humble beginnings: today's video games provide photorealistic visuals, vast open worlds, and deep gameplay mechanics. They've become so complex that it's hard to decide 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:how to introduce a non-gamer to൩ the medium.

One thing has remained consistent throughout: no matter how video games have changed, their goal has always been to entertain you. As audiences became more familiar with the medium, games themꩵselves had to innovate and evolve to keep from getting stale. Here, we take a look at the genres that have changed the most over the 💎years.

10 🅺 Adventure Games

The earliest adventure games were text-based, like Colossal Cave Adventure and Zork; these games required you to type in commands that sometimes worked, allowing you to explore and solve puzzles. This evolved to graphical point-and-click adventures such as the King's Quest and Monkey Island series, and point-and-click titles remain the popular image of adventure games today. The genre had fizzled out by the early 2000s due to its slow-paced nature and frustrating ꦗmoon-logic puzzles.

Over in Japan, however, adventure games continued to do well, primarily as visual novels where the focus was on character interactions and dialogue choices rather than puzzles. Western adventure games have seen 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a small resurgence, primarily through Telltale games and indie titles like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Return of the Obra Dinn.

9 💯 Metroidvanias

Metroidvanias are a curious example in that the genre existed﷽ before the name was coined. The first Metroid game, released in 1986, is a Metroidvania in itself - a side-scrolling platformer where new power-ups allow you to revisit areas you've explored before and progress from there.

While the genre takes its roots from linear side-scrolling platformers and beat 'em ups, it was soonꦦ after Castlevania: Symphony of the Night in 1997 that the term was coined. When that castle turned upside down, so did our expectations, and Metroidvanias became a beloved genre that continues to thrive in the indie community today

8 💙 Platformers ꦕ

Although you can also do it in real life too, jumping is one of the definitive video game mechanics. The evolution of the platformer is the evolution of video games as a whole. From the moment Donkey Kong took arcades by storm, platformers were set to be genre royalty 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:no matter how silly they got. They gained massive popularity during the '80s, and platforming remained a🌟n integral part of other video game genr♏es.

In 1996, the 3D graphics revolution allowed the genre a renaissance. Games like Super Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot, and Tomb Raider were now the hཧallmarks of video game goodness. True, platformers haven't evolved as muཧch since the introduction of 3D, but maybe they don't need to.

7 Horror

Horror games were late to the party compared to many video game genres because it's hard to be scared of pixels (there's probably an indie developer working to prove us wrong this very minute). Despite early titles like Haunted House on the Atari 2600, most would point to Sweet Home on the NES as the first survival horror game. The advent of 3D graphics allowed Alone In The Dark to experiment with susp💛enseful exploration, but with a lighthearted tone.

It wasn't until 1996's Resident Evil that the genre came into its own. This was the first game that relied on your helplessness and lack of resources to make you feel afraid. With Silent Hill 2, the genre gained a psychological element that's 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:still present in horror games today. Fifty years of evolution just to p♌rove that nothing is scarier tha🔥n your thoughts.

6 ♛ Simulation 🗹

Photorealistic video 𒆙games are a dream now realized, but if you were around before the 2010s, you may remember wanting games to be like real life. Enter the simulation genre, which started with city-building sims, notably SimCity in 1989. Life simulation games exploded in popularity wಞith the release of The Sims in 2000.

Today, simulation games are broad enough to be a super-genre. If you can think of so🅷mething, there's probably a simulation for it. There are management sims like Dwarf Fortress, farming sims like Stardew Valley and simulation games focused on certain jobs - from comedic interpretations like Surgeon꧃ Simulator to games focused on relaxation and coziness like PowerWash Simulator. Want to fly a Boeing 747 commercial airliner jet? There's a sim for that too.

5 Puzzle

The nebulous nature of what makes a puzzle game has allowed the genre to evolve greatly over time, borrowing from other genres to mix, match, and create unique experiences. When you think of puzzle games, the first thing that comes to mind is probably Tetris. But 2♋007's Portal is also a puzzle game. Are these two games even of the same genre?

The easiest way to define a puzzle game is that it tests your reasoning rather than your reflexes. With that ꦜmindset, puzzle games have changed and evolved to a - dare we say it - puzzling extent. Today's puzzle games may be casual🏅 experiences like Candy Crush Saga, which relies on tried-and-true logic, or they may be Baba Is You: a game that challenges your understanding of the very mechanics of a video game.

4 Action-Adventure 🧸

Two words sum up the evolution of action-adventure games: open world. Action-adventure games always relied on a certain degree of non-linearity, but when Grand Theft Auto 3 came out, the change was seismic. Instead of just revisiting areas after gaining the required items to progress, you could now 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:explore🉐 the entire map at your own pace.

Action-adventure games have evolved not just in their structure, but also in their mechanics. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time popularized 3D traversal mechanics that would influence later titles like Uncharted and A꧋ssassin's Creed. Today's action-adventure games are a Far Cry from the original Zelda. Yes, we went there.

3 ﷽ ꦗ First-Person Shooters

Arguably the first video game ever made, Spacewar, was a shooter. The concept gave rise to many subgenres: first-person shooters evolved by using 3D graphics, third-person shooters evolved by incorporating action-adventure elements, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:rail shooters evolved by dying out. Released in 1992, Wolfenstein 3D is considered the pioneer of first-person shooters, but the genre garnered mainstream appeal with the release of Doom, and became a driving force for the evolution of video games as a♐ whole.

Then Quake introduced deathmatches, GoldenEye007 introduced headshots, and Halo popularized the control scheme FPS games still use on consoles today. Because the point of view has remained the same - you ✱can tell a game is an FPS just by looking at it - it's hard to gauge how much the genre has ev♓olved on graphics alone. Even the keyboard-and-mouse control scheme wasn't standard until Half-Life.

2 🐼 💖 Sports Games

When the prototy൩pical version of Pong debuted on the Magnavox Odyssey, the hardware was so limited that the system didn't keep score - you were expected to do so yourself, using pen and paper. Compare that to the sports games of today, which feature photorealistic renditions of athletes and simulate entire stadiums' worth of audiences.

It's not all for the better, of course. Sports games based on real-life promotions like tꦿhe NFL, NBA, and WWE have come under criticism for releasing the same game over and over with minor roster updates and relying heavily on microtransactions. However, the genre's so widespread that for the most part, you're free to pick and choose.

1 🍰 Role-Playing Games 🌊

When the first Ultima came out, its goal was to let you have the Dungeons & Dragons experience solo. A lot of early RPGs, like Phantasy Star, even expected you to map out the dungeons by hand using pen and paper. Does that sound recogniz൩able when we t♛hink of RPGs today? The genre has changed so much over the years.

One of the things that makes video games now so complex, compared to even fifteen years ago, is that pretty much any game you play will have RPG elements to it. Games like The Witcher 3 and Genshin Impact hardly feel connected to the humble beginnings🌠 of Might and Magic or Wizardry. In one way they are: whether it's an RPG from 1981 or today, whether it's turn-based or real-time, it always carries with it the promise of adventure.