Video Games are one of the most popular new-age entertainments of the modern era. The gaming industry as it is popularly called is a thriving multi billion dollar industry that offers new products and innovations virtually every day if not in lesser time. Video games have been picked up and adopted by leading organizations in the electronic and multimedia segment to cater to the ever increasing rise in demand for novel video games. Today X-Box and Play Station have become a part of every day jargon for youths across the globe. Even older people are not immune from the clutches of this phenomenon called video game. Read more…
Pool is akin to billiards or snooker if looked at a glance; however the rules are different for a pool and the game is a favorite amongst the youngsters in particular. A pool table is a must have for night clubs and other places where young people hang out. A pool table looks like a billiard table with balls and sticks to play with. A pool game is played on a long rectangular table having six pockets. There are four corner pockets and two pockets located on the sides at the center of the table. Other equipments that are required are a long wooden stick called the cue stick, a white ball called the cue ball, which is used to hit other balls and a number of other multicolored balls.
The cue ball is to be hit with the stick and pocket as many balls as one can. Now this game has got on to the Internet as well—just like so many different popular games. Online pool games have become a huge rage amongst the youth across the globe and there are some web sites that specialize in this game. Some offer the game for free; whereas for some one has to pay a subscription fee. Online pool games are as exciting as the real game itself and have many distinct advantages, such as having 24×7 accesses to the games and getting to play from the comforts of one’s home. The rules are same for both the online and the real games. The most basic requirement for playing a pool game is to be able to shoot with a correct technique. Using the right amount of force and shooting at the correct angle are very vital. Online pool games allows one to choose the quantum of force to be applied while hitting the cue ball; the only difference being that instead of a real cue stick one has to use the click of the mouse.
All the online pool sites have online instructions and simulations that help you to get acclimatized with the game. The game is not only about using the cue stick to hit the balls– it requires a lot of intricate calculations involving the possible outcomes of a shot and how the shot would impact the opponent. One can go on hitting till one pockets the balls and has to stop when he fails to pocket a ball. At this time, the opponent gets the chance and the game continues moving to and fro till there is a clear winner. Only after getting familiarized with the rules specific to 8 ball, 9 ball or straight pool game, should one go for betting, because betting without knowing the rules may result in huge losses as you may be pitted against the best online players.
The 8 ball pool game is the most popular pool game and is played with 15 object balls and one cue ball. The 9 ball cue ball was until very recently played by professionals, however now it has entered the online arena where any one can participate. The game is played with 9 balls that are numbered and one cue ball. During the game, a player is required to make contact with the lowest ranked ball on the table. The straight pool or 14.1 pool was the ultimate professional pool game in the US; however, this version of the game has become very popular online where a person has to score a predefined number of points (usually 150). There are 15 numbered balls on the table.
An online game is a game played over a computer network and nowadays online games are synonymous with games that can be played on the Internet. The development and explosion of the online gaming sector can be attributed to the rapid development of computer networks in general and the Internet in particular. As more and more people gain access to the Internet, the online gaming phenomenon keeps on growing. Online games vary from simple text based games to games with complex graphics and virtual reality that can accommodate more than one player at a time. A lot of online game enthusiasts have formed gaming communities, thereby making online games a kind of social pursuit beyond just games.
The ever increasing popularity of Java and Flash, which resulted in the rapid development of the Internet, thereby enabling websites to make use of streaming audio, video and a wide array of interactive applications; enabled the growth of online games significantly. As Internet Explorer, the web browser from the stables of Microsoft incorporated Flash as an in-built application, the Internet metamorphosed from a data intensive application to an on-demand entertainment platform. This revolution ushered in a new era that was brought on by online games such as World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XI, Lineage II, Guild Wars, RuneScape, Artix Entertainment and Mabinogi. Some of these sites allowed free access to games while others charged a subscription fee.
After the burst of the dot-com bubble in 2001, may online gaming sites that relied exclusively on advertisement revenue faced severe cash crunch. Despite severe decrease in profitability some of the online gaming websites have survived and have been able to offset the revenue loss by promoting other websites owned by the same company and diverting the online traffic there, which in turn generated revenue in other ways. In the 1990s, online games transcended LAN protocols and became compatible with IPX and TCP/IP. One great innovation in the online gaming sector is the real time strategy game which allowed multiple players to play over a local network. With the growth of the Internet, innovative software allowed players to tunnel the LAN protocols. By the end of the 1990s most real time strategy games were supported by the Internet which enabled players from across the globe to play amongst themselves in real time scenarios.
With the rapid strides made by the online games, open source networks including Dreamcast, Xbox, PlayStation 2 and Nintendo entered the online gaming arena armed with their own versions of PC games.
Massively multiplayer online games slowly entered the online gaming sphere with the rapid growth made by the broadband internet, thereby allowing hundreds of online players to play the same game on real time basis. Some important styles of massively multiplayer online games that evolved are:
- MMOSG (Massively multiplayer online social game)
- MMOFPS (Massively multiplayer online first-person shooter)
- MMORTS (Massively multiplayer online real-time strategy)
- MMORPG (Massively multiplayer online role-playing game)
Most of the popular online games are governed by EULA (End User License Agreement), which defines the boundaries necessary to protect the rights of the creators of the games. Online games are a very popular mode of modern entertainment and are definitely here to stay. It will definitely witness a lot of innovations in the near future.