Action is one of the most celebrated genres of gaming because it was one of the originals.  It is not celebrated as being one of the most innovative genres and it is starting to lose its steam in recent years.  One of the earliest examples of action gaming is the still standing game Metal Slug.  It was mind-numbingly repetitive but extremely fun, consisting of a simple control scheme and a blistering difficulty level.  It won scores of fans and still has incarnations today. 

Fighting is another of the original genres.  Unlike action, the fighting genre has the most complex control scheme out of all the genres.  The most famous example of fighting is Mortal Kombat, which spawned controversy due to its high level of violence.  It was so violent the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) was started because of Mortal Kombat, and by extension, the fighting genre.  Just like Metal Slug, Mortal Kombat is still up and running to this day.

Adventure is a rather strange genre.  It is the polar opposite of fighting and action because it relies almost solely on its plot.  By contrast, fighting and action have little to no plot.  Adventure usually has little to no violence, yet usually garners high ratings because of the usually adult oriented plot.  Myst, one of the pioneering adventure games, had a slightly horror themed plot and setting, as well as mind bending puzzles.  Myst released its last game, Myst V, on September 20, 2005.

Racing is one of the original genres.  It usually relied on graphics rather than good plot or innovative game play.  Racing is commonly fused with other genres to make up for this weakness.  Since it is easy to program, it is often incorporated in other games for little mini-games or challenge segments.  Gran Turismo is one of the most famous racing games.  It is still standing today and shows no signs of stopping.

First person shooters, abbreviated to FPS, are an extremely fast paced game that usually relies on action and bursts of adrenaline instead of plot or puzzles.  One of the very first first person shooters was Doom.  It combined fast paced action and big overpowered guns with horror.  FPS is one of the fastest growing genres and one of the most popular.  A good example of this is Halo and Halo 2.  Doom, along with Halo is still popular today.

Puzzle, the genre that started it all.  Puzzle is still wildly popular today and gets new additions to the genre at least once a month.  The most well known puzzle game is Tetris.  Tetris was actually created by a Russian mathematician so it is educational as well as fun.  It has a recent incarnation called Lumines.  Similar to racing, it is usually included as a mini-game or a bonus game. 

The final genre I will list is the RPG or role playing game.  This was a rather innovative genre that endeavored to put the player in the shoes of the character.  The game gave you the ability to name your character and all the in game character referred to your character by that name.  The most famous RPG is Final Fantasy.  Almost everyone has heard of this game as it is on its twelfth incarnation plus numerous spin offs.  This genre arguably boasts the most games of all the genres.  

These aren’t all the genres, as there are now extinct genres not to mention hybrids of every kind.  To hear about some outstanding games, click on the Super Stars link.  Or you could go back to the homepage and learn about this webpage.  To find out about genres not mentioned here, do a Google search for them.  Hopefully you learned about a genre you might like.