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Action Games

An action game requires the need to develop the skills of hand/eye coordination and reaction-time.

Movements of the joystick or game-pad controller, combined with the pressing of buttons relates to action on the screen. Mastering the contols takes practice but some players just engage in button-mashing - often with pleasing results to the annoyance of those who play 'intelligently'.

There are many sub-genres within this category of game:

Game Play

The player usually controls the avatar of a protagonist.

The avatar has to make its way through a game level, collecting objects, avoiding obstacles, and battling enemies with various attack skills.

Successful enemy attacks deplete the avatar's 'health' - ultimately leading to the avatar's death. However the avatar usualy has several lives, and the game is only over when the player runs out of lives.

At the end of a level or group of levels, the player must often defeat the ultimate enemy - more challenging than other enemies - showing a culmination of skill in defeating him.

In all early games of this type the player wins the game by finishing a sequence of levels. But many action games now are 'unbeatable', having an indefinite number of levels, and the player's only goal is to maximize their score by collecting objects and 'killing things'.

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