Defining A Genre (personal enquiry draft 1 - research)

I think the diversity of the genres that have popped up over the the years are one of the more important occurrences. This is also very much linked with the technological limitations at the time, gaming had to reach a certain point before a lot of games were even possible. I decided to research in to various games that I initially consider to be the first of their kind, upon researching them I found this not to be true however the games I did choose are considered by many to be the defining games of each genre. These are games that are the first to include certain conventions that have since been in most games of that genre since, conventions such as the alarm phases or the lack of weapons in Metal Gear to the lack of health items and ammunition in Resident Evil.

I would like to go into a lot more detail on one of these games, talking about how it established genres as we know them and why the game is important. The genres that made the biggest impact out of the ones I researched are the FPS, Stealth and Survival horror genre. Out of the three games in those genres I chose I've only played Metal Gear solid and Resident evil. So I will more than likely elaborate on one of these. Metal gear added a lot to stealth in 1998 and continues to add to it now with new innovative mechanics each game, the success of Metal Gear Solid, which sold over six million copies, was crucial to popularising the stealth genre, and in the years that followed, stealth-based game-play became a feather in the cap of a number of different series. Splinter Cell and Assassin’ s Creed were exponents of heavily stealth-orientated play. Resident evil also another game where its conventions carry forward in to other games and established our understanding of survival horror. It took a genre and reshaped it in to a new one, which added a great sense of realism and a lot more tension. Whilst the voice acting was terrible it was probably one of the best games on the PlayStation. Now however this franchise has fell a bit flat, whilst Resident Evil 4 felt like a fresh re-imagining of resident evil, 5 and 6 became to action orientated and have slightly lost what made them great in the early days. 

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_genres

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2009/10/30/ign-presents-the-history-of-survival-horror?page=4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXqpAIUZbZo

http://www.gamesradar.com/the-sneaky-history-of-stealth-games/