Back in the hey days of the arcade and 16 bit era's one of the most popular genres was the beat em ups, basically you chose a character and proceeded  to pound the daylights out of enemies as you moved through different levels. Although there were some variances in each game in terms of combos, sometimes you might be able to pick up a stick or nun chucks an enemy dropped and location, they all played pretty much the same.

Level design was an after thought in these games, although you might think  but in one game I am a ninja turtle on a construction site for a skyscraper and in another I'm fighting aliens on board a space ship, no that's not level design that's just re skinning a game.  In most games you either fought in a pseudo 3d plane or just move from left to right ,waiting for that arrow to point you forward, and sometimes with a boss at the end of the level (and who didn't like that boss music for turtles in time it got you so pumped), but all an all  they were more or less the same game.  And because of the extreme repetitiveness of these games, though most were fun, they quickly and for the most part have died out, people became tired of the button mashing  and re skinning the same game in different clothes.

Now we have the fps, and you might be thinking what do most fps and beat em ups have in common they are miles apart, but let's look a little closer and  we will see they follow the same trend. Well we already have the easy part that there are an abundance of fps that gets push out onto the market every year, most of them not being original usually just following which is the most popular. But now lets look at the similarities in their gameplay type in most fps you pick a gun (or is given one) then proceed to move forward killing mostly everything in your part.

Although there are some variances in each game in terms of the type of weapon, sometimes you might be able to pick up a gun or grenade an enemy dropped and location. Some depict modern day warfare others maybe science fiction centric, some level designs are in more open areas and others  more corridor focused, they all play pretty much the same. And in most cases level design is also an after thought in these games, "but in one game I'm a solider in the streets of war torn country and in another I'm fighting off hordes of alien in space", no that's not level design either ,because of most of the time you just move forward blasting enemies, that's actually smoke and mirrors to hide poor level design through things like story.

If fps continue on there current paths how long do you think the fps reign would last do you see it lasting through the ages going strong into the next gen of gaming or will it go the way of the beat em ups.

Sort of seems that way. Beat them ups were king during the 16 bit era. Shitload of FPS games this generation.

That Alien V Predator pic brings back some good memories of the beat them up days. You should put X-Men and Golden Axe in there too.

Golden axe you know your stuff, beat em ups was one of my favorite genres back in the days and still have fun with them now and again. Turtles in time on the snes is one of my favorite.

I thought it was platformers back then.

Yeah platformers were very popular back then, but they were never quite as repetitive and transitioned  smoothly into the 3d era, beat em ups however did not.

Actually as I think about it there were probably alot more beat em ups than platformers back then.

I can probably list more beat them up series than platform series for the 16 bit era.  I have to agree with your statement in the previous post that beat them ups didn't transition too well to 3D era.  The main beat them up game that I played during the 32/64 bit era was Fighting Force.  I actually enjoyed the game decently even though it had some flaws.  It just seemed that very few people tried to make them during the 3D era.

Platformers are the very essence of repetitive.  Most of the time the levels were absolutely static, so you were really just trying to memorize how to progress.  I don't see how they can possibly be left out of this discussion.  It's the same exact thing.

The advancement of technology is what made the FPS popular, as previous generations couldn't do the genre real justice.  In that regard, I'm almost certain the FPS is here to stay.  On the other hand, tech improvements doomed the classic beat'em up, as they really were extremely limited.  Fun, yeah, I loved Double Dragon, but 3D environments meant an evolution away from the basic forumula.  I suppose games like Devil May Cry were the next step.

I have no idea why people feel the need to disparage the FPS genre.  The platforming saturation of the NES and SNES literally had me bored with gaming (until I found FF6).  The surge from the FPS genre went a long way in making me happy with this generation.  They take me back to the days of reflex gaming that I loved with the Atari, as opposed to the memory based gaming of the NES, where all you had to do was learn timing and you could beat some games with your eyes closed.

I think you missed the point. FPS' aren't popular because of their linear single player experience. They are popular for almost exclusively their expansive multiplayer. The real reason FPS became the phenomenon they are today is because of the advancements made in technology to support online multiplayer, which wasn't that popular or well done in the previous generations.

So comparing FPS to Beat em ups isn't really intuitive. One is multiplayer centric while the other is single player centric with maybe some co-op thrown in. Different people of different times with different tastes.