Copyright 2004 by The McGraw-Hill Companies Click here for terms of use in Software

Encode Code 3 of 9 in Software Copyright 2004 by The McGraw-Hill Companies Click here for terms of use

Do you play an occasional game of solitaire on your PC or are you an all-out gaming fanatic It s not unusual to see more retail shelf space devoted to gaming software than to all other software combined To fully understand gaming, consider what drives a person to game or not to game

Why do people spend hours each week and, for some, each day at gaming The obvious reason, of course, would be that it is fun It s fun and exciting to be able to snowboard down a mountain, work in teams to defeat an enemy, or cross increasingly difficult levels to solve a puzzle Sometimes you are a winner and sometimes you aren t, but, as with any other game, the number of victories you have depends on your level of skill and experience Gaming software is designed so that gamers become immersed in a virtual reality that lets their imagination take control This ability to escape from reality for a while is a big draw to the gaming community Gaming lets you do what you want and be what you want For example, you can become anything from a WWII flying ace to a shape-shifting cockroach

Gaming can become a circle of activity The more you game, the better you get and the more you want to play Opponents of gaming claim that valuable time is wasted on gaming Gaming proponents say that if you weigh the pros and cons, time spent on gaming can be positive, as long as it is done in moderation The hardware notwithstanding, the cost of the games themselves can be a significant expense Games cost from $10 to $70 and accessories can add to the cost It s not unreasonable for gamers to justify this expense by viewing gaming as an alternative to other hobbies (piano, tennis, snowboarding, astronomy, and so on) The gaming community and Hollywood are giving people what they feel people want sex and violence More and more games are rated Mature (ratings are discussed later in this chapter) The idea of exposing children to uncontrolled violence is a serious concern to parents and to society in general Some people claim that gamers can develop a dependency on gaming that can lead them to seclusion from the outside world and cause them to lose their ability to cope with reality

The most fundamental decision in gaming is whether to pursue PC-based gaming or console-based gaming Let s look first at the pros and cons for PC-based gaming The PC can be faster and offer better graphics and sound than console-based games PCs offer greater variety in controllers, which is useful for people who like to use different control sets for their games Game updates are easily downloaded on the Internet On the con side, PCs are considerably more expensive, but, of course, they are multifunction devices that can do more than just gaming Also, the PC market is more volatile, so the constantly changing technical specifications can make controllers obsolete more quickly The technical specs for console-based hardware, such as Xbox, GameCube, or Playstation 2, remain constant, making hardware and software obsolescence a trivial issue until a new console is released The display for console hardware is the television, which does not offer near the resolution of a PC monitor Generally, games for consoles are more expensive than PC-based games Overall, PC-based gaming leads to more open-ended choices for gamers

For the first decade of PC gaming, games could be easily classified into the eight gaming genres (categories) described in this section This is still true for most games; however, the trend is to combine several genres in a single game This makes it difficult to peg a game to a specific gaming genre For example, in the James Bond 007 series of games, you ll find several genres represented, including action, adventure, racing, and simulation