Computer games

Computer games are simply using a computer to play a game.

Computer games can be categorized in one or more of the following categories:

• [Turn based game]?
• Continuous game

• [Two dimensional]? - 2d
  • Fixed screen
  • Scrolling screen
    • Horizontal scrolling
      • Left to right scrolling - as you move to the right, you cannot move back to the left
    • Vertical scrolling
  • Pseudo 2d
• [Three dimensional]? - 3d
  • Pseudo 3d
  • Fixed 3d
  • On the rails
  • Cut scenes

• [First person]?
  • First person shooter
• [Third person]?

Special note about computerization of existing board games: Most popular board games have been computerized to some degree or another. Chess, checkers and [othello - reversi]? have world class computer programs. It has been proven , by playing all possible checkers games, that the second player to move can always win. Computer game programs are worthy opponents and can help you improve you skill at traditional board games.

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Most references you will find separate out videogames, arcade games, and computer games into different categories. Do we want to do that? I'd vote no (and you'd be right), but since it seems kind of standard, somebody might want to disagree. Most pages - or at least those on game history - tend to be about the hardware and companies anyway. It would be cool if this could end up different.

With videogames consoles getting ever more powerful and taking on former PC strongholds (the web, content creation, programming even..) and games migrating every which way, the seperation of hardware platforms is quite arbitrary and damaging. Let us be platform agnostic - it's the games that matter.