V: Types beginning with V

[Bytor]

VSG: Vehicle Simulation Games are games in which the player controls some type of moving mechanical device. Typically these games focus on cars/trucks and motorcycles or airplanes/spaceships although there are some which focus on boats, jet-skies, tanks and other combat vehicles. There are basically two types of VSG's, racing, and straight simulation, and these are further divided into two distinct categories, realistic and casual. The realistic VSG will attempt to portray the vehicle being used as close as possible to it's real counterpart, this could mean mechanical copies of correct sound, driving feel, limits etc as well as looks. The casual VSG will focus more on the players ability and less on the realism of the vehicle being driven. This is further divided into racing type games and mission type games, typically (not always, the Gran Turismo and NASCAR series are two exceptions) the racing games are the more casual games while the mission type games (typically flight sims) are actually more realistic, and typically will rely more on the player learning the controls of their vehicle and a little less about skills/reflexes, but even this is not set in stone. The history of this genre goes back to the very early days of the arcade as most consider Gran Trak 10 (released by Atari in 1974) to be the first true racing game. However, the genre really can trace it's true roots back to Pole Position (released by Namco in 1982). The next major step was actually an improvement in graphics more so than realism with the release of Out Run (by Sega in 1986) but realism would creep into the game in a big way with the release of Indianapolis 500: The Simulation (by Papyrus Design Group in 1990), this was one of the first to have actual car damage, car set-up options and true 3-D graphics. The genre really took off after this, especially with the advent of improved CPU graphic cards and the release of the Playstation game Gran Turismo in 1997, which many consider to be the first true racing simulation as judged by today's standards. Flight simulators got their humble starts as early as WWI when many "games" were designed to train fighter pilots, this continued into WWI with the production of Link Trainer (1929) which the "player" actually set in the plane which was moved by pumps. However, the first true game designed for home use is considered by many to be Microsoft's Flight Simulator (which is actually older than Windows) which actually got it's start on the Apple II in 1979 before MS took over the game totally. Today there are quite a few flight sim games both for PC and consoles but they are vastly outnumbered by racing games.

[Bytor]

VNVG: Video Novel Video Games are by definition are games with, typically, static graphics and anime style art which are for all intensive purposes computer generated interactive books. These games resemble most closely the older D & D type games which were answer/action driven games with no activity other than decision making and reading required of the player. Most of these type games can and do have multiple endings based on your answers/actions and unlike many Western genres are much more story driven involving not only intense plot development but character development as well. These games are pretty much exclusively Japanese based and are still very popular there for PC's. There have been some ports to the PS2 and Dreamcast but they occupy a very small niche in North America. The first to be released outside of Japan is considered to be Kanon (released in 1999 for the PS2, PC, PSP and Dreamcast) this was followed by such titles as Rumbling Hearts (released first in 2001) and 07 Fantasy Expansion (2004). While there have been a few other ports the genre is no where near as popular as the Far East, possibly due in fact to the type of gameplay as well as the fact that the majority of the games are most certainly 18+ as they often feature quite explicit adult themes.