Last week we touched on the topic of sci-fi in video games. A fun fact about me is that I love playing video games.  So I thought this would be a great opportunity to examine my growing interest in sci-fi through the lens of my long time love of video games.

In looking through a list of famous sci-fi video games, some patterns already start to present themselves in the types of games that define the genre.  Many of the most famous games tend to focus either on specific themes of sci-fi.  Some themes popped right away: conflict, exploration, and flashy flash.  Each with varying degrees of incorporating story and humor.

Conflict is an incredibly broad collection of games that can be further categorized.  Many of the most popular sci-fi games center around conflict (this may be because the types of games that focus on conflict, sci-fi or otherwise, are typically very popular).  These games typically put the player in dangerous situations, heated wars, or all out battles.  First-person shooters (in which players experience the game first hand through the eyes of a hero or a soldier experiencing the dangers of a hostile world or all the visceral action of being on a battlefield) are an incredibly popular type of video game and fall under this category.  Famous examples include the Halo (futuristic intergalactic warfare ft. laser guns, grenades, and swords), Borderlands (space western setting)  and BioShock (retrofuturistic and more gritty settings of underwater or flying cities) games.  Strategy games (which often emphasize empire building and give players an overhead view to control many units) are very different from first-person shooters but can still fall under the broad category of conflict.  Instead of experiencing conflict through the eyes of an individual, players often are the ones making the important strategic decisions, directing troops, and building up resources.  A famous example is Stellaris, which “revolves around space exploration, managing an empire, diplomacy, and space warfare with other spacefaring civilizations” (from the game’s wikipedia page).

Some sci-fi games focus on exploration.  The gameplay for these games often emphasizes discovering the beauty and unfamiliarity of other planets.  A famous example is No Man’s Sky, which has players travel around an infinitely generating universe of planets with unique atmospheric properties, topographies, and inhabitants.

A much smaller group of sci-fi games is what I am calling ‘Flashy Flash.’  Flash games are typically simple or limited in their scope and can be played via a web browser.  The games that I put in this category have very simple gameplay and content (often arcade style) that is conveyed through a very flashy futuristic design (often lasers, neon colors, and themes of space).  Therefore, ‘Flashy Flash.’  These games have simple, smooth mechanics and draw people in using very appealing bright designs.  Some examples are Starwhal (essentially low gravity jousting between space narwhals), ROCKETSROCKETSROCKETS (space dogfighting between neon rockets), and Robot Roller-Derby Disco Dodgeball (the title actually pretty much sums it up: a dodgeball contest between robots who use roller wheels to travel around arenas that have the funky music and flashy lights of a disco).

Of course, this is a very simple initial breakdown that only barely begins to scratch the surface of sci-fi video games.  There are many categories of sci-fi games beyond these three and these categories of games include many titles beyond the ones I listed here.  Many games can’t be defined by a single category.  Some of the most famous sci-fi games ever don’t fit into these categories.  For example, the Portal games (which feature puzzle solving and story surrounding the Aperture Science company and their famous Portal Gun).  Science fiction games vary greatly in their level of action, tech, setting, humor, and storytelling.  Like sci-fi stories, sci-fi games also sometimes incorporate references to other famous games of the genre.

So, as part of our Journey Through Sci-Fi, I am going to play and post about sci-fi in video games.