Oddball spin-offs, such as the ones included this list, have become something of a rarity these days. In the high-stakes world of video game development, most major game developers won't take the risk and put, say, Marcus Fenix in a baseball game. But every so often, someone will roll the dice and put together such an odd pairing. And the results - be it good or bad - are almost always entertaining.

Some developers, however, might've gone a bit overboard in trying to change things up, producing some of the weirdest spin-offs that the world of gaming has ever known. What follows are the series outcasts that threw us for a loop, with bizarre premises that are often wildly detached from the source material. And come on, where else are you going to find a Final Fantasy rhythm game, or Solid Snake playing cards?

Original genre: Turn-based RPG
Spin-off: First-person photography

This entry was truly a neck-and-neck race between Pokemon Snap and Pokemon Conquest, the turn-based strategy game that . Because why the hell not? At least Conquest is a turn-based strategy game, so there's a logical connection with the original games. A Pokemon game about taking pictures is just plain weird.

The fact that Pokemon Snap didn't kick off a new wave of first-person, on-rails photography games is a crime. You take pictures of Pokemon. That sounds really boring on paper, but dammit it makes a strangely engrossing game. It's not enough to just take pictures - you have to take good pictures, and that means thinking about composition, son. And when you've got Pidgey flying all over the place you need to have a hair trigger on the shutter to make sure you capture to the majestic beast right at the opportune moment.

Original genre: Real-time strategy
Spin-off: First-person shooter

Command Conquer: Renegade isn't the sort of game you see very often. Rarely does an established strategy game developer, such as Westwood, decide to dive headfirst into a genre they've never touched before. It's like if Blizzard tried to make StarCraft into a shooter, and we all know what happened to that .

For fans of the Tiberium Wars series, Renegade is a real treat because it gives an up-close-and-personal view of the action, a perspective never-before-seen in a Command and Conquer game. It blended some of its RTS roots in with the FPS action, such as letting you spend resources to requisition better weapons and vehicles - sort of like Battlefield with resource management. The game was so beloved, in fact, that just last year a group of superfans released , which updates Renegade's designs with Unreal Engine 3.

Original genre: 2D platformer
Spin-off: Puzzle and golf hybrid

Kirby's Dream Course sounds like a recipe for disaster. 'Hey guys, let's take this fun, co-op platformer and needlessly turn it into a golf game. Because if there's one thing kids love, it's long, boring games of golf.' Okay, maybe it didn't happen exactly like that, but I'm glad someone had this idea because the resulting game is actually awesome.

It helps to think of Dream Course not as a golfing game, per se, but as more of a puzzler with some golfing rules sprinkled on top. Kirby is the ball, there's a hole, you want to get 'em in there with a few hits as possible. The pink puffball's signature power-ups are in the mix, letting you zoom across the course as a wheelie or skate across frozen lakes with the power of ice. And because this is a Nintendo game, all the controls are super smooth and easy to learn. It may be an odd pairing, but Kirby's Dream Course is - wait for it - a hole in one.

Original genre: 2D platformer
Spin-off: Soccer (or football, or whatever)

Mega Man Soccer and Kirby's Dream Course share a lot in common. Both games take a popular, 2D platformer and mash it up with a popular sport. But while Dream Course is a good game, Mega Man Soccer, quite frankly, sucks. It sucks worse than my ability to come up with soccer metaphors. Its most redeeming feature is performing special shots that utilize the powers of the different robot masters, but even those all do the same basic thing.

Things really go downhill quickly. The game will chug when more than, say, three characters are on the screen, and the limited field of view makes it nearly impossible to play the field - a problem which the AI doesn't seem to have, mind you. There's also this ominous tidbit from the game's Wikipedia page: "The game has no ending." There's a paper thin plot, but no conclusion, meaning the blue bomber is likely stuck in soccer-playing limbo for all eternity. Maybe that's why we don't see him around much anymore...

Original genre: 2D fighter
Spin-off: Color-matching puzzler

In spite of Mega Man Soccer's poor reception, developer Capcom surged ahead with their "Let's give it a shot, why not?" strategy and released the masterful Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo two years later. This game is a real gem - literally. It's a fast-and-furious, competitive puzzle game centered around building up large gems of a single color, and then smashing them to send garbage blocks over to your opponent's screen and, hopefully, ruin his or her game.

And it also starts a crossover of Street Fighter and Darkstalkers characters (plus Devilotte of Cyberbots fame) because, again, why the hell not? And it's glorious. You're constantly trying to build a larger and larger gems so you can squash your opponent quickly while simultaneously hoping they don't send a bunch of garbage your way and muck up your plans. Plus, the little characters in the middle duke it with hadokens and shoryukens while you play. It's adorable.

Original genre: Tactical strategy
Spin-off: First-person shooter

When Syndicate launched back in 1993, it was a deeply complex isometric tactics game. Using a squad of cyborgs to establish world-wide domination via assassinations, infiltrations, and “persuasion” was a simple yet alluring premise, and the whole experience was bolstered by the ability to research new equipment and tax conquered territories for income.

But Starbreeze Studios’ 2012 reimagining involved a little less politics and a lot more shooting, as the Syndicate reboot launched in first-person shooter form. Fans of the original were none too pleased. It was only related to Bullfrog Productions’ 1993 classic in so much as the word “Syndicate” showed up a lot, and it had guns in it--even though it was a fairly decent game in its own right.

Original genre: Turn-based strategy
Spin-off: Puzzle

Depending on your genre preferences, there’s a good chance that this spin-off will resonate with you far more than Might Magic’s traditional gameplay. Instead of old-school, turn-based warfare between gangs of evil wizards and noble warriors, Clash of Heroes took a hard left turn into Japanese puzzle game territory.

With an aesthetic similar to Avatar: The Last Airbender and one-on-one stacking battles akin to Puyo Puyo and Magical Drop, this was a game that had next to nothing in common with the franchise entries before it. But sometimes, a little experimentation pays off--and the intricate, addictive strategy of placing your adorable troops just so was a blast of ridiculously fun fresh air in a series that seemingly had one foot stuck in the PC gaming past.

Original genre: Japanese role-playing game
Spin-off: Rhythm game

Square Enix's storied JRPG franchise had seen its fair share of spin-offs prior to 2012, but this bizarre yet endearing 3DS rhythm game takes the cake by far. Despite having a name that literally no one on the planet knows how to pronounce (or spell without consulting Wikipedia, for that matter), Theatrhythm Final Fantasy is the perfect homage to the role-playing series. It allowed players to build a party by choosing from several of the characters from each of the main entries in the franchise before embarking on a rhythm-based journey to save the universe.

While its plot was relatively simple (and perhaps loosely based on the film Footloose), the gameplay was delightful in its odd presentation. Battles and exploration were successfully completed by tapping and swiping the 3DS’ touch screen with the stylus to the beat of Nobuo Uematsu’s classic compositions. Anyone with a deep appreciation for all things Final Fantasy will find this to be an absolute treat.

Original genre: Action adventure
Spin-off: Card game

After three hugely successful outings on the PlayStation 3, the Uncharted series moved on over into the mobile arena. First, there was , where Nathan Drake’s treasure-hunting exploits depended more on card game tournaments than life or death adventures.

Fight for Fortune was basically a lite version of Magic: The Gathering in which you’d use your best cards (unlocked when the game would synch its data to your progress/Trophies from previous Uncharted titles) to duel an opponent. While this was certainly a departure from the series’ roots (and contained 150% less Nolan North), it was a mildly entertaining affair for anyone with five bucks to burn.

Original genre: Platformer
Spin-off: RPG

Though Sonic is no stranger to freeing animals trapped inside the metallic bodies of evil robots, he was a stranger to turn-based battles and experience points. That is, until BioWare’s first-ever handheld project, Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. As it turns out, several of the Canadian developer‘s employees were fans of Sonic the Hedgehog--so much so that they developed an RPG set in The Blue Blur’s universe.

This Nintendo DS exclusive featured a large cast of playable characters and a lengthy (albeit lightweight by BioWare standards) narrative, which was fortified with stylish cutscenes. Exploration and traditional RPG battles were done via the DS’ touch screen and stylus, and though many found the game to be far too easy, it was generally well received.

Original genre: Stealth
Spin-off: Trap action

Before hit the scene, the Tenchu franchise delivered the go-to games for when you wanted to sneakily execute feudal Japan-era guards, using a combination of traditional trickery and sick-nasty ninjutsu. Flash-forward to 2008--one decade after the release of the PlayStation original--when From Software decided to mix things up with a downloadable XBLA title that bared almost no resemblance to its predecessors.

The basic gameplay involves sneaking around an overhead-view map, much like Bomberman, as you pepper the tiled playfield with spike traps and springboards to comically take out AI guards or player-controlled rival ninjas. Think Rube Goldberg meets Hanzo Hattori. To date, it’s the only Tenchu game that’s rated E for Everyone.

Original genre: Platformer
Spin-off: On-rails shooter

Mario’s done a lot of…interesting…things in his tenure as the most recognizable face in video games, but blasting enemies out of the sky while riding atop a Yoshi ranks up there pretty high on the weird-o meter. Yoshi’s Safari, an on-rails shooter, took advantage of the Super Nintendo’s Super Scope, forcing players to annihilate baddies from a first-person perspective by using a two-foot plastic cannon peripheral.

Each level offered plenty of platforming segments and branching paths, allowing you to choose your route, which would determine which items and enemies you would encounter. As you rode Yoshi around, all you’d see was your gun cursor and the dinobeast’s head bobbing as he ran. Fun fact: If you accidentally shot Yoshi in the back of the dome, you’d lose health and receive his ultimate death stare, all while he continued to sprint forward at full speed.

Original genre: JRPG
Spin-off: Shooter

It’s no secret that Final Fantasy VII is, to put it lightly, rather popular. So when Square Enix announced the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII metaseries--a collection of spin-off games, films, and novels meant to expand on the game’s universe--we weren’t exactly shocked. Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII was one entry in that collection, a third-person shooter that put side character Vincent Valentine in the spotlight.

It featured an over-the-shoulder perspective not unlike Resident Evil 4, and Vincent would gain experience points and Gil as he buried bullets in the chests of his foes. The RPG elements lent a bit of familiarity to an otherwise foreign outing for the FF franchise, and though Dirge of Cerberus wasn’t the FF7 sequel or remake fans had been hoping for, it did provide a few answers to the many questions spawned by its progenitor.

Original genre: Action platformer
Spin-off: Turn-based strategy

This is a series that’s seen plenty of re-envisioning, from misguided Godsmack incorporation to beautiful cel-shading--but we don’t recall the dashing Prince regaling us with tales of an Advance Wars clone. For whatever reason, Ubisoft Montreal felt the need to bridge the story gap between The Sands of Time and Warrior Within with a fictitious war between India and Persia.

Said war revolved around defeating demon armies, summoning troops with collectible cards, and vying for control over Chess-esque tiling. Battles was largely ignored at retail, immensely overshadowed by its console big brother, , which released that same week. But for DS owners who fancied turn-based strategy, it became something of an off-brand, off-kilter cult favorite.

Original genre: 2D fighter
Spin-off: 3D beat 'em up

Here’s a great way to alienate your entire fanbase. Step one: Title your so-called sequel as “2,” for a fighter that’s had a stereotypical number of nonsensically named iterations of the same base game. Step two: Make the gameplay completely different in every way. Step three: …Profit? Guilty Gear 2 stars some familiar faces from the legendary anime fighter, like Sol Badguy and Ky Kiske. But past that, Arc System Works went totally off the rails, plopping the formerly pixelated pugilists into a Dynasty Warriors-style melee.

In theory, Overture actually sounds pretty cool: You have a modicum of control over waves of spawning troops, all the while turning the tides as a stereotypical anime super-soldier. In practice, it ended up being a mediocre disappointment that left longtime fans of the series scratching their heads in befuddlement.

Original genre: JRPG
Spin-off: Action adventure

Yes, the iconic smiling Slimes of Dragon Quest have practically become the face of the wildly popular franchise. That doesn’t mean we need a game revolving around the adventuresome exploits of the lowly enemy. Somebody must’ve pined for it, though, because Rocket Slime is the second in a three-part series all about that lovable, blobby mascot.

This bizarre game tells the story of Rocket, a Slime who must save the abducted citizens of Boingburg. His war machine of choice: the flute-powered Schleiman Tank, with firepower capable of blasting enemy panzers, like the Cactiballistix and Carrot Top, to smithereens. If that plot summary made any sense to you, you’re in for a treat--this spin-off hit a perfect, whimsical balance between enjoyable exploration and lighthearted-yet-intense tank showdowns.

Original genre: Survival horror
Spin-off: Co-op hack 'n' slash

If you're a diehard fan of the Silent Hill series' trademark tension and pants-wettingly disturbing monsters, then the concept of this spin-off is bound to befuddle you. Instead of a terrifying, solitary adventure into one’s deepest fears, is a top-down action game that features up to four-player multiplayer.

Unsurprisingly, it’s somewhat harder to establish cerebral horror when the core gameplay has you and your friends wailing on mutated creatures with lead pipes and electric guitars. The game suffered as a result of this identity crisis between the brand name and the arcadey experience. It just goes to show that sometimes, it’s wiser to take a gamble on a new IP than risk offending the hardcore fans of an existing franchise who might be repulsed by the out-of-left-field experiment.

Original genre: Sidescroller
Spinoff: Pinball

Oh sure, plenty of game-themed pinball tables exist, whether virtual (Ninja Gaiden, Street Fighter II) or physical (Super Mario World, Street Fighter II again). The next step up from those are the out-and-out pinball games that completely revolve around a popular property; think Pokemon Pinball, Mario Pinball Land, Sonic Spinball, or The Pinball of the Dead. But Metroid Prime Pinball is a very special spin-off case, where the premise has a smidgen of canonical believability. It’s possible--however unlikely--that Samus could get stuck in Morph Ball form as she’s bounced around an oddly ramped-filled space station.

The tables themselves are taken from established Metroid lore, including familiar locales like the Phazon Mines and Phendrana Drifts. You’ll also have the chance in ball form to batter infamous bosses like Meta Ridley to death. Listen: We’re suckers for a finely crafted pinball game, and when you ground the high score proceedings in some semblance of a Metroid plot, our delight reaches astronomical levels.

Original genre: The definitive sidescroller
Spin-off: Pretty much anything you could imagine

Okay, here's the thing. Mario is a plumber. He's good at jumping (and jumping on things), and he even managed to saved a princess a time or two--that alone is pretty admirable considering his other talents include removing junk and fecal matter from clogged up pipes. So... why does he also prescribe medicine? He's a blue collar worker, not an MD. And he certainly doesn't make for a very good pinball.

Now that we think about it, he does a lot of things that don't really make sense. Why is he teaching typing? We've never seen a single computer in the Mushroom Kingdom. How the hell does he even know what a keyboard is? And why is he so good at every sport that isn't the long jump or "mustache growing"? He's not exactly athletic. While we'll continue to tip our hats to Mario's adventurous ways, the fact remains--pretty much everything about that dude is pretty damn weird.

Original genre: Arcade
Spin-off: Puzzle

It isn’t unnatural to see a mascot like Pac-Man appear in a number of spin-offs, but in the early 1990s Namco’s pellet-muncher rarely strayed outside of his comfort zone of chomping ghosts in mazes. That changed in 1993 when the popularity of puzzle games--particularly Tetris--were hard for publishers to ignore.

Namco decided to meld the concept of constantly falling blocks with Pac-Man’s unending appetite, but this time the combination ended up working out. We were pulled in by the odd challenge to not only match blocks, but also to create the optimal path of ghosts for Pac-Man to eat. Though left alone many years, Pac-Attack was recently rereleased on iOS devices, giving many a new chance to experience this unusual chapter in the arcade icon’s life.

Original genre: JRPG
Spin-off: Racing

These days Square Enix is ready to take a chance on combining any disparate genre with Final Fantasy, but a kiddie FF side game was still fairly novel in the late ‘90s, particularly a kart racer. Following in the footsteps of Crash Team Racing, Square adapted the Mario Kart concept to fit with their more adorable creatures, including chocobos, black mages, and moogles as the drivers.

The gameplay didn’t do much to differentiate itself from similar games, but the most bizarre choice was that--aside from Squall and Cloud being unlockables--Square went with cutesy characters instead of the more popular humans from the main games. It was a mistake they wouldn’t make again with Kingdom Hearts.

Original genre: Turn-based JRPG
Spin-off: Action RPG

Forget everything you know about the series and just imagine a game based on the following description. An amnesiac tween is living happily on an island with child version of Final Fantasy heroes. The idyllic paradise is attacked by shadow monsters that kidnap the other amnesiac kids.

The incredibly convoluted story then has the kid teaming with Donald Duck and Goofy, visiting dozens of worlds based on films from the Disney vault, and saving Mickey Mouse from certain doom. Oh, and he also battles Sephiroth and Cloud in Hercules’ battle coliseum. If there wasn’t so much proof that these games actually exist, we’d think that this was particularly immature fan fiction.

Original genre: Sidescroller
Spin-off: Rhythm game

Mario is the king of spin-offs, able to have a great time whether playing golf or medicating patients as Dr. Mario. Still, there’s one thing that will likely never look natural on Mario and that’s dancing, a fact that this DDR digression for the GameCube proved expertly.

In Mario Mix the portly plumber fights Waluigi, Bowser, and many other regular enemies, though instead of jumping on their heads, he battles them with smooth moves on the dance floor. Sadly, this wasn’t the last time Mario .

Original genre: Stealth
Spin-off: Turn-based strategy

Millions have enjoyed Solid Snake’s long career in espionage, mostly involving sneaking around corners, shooting guards in the head, and pontificating on the nature of war. Series creator Hideo Kojima is one of the most experimental minds in gaming, so no potential spin-off seems totally impossible. However, translating Snake’s mature tale of betrayal and intrigue into a collectible card game was not something we expected to play when the PSP launched.

Set in a separate continuity from MGS, the usual lengthy cutscenes were replaced by cheaper motion comics, while Snake’s normal actions all work within the concept of what card you pulled. It grew a cult audience, and the sequel fixed some of the problems, but most Metal Gear fans were left waiting for the “real” PSP Metal Gear that they got in Portable Ops.

Original genre: JRPG
Spin-off: 2D fighter

Persona 4: Arena brought together two different niche fan bases together with one fighting game. Developed by the team responsible for Guilty Gear and BlazBlue, Arena pulled together the emo high school students of both Persona 3 and 4 into one 2D fighter.

Even weirder than the idea of mashing together genres as dissimilar as fighting games and RPGs was the fact that the single-player story was canonical. Everything that happened in it was official as far as Persona publisher Atlus was concerned, even though they could have gotten away with calling it an imaginary game. A weird choice, but one appreciated by Persona fans addicted to the franchise’s mythology.

Original genre: Rhythm game
Spin-off: Slightly blockier rhythm game

LEGO Rock Band was a weird side gig for all parties involved. For Traveller's Tales, it was a departure from the usual film-based brick-a-thons it had been cranking out for Lego; and for Harmonix, it was an uncharacteristically kid-friendly take on its head-banging Rock Band series. The whole concept felt like it was born out of a drunken night of brainstorming between the two studios, except unlike most creative projects born of alcohol, both developers remembered it the next morning.

Luckily, the game fared well amongst critics, and sold more than enough to break even. Still, we've never heard of anyone who played it, and by the time the music faded, both studios were ready to go back to solo projects.

Original genre: Lightgun shooter
Spin-off: Typing tutor

In 1999, WOW Entertainment envisioned a zombie apocalypse fought not with shotguns and secret agents, but with keyboards and, uh, guys who could spell goodly. Copied and pasted from House of the Dead 2, the Sega-published “edutainment” title replaced the satisfaction of shooting monsters with the hardcore, finger-tapping excitement of typing words to rid the world of evil, one labeled zombie at a time.

The Typing of the Dead was later ported to Dreamcast in 2001 by Smilebit (Jet Set Radio, Panzer Dragoon) where it proceeded to ruin Christmas for a generation of gamers. Was this Sega's way of fighting mankind's greatest plague, illiteracy? Perhaps. But even though critics were kind to it in reviews, we're not sure many schools wound up making this part of their curriculem. Curriculim. Corric ... er, school learning.

Original genre: FPS
Spin-off: RTS

When Bungie left Master Chief in stasis at the end of Halo 3, it fell to Ensemble Studios to keep the series frosty with Halo Wars, a prequel that mutated the franchise's FPS DNA into a top-down RTS. The genre switch was jarring for the fans to say the least. Think of Half Life: Episode 3 arriving as a puzzle game or Gears of War returning as a point-and-click adventure.

Thankfully, with the talent of the Age of Empires studio to back it up, Halo Wars made the adjustment with nary a scratch to the series' reputation (even if it left some of the more hardcore FPS fans scratching their heads). As one of the highest selling RTS games for consoles, it'd be a stretch to say Halo Wars was a failed experiment.

Original genre: Action adventure
Spin-off: Shooting gallery

We know why Link's Crossbow Training was made. Nintendo needed a celebrity to plug the Wii Zapper, and Link (presumably) needed the extra rupees. As for whether or not this glorified tech demo has a place in the Legend of Zelda canon, however, we're not so sure. Before Link's Crossbow Training, the famed Hylian never touched a crossbow.

What's more, all that training later went to waste because there was nary a crossbow to be found in Skyward Sword or the DS games that followed. And with merely a couple hours of content, Link's Crossbow Training didn't even match up with its full-release brethren in size or scope. Nevertheless, the game sold nearly 5 million copies and remains among the Wii's top 20 best-selling games, so it looks like the endorsement worked. Fire away... we guess?

Original genre: Stealth Action
Spin-off: Action Stealth

What does a ridiculously complex spy series and a lighthearted monkey-catching franchise have in common? Not much. That didn't stop Konami from outfitting Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater with Snake vs. Monkey, a minigame which tasked the master infiltrator with heading into the jungle to capture wayward monkeys from the Ape Escape series. Sony responded in kind with its own “Mesal Gear Solid” add-on in Ape Escape 3, a minigame which followed Pipo Snake as he battled monkey-esque Metal Gear on a mission to save Solid Snake himself.

Granted, neither Metal Gear Solid or Ape Escape were ever known for making sense, but this crossover was weird by even their standards. Snake vs. Monkey was later dropped for the Metal Gear Solid: HD Collection and Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D, meaning you're going to have to hit the retro shops to enjoy this odd (but strangely charming) spin-off.

Those are our choices for the strangest spin-offs in all of gaming--but perhaps you've got something even weirder in mind. Tell us about the strange side game we missed in comments, and remember, insane amounts of change can sometimes be a good thing.

And for more fun stories on GR+ head on over to .

Not even the strangest-smelling games journalists are asking 'how many floating points' a game has any more. Obviously it depends how many you score (fnar), but I am so pleased to say that we've all got past the stage of citing polygon counts when judging a game's graphical merits. Pretty much anything you can imagine can now be drawn by modern consoles in terms of computational oomph, so now it's mostly down to artistic expression as to whether a game looks good or not.

But looking back over gaming's history, even when things weren't so easy, it was those who tried something a bit different who managed to make their games stand out. And so entire art styles were born. Sometimes through technical necessity, other times through a deliberate attempt to shun progress. Fortunately that means I have a lot to talk about! So follow me into the gallery, if you please - let me show you some beautiful things...

Look at that adorable little chap. There are only 44 white squares making up that image, yet I'm sure you said 'Space Invaders' in your mind as soon as you saw it. Back then, these tiles were simply the smallest level of detail the cripplingly low-resolution displays could handle. But even since video games have hit full HD (and beyond), some designers still choose to use 8-bit-styled artwork, deliberately restricting the resolution - and colour palettes - of their sprites so that they appear blocky and pixellated. Why? Because it looks cool, is easier to animate, and it looks cool. What more reasons do you need?

These days? Pixel art is extremely popular so it isn't hard to find examples. The wonderful 10,000,000 on iOS is a fine specimen, as is .

Vectrex was the first home console to display its games using vector graphics instead of rasterised imagery, such as sprites. If you listened in mathematics classes (which you totally did, right?) you might remember that vectors provide a method of calculating precise movements of points in space. Join those points up with lovely shiny lines and what have you got? Wireframe 3D. Yep, Vectrex was a 3D console. And that meant exceptionally smooth animation because it didn't use animation frames at all. It used maths.

These days? Some games still borrow that vector style, like . They've got a whole load of other stuff going on as well, but that clean, 'glowing lines' style still has an air of mystique.

This was absolutely on the bleeding edge of technology in January, 1982. Zaxxon employs an 'isometric' viewpoint that allows flat, 2D graphics to look like 3-dimensional images, simply by drawing them as if viewed from a slightly elevated vantage point. By having the ship pass behind some elements of the scenery, it is enough to fool the (admittedly foolish) eye into thinking it is viewing an actual 3D room through the screen. It isn't, of course. And we can see that now. But that effect must've been amazing if it was the first time you'd seen it, back in the days before your humble narrator was even born. Suddenly, games were starting to look real.

These days? Isometric graphics are still popular on iOS, but even now everything can be rendered in 3D, the viewpoint has been retained for strategy games. is a prime example.

Rotoscoped graphics were all the rage back in the early 1990s, as they allowed for far more realistic character movement than had ever been seen before. Basically what you need to do to rotoscope a character is film someone acting out the gesture you require, such as jumping, or picking something up off the floor. Then you trace each frame and use your drawings in sequence to create a moving character. Jordan Mechner pioneered the use of rotoscoping in games, first with Karateka (pictured, above-left), but then most famously in Prince of Persia (also pictured, above-right). Out of this World and Flashback then picked up the rotoscoped baton and ran with it.

These days? on Nintendo DS uses rotoscoped graphics to create its smooth animations. But the technique has arguably been surpassed by true motion capture, which is why it's seldom used now.

In the early 1990s, everybody was still drawing their sprites by hand, placing each coloured pixel on a grid until they had drawn one frame of the character in question. So imagine the leap-forward when Mortal Kombat let you fight with REAL PEOPLE. Well, real photos of people. OK, real photos of people that were retouched by hand to make them look good at tiny resolutions. Yep. I'm sorry, but I have to say: to modern eyes, the effect looks awful, at least when it's moving. Back then, it was revolutionary.

These days? Not many games choose to use digitised sprites any more, because the most 'photorealistic' games use 3D to achieve their goals. Um... on Wii and iOS? Yep, sorry, pushing it a bit.

Flat-shaded 3D is something you would choose for its stylistic merits today, but it was born out of necessity. Before we had processor-intensive texture-mapped polygons (but after those lovely vector wireframes), some gaming hardware could 'flat-shade' polygons, with a process very similar to MS Paint's bucket tool, to fill in triangles. High tech, eh? Games like LHX Attack Chopper on Mega Drive and even some ZX Spectrum games like Hard Drivin' managed flat-shaded 3D visuals, but Virtua Racing was the first to do it at any kind of enjoyable speed. Light-sourced, too. Yum.

These days? Any flat-shaded game these days is being deliberately retro (which is cool because flat-shading is awesome). There are some flat-shaded scenes in on last-gen.

Film grain is often applied to horror games to make it look as though you're playing a horror movie. No, Mickey Mania isn't a horror game (but it is... scarily good. Aha!). And, to be clear, I am talking about the scratches and lines, not the film-strip effect on the sides up there. These deliberate imperfections are often combined with a vignette effect to darken the corners and edges of the display. Makes it less sterile, see? And just like a real film in a cinema. Only without the popcorn stuck to the seats or the people talking noisily behind you. Unless you have a really awful house.

These days? Most horror games employ some element of it. is a great example, but it's so pronounced it includes an option to reduce it or even turn if off completely. Hours of fuzz are probably not good for your eyes. 25 hours of psychological horror? Totally fine, obviously.

This was all the rage in the late 1990s. Polygonal 3D graphics were still in their infancy, but characters could have more detail if they were the only 3D objects being drawn. Stick them over a flat, pre-rendered (or even hand-drawn) background and you can have visuals far more detailed than the primitive tech of the day could ever draw by itself. Games like Alone in the Dark did it earlier than Resi, but Capcom's survival horror classic is the finest example of the art. Well, that and its immediate sequel.

These days? Well, there really isn't any need to do it any more! But there is an HD version of the Gamecube's Resident Evil remake coming soon, and that has pre-rendered backgrounds, so the style will live on. Can't see many native PS4 or Xbox One games going for it, though...

The idea of making games look like cartoons wasn't all that new when Jet Set Radio did it on Dreamcast, but it was the first to add black outlines to polygonal 3D to such incredible effect. Funnily enough, The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker doesn't actually use black outlines at all, instead restricting the blending between light and shadow so that rounded 3D objects look like flat drawings of 2D objects. Which they would be anyway if you think about it. Hmmm...

These days? The likes of use cel-shading on top of highly-detailed 3D character models to create visuals that really could be animated features. Of course the result is gorgeous. And Borderlands is another fine example of the (literal) art.

Photorealism is a lot of graphical developers' ultimate goal. Computer graphics so realistic, they're indistinguishable from the real thing. Some angles of Gran Turismo 6 are approaching it. Heavy Rain had a crack (and failed) and new-gen consoles might approach it by the end of their life cycle. How? Well, ray-tracing actual beams of virtual light... look, actual photorealism where you simulate the real world is still beyond games consoles. So until then, look at Kevin Spacey and imagine he's the real Kevin Spacey. There ya go.

Right now? The sea in . It's like the actual sea. But again, its people are nothing like actual people.

Now there's a question! The low-res textures on cubes make for a very distinct art style - which you could call 'Minecraft-style' - and one that is being copied by countless open-world resource-collecting games. But I would argue it's just pixel art applied to 3D. In spectacular, unmistakeable fashion, yes. But taking an existing idea and turning it into something new worked out 'pretty well' for Mojang. So! Got any more video game art styles that haven't been covered? Let everyone know in the comments.

And if you're looking for more, check out .

Not even the strangest-smelling games journalists are asking 'how many floating points' a game has any more. Obviously it depends how many you score (fnar), but I am so pleased to say that we've all got past the stage of citing polygon counts when judging a game's graphical merits. Pretty much anything you can imagine can now be drawn by modern consoles in terms of computational oomph, so now it's mostly down to artistic expression as to whether a game looks good or not.

But looking back over gaming's history, even when things weren't so easy, it was those who tried something a bit different who managed to make their games stand out. And so entire art styles were born. Sometimes through technical necessity, other times through a deliberate attempt to shun progress. Fortunately that means I have a lot to talk about! So follow me into the gallery, if you please - let me show you some beautiful things...

Look at that adorable little chap. There are only 44 white squares making up that image, yet I'm sure you said 'Space Invaders' in your mind as soon as you saw it. Back then, these tiles were simply the smallest level of detail the cripplingly low-resolution displays could handle. But even since video games have hit full HD (and beyond), some designers still choose to use 8-bit-styled artwork, deliberately restricting the resolution - and colour palettes - of their sprites so that they appear blocky and pixellated. Why? Because it looks cool, is easier to animate, and it looks cool. What more reasons do you need?

These days? Pixel art is extremely popular so it isn't hard to find examples. The wonderful 10,000,000 on iOS is a fine specimen, as is .

Vectrex was the first home console to display its games using vector graphics instead of rasterised imagery, such as sprites. If you listened in mathematics classes (which you totally did, right?) you might remember that vectors provide a method of calculating precise movements of points in space. Join those points up with lovely shiny lines and what have you got? Wireframe 3D. Yep, Vectrex was a 3D console. And that meant exceptionally smooth animation because it didn't use animation frames at all. It used maths.

These days? Some games still borrow that vector style, like . They've got a whole load of other stuff going on as well, but that clean, 'glowing lines' style still has an air of mystique.

This was absolutely on the bleeding edge of technology in January, 1982. Zaxxon employs an 'isometric' viewpoint that allows flat, 2D graphics to look like 3-dimensional images, simply by drawing them as if viewed from a slightly elevated vantage point. By having the ship pass behind some elements of the scenery, it is enough to fool the (admittedly foolish) eye into thinking it is viewing an actual 3D room through the screen. It isn't, of course. And we can see that now. But that effect must've been amazing if it was the first time you'd seen it, back in the days before your humble narrator was even born. Suddenly, games were starting to look real.

These days? Isometric graphics are still popular on iOS, but even now everything can be rendered in 3D, the viewpoint has been retained for strategy games. is a prime example.

Rotoscoped graphics were all the rage back in the early 1990s, as they allowed for far more realistic character movement than had ever been seen before. Basically what you need to do to rotoscope a character is film someone acting out the gesture you require, such as jumping, or picking something up off the floor. Then you trace each frame and use your drawings in sequence to create a moving character. Jordan Mechner pioneered the use of rotoscoping in games, first with Karateka (pictured, above-left), but then most famously in Prince of Persia (also pictured, above-right). Out of this World and Flashback then picked up the rotoscoped baton and ran with it.

These days? on Nintendo DS uses rotoscoped graphics to create its smooth animations. But the technique has arguably been surpassed by true motion capture, which is why it's seldom used now.

In the early 1990s, everybody was still drawing their sprites by hand, placing each coloured pixel on a grid until they had drawn one frame of the character in question. So imagine the leap-forward when Mortal Kombat let you fight with REAL PEOPLE. Well, real photos of people. OK, real photos of people that were retouched by hand to make them look good at tiny resolutions. Yep. I'm sorry, but I have to say: to modern eyes, the effect looks awful, at least when it's moving. Back then, it was revolutionary.

These days? Not many games choose to use digitised sprites any more, because the most 'photorealistic' games use 3D to achieve their goals. Um... on Wii and iOS? Yep, sorry, pushing it a bit.

Flat-shaded 3D is something you would choose for its stylistic merits today, but it was born out of necessity. Before we had processor-intensive texture-mapped polygons (but after those lovely vector wireframes), some gaming hardware could 'flat-shade' polygons, with a process very similar to MS Paint's bucket tool, to fill in triangles. High tech, eh? Games like LHX Attack Chopper on Mega Drive and even some ZX Spectrum games like Hard Drivin' managed flat-shaded 3D visuals, but Virtua Racing was the first to do it at any kind of enjoyable speed. Light-sourced, too. Yum.

These days? Any flat-shaded game these days is being deliberately retro (which is cool because flat-shading is awesome). There are some flat-shaded scenes in on last-gen.

Film grain is often applied to horror games to make it look as though you're playing a horror movie. No, Mickey Mania isn't a horror game (but it is... scarily good. Aha!). And, to be clear, I am talking about the scratches and lines, not the film-strip effect on the sides up there. These deliberate imperfections are often combined with a vignette effect to darken the corners and edges of the display. Makes it less sterile, see? And just like a real film in a cinema. Only without the popcorn stuck to the seats or the people talking noisily behind you. Unless you have a really awful house.

These days? Most horror games employ some element of it. is a great example, but it's so pronounced it includes an option to reduce it or even turn if off completely. Hours of fuzz are probably not good for your eyes. 25 hours of psychological horror? Totally fine, obviously.

This was all the rage in the late 1990s. Polygonal 3D graphics were still in their infancy, but characters could have more detail if they were the only 3D objects being drawn. Stick them over a flat, pre-rendered (or even hand-drawn) background and you can have visuals far more detailed than the primitive tech of the day could ever draw by itself. Games like Alone in the Dark did it earlier than Resi, but Capcom's survival horror classic is the finest example of the art. Well, that and its immediate sequel.

These days? Well, there really isn't any need to do it any more! But there is an HD version of the Gamecube's Resident Evil remake coming soon, and that has pre-rendered backgrounds, so the style will live on. Can't see many native PS4 or Xbox One games going for it, though...

The idea of making games look like cartoons wasn't all that new when Jet Set Radio did it on Dreamcast, but it was the first to add black outlines to polygonal 3D to such incredible effect. Funnily enough, The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker doesn't actually use black outlines at all, instead restricting the blending between light and shadow so that rounded 3D objects look like flat drawings of 2D objects. Which they would be anyway if you think about it. Hmmm...

These days? The likes of use cel-shading on top of highly-detailed 3D character models to create visuals that really could be animated features. Of course the result is gorgeous. And Borderlands is another fine example of the (literal) art.

Photorealism is a lot of graphical developers' ultimate goal. Computer graphics so realistic, they're indistinguishable from the real thing. Some angles of Gran Turismo 6 are approaching it. Heavy Rain had a crack (and failed) and new-gen consoles might approach it by the end of their life cycle. How? Well, ray-tracing actual beams of virtual light... look, actual photorealism where you simulate the real world is still beyond games consoles. So until then, look at Kevin Spacey and imagine he's the real Kevin Spacey. There ya go.

Right now? The sea in . It's like the actual sea. But again, its people are nothing like actual people.

Now there's a question! The low-res textures on cubes make for a very distinct art style - which you could call 'Minecraft-style' - and one that is being copied by countless open-world resource-collecting games. But I would argue it's just pixel art applied to 3D. In spectacular, unmistakeable fashion, yes. But taking an existing idea and turning it into something new worked out 'pretty well' for Mojang. So! Got any more video game art styles that haven't been covered? Let everyone know in the comments.

And if you're looking for more, check out .