Adventure games
First Person Shooters
Sports Games
Racing Games
Real Time Strategy Games
Turn Based Strategy Games
Simulators (real and imagined)
Platformers
Massively Multiplayer Online Games
Roleplaying Games
However, to start with, I'll talk about games that the Gaming press tend to deny are even real games. These are often described as Quick Time Event games, or even Interactive Movies. They are the games that come closest to a cinematic experience and give the smallest amount of freedom to the player.
Of these, probably the most well known are both made by Quantic Dream. I'm referring to Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls.
Heavy Rain was a noir detective story, following the most difficult of subjects, a child murderer. The story had several different endings depending on your decisions, but in most ways resembled a "Choose your own Adventure" book in game form. Gameplay consisted of interacting with highlight-able objects and actions as mundane as making a cup of coffee were "playable". Now, personally, I'm a story junkie. I'm not interested in challenging my ability when gaming by playing on the hardest setting. Its popcorn for me, so I set the game to the lowest difficulty that still provides a modicum of challenge, and I play to see what happens next. So, for me, Heavy Rain delivered in spades. It was an interactive movie, where I could influence what was happening. I became immersed in the world, in the characters, in the story. I didn't care that fight scenes were about hitting X when it appeared on screen. It wasn't a fighting game. I love playing a complex flight sim like X-Wing, but I can equally enjoy Galaga. As such I get annoyed when people tell me "Thats not a real game". Who the hell gets to make that decision?
Anyway, this is a bit rambly, but I'm off to play "Beyond: Two Souls", a game that feels to me like it should be a Joss Whedon TV series.
