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[lowpoly]

I chose sports and apparently am unique in that regard.

[AdamAtomic]

I think sneaker shooters are a distinct subgenre too -- Trilby and Thief and Metal Gear series would all be stealth-shooters. It's interesting that games could theoretically share a subgenre even if they're in different genres: i.e. Trilby: The Art of Theft is at core a platformer, and Metal Gear Solid is at core a third-person shooter, but both can be thought of as being in the "stealth" subgenre.

Is Ogre Battle Tactics even a game? There's Tactics Ogre and Ogre Battle (and as an aside Ogre Battle is nothing like a turn-based tactical RPG since it isn't turn-based or tactical, although Tactics Ogre is).

Metal Gear Solid is NOT at its core a third person shooter...unless you're talking about the franchise as a whole?  The first MGS is a top-down puzzle game

[FishyBoy]

I don't know who else chose beat 'em ups, but I did.

I actually enjoy beat 'em ups more in concept than execution. Most are pretty good, if not really repetitive. I mainly like the way that a beat 'em up can mix the complexity and possibilities of three dimensions with the simplicity and ease of use of two.

Otherwise, I really don't like picking genres.

[Eclipse]

And Eclipse, half-life 2 and ikaruga may seem very different, but so do, say, nethack and final fantasy 7, and they're both RPGs. in both nethack and ff7 you gain experience points and gain levels and give abstract commands to fight monsters, in both ikaruga and half-life 2 you aim and shoot things.

In all the movies you see a main character talking and doing stuff, but not all the movies are the same 

the experience you get playing Hl2 is far different than playing Ikaruga, as in the first you actually travel inside a 3d world, drive, solve puzzles, and yes you even shoot a lot of masked people in the head. In Ikaruga the shooting is secondary to the bullet deflecting \ color switching mechanic. Also even in cave story you shoot, but i'll not define it truly a shooter, one gameplay element even if important doesn't make a genre

[Pacian]

I'm a 'really don't care' on this one.  I like games with absorbing atmospheres and strong characters, and I dislike games where the challenge seems arbitrary and detached from the world its depicting - so entries in pretty much any genre can make me happy or turn me off.

It's honestly not something I consider when buying/downloading games.

[Kneecaps]

I like games that incorporate music or rhythm somehow into the gameplay, or games that "create" music based off of the gameplay (like Rez).  I also like genres with easy classification.

[Renton]

In all the movies you see a main character talking and doing stuff, but not all the movies are the same 

That's like saying all the games are the same because they all have a player character.

the experience you get playing Hl2 is far different than playing Ikaruga, as in the first you actually travel inside a 3d world, drive, solve puzzles, and yes you even shoot a lot of masked people in the head. In Ikaruga the shooting is secondary to the bullet deflecting \ color switching mechanic. Also even in cave story you shoot, but i'll not define it truly a shooter, one gameplay element even if important doesn't make a genre

In HL2 you solve physics puzzles, explore the torn world and do a lot of driving and command a small army of big bugs at certain points. Doesn't change the fact it's a shooter. Same with Ikaruga. I mean, seriously, who are we kidding here, it's a shmup. Even Wikipedia just says so.

(Though I do agree that a single gameplay element shouldn't define a game.)

[Chris Z]

Ikaruga is clearly a 3rd Person Deflector.  I'm gonna go edit Wikipedia now.

[AaronAardvark]

I chose 'puzzle', but I find the genre of 'puzzle' to be misleading.  I don't enjoy games like Bejewelled or Tetris so much, but I highly enjoyed the puzzle elements of Portal and Braid.  That's not to say I don't enjoy traditional puzzlers.  I quite enjoyed PuzzleQuest and Tetrisphere.

[Matt Thorson]

Guys, I really love platformers.  Like... a lot.

[Alec S.]

Guys, I really love platformers.  Like... a lot.

This is entirely surprising to everyone here.

 

[Kamos]

[Boring game classification post below... run away, run away!  ]

I don't think the conventional categories are helpful unless the game clearly fits within a stereotyped genre. For instance, when you read "RTS", you think of Starcraft. Nevermind the fact that a "real time strategy" game could be a "FPS + strategy" game (e.g., Battlezone 2). Some categories inform the camera position, some categories inform what the game does, some inform how you interact with them... and this is pretty much the reason why there's been so much discussion around "directory vs. tags" classification methods.

IMHO, the most useful classifications I've seen were the ones that gave a label for each key concept.

[Super Joe]

I chose sports and apparently am unique in that regard.

what a delightful surprise