what do you think about games that mix genres?. some james bond games do this almost all the time and in some adventure games it is almost inevitable. sometimes it works and sometimes it doesnt so...is it too risky to mix genres? (c) 1982 Sinclair Research Ltd, 0:1

If you mix them seamlessly, then it''ll tend to be good. If you mix them so that there are several modes of play, I think this would be bad and frustrating. When you play a game, you usually improve your quality of play as you go along. So to effectively change from one type of game to another half way could be very frustrating. Strangely enough, a lot of old games for my 8-bit computer did this - all in 43K of memory, too.

Another problem is that mixing genres can alienate a large part of your audience. "Realms of the Haunting" is one of my favourite games, and it is essentially a cross between a ''survival horror'' adventure, and a first person shooter. But many people who love adventure games, and would have loved this game, found the shooting part too difficult, as it required a decent level of competence. And the people into shooters found the enemies too sparse, and the ability to soak up damage too limited. So this game, despite getting lots of good reviews, never really impressed many people, because you had to be be pretty competent at two fairly different game genres to get the most out of it.

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Good examples of this are Battlezone 1 & 2. Combined RTS and first person vehicle combat. I''d consider them among the most fun online games I''ve ever played. But they apparently didn''t sell all that great. Like Kylotan said, it can alienate your player base. In Battlezone''s case you had to be good at RTS and first person to do well at the game.

Jack

I agree with Jack, the Battlezone games are a prime example ( in my opinion ) of games that were just too damn clever for their own good. They were a perfect blend of several different genre''s, First Person Shooter , Real Time Strat and Tank Simulation , the end result was basically a new genre in itself .... The First Person Real Time Strat , and herein lies the problem I think.

I don''t think that today''s gamer necessarily wants something new no matter how good it is, I don''t think that anyone will argue with the fact that the Battlezone games were very well put together products, the gameplay was solid and the graphics were also very well done , everything about these games was polished and yet they still failed to sell , why ? My own personal theory about this is that while there was nothing actually wrong with either game, they just failed to fit into any established genre. Rather than appealing to both RTS players and FPS players they ended up appealing to neither , I think today''s gamer is seeking familiarity from their games rather than something that is fresh and new.

For years the gaming public have been flooded with clones of some of the best selling games, and endless sequels that add little to the game except slightly better graphics and a mere handful of new features, and i think people have just gotten used to this to the point where thats all they want. This may just be due to the way in which the modern games industry opperates, games have to be made to sell to the mass market as they cost so much money to produce, you have to sell an awful lot of games these days in order to make any money on them. This has the effect of squeezing out the new and the innovative because it''s just too much of a risk to invest in something that might not sell.

Hopefully one day soon this bubble will burst and the production of games will end up back in the hands of those who really care , ie. the gamers themselves .

---- People are strange.