Action

The action category refers to the broadly applied term for games with major emphasis in testing and challeging the player's abilities, such as reflexes, dexterity, timing, reaction time and eye-hand coordination. This is a major video game genre, dating as far back as 1962's Spacewar, and it has spawned several subgenres, such as shooter and beat 'em up. While games from other genres can be encompassed by such definition, the action genre refers to games in which the gameplay is heavily based on the previously mentioned common factors. The prime distinction, between games that only incorporate some of the mechanics and factors from action games and actual action games, is based in the influence rather than the presence of such mechanics and factors in the general gameplay. That means that despite a game featuring and requiring real-time responses from the player, what matters and defines a game as an "action game" ultimately depends of how much and to which degree the progression of the game relies on the real-time responses, skills and abilities of the player.

Action games are commonly associated to be revolved around combat and evasion of enemy attacks, obstacles and hazards, where the player's in-game avatar (which is typically a living or thinking being or a machine of some kind) is controlled manually and in real time by the player, with the objective usually being to eliminate enemies (Dig Dug), reach a destination (Mr. Driller [ミスタードリラー]) or perform specific actions (Wrecking Crew [レッキングクルー], Paperboy). However, the action definition is not limited to games featuring real-time combat and evasion, and some games don't follow this pattern, such as Breakout, Atari 2600/VCS's Kaboom! and most mini-games from the WarioWare [メイド イン ワリオ] series.