I got to thinking about how to create a Random Encounter Table for PS3 games, because I always loved those things from my DnD days way, way back. Here are my results from the top 200 PS3 games on Metacritic.

I was going to make this much simpler by using Metacritic's genre filter, but I discovered their filter just doesn't work. I got no results for FPS games on PS3. That just isn't true. So, I went through the top 200 games (not enough time to do more this week) and wrote down all the genre descriptions for each based on what was on wiki pages and various search results. The results got me thinking about how to define genres and how Random Encounter Tables work.

Here's a list of the genres I came up with and the numbers of games roughly defined by them from the top 200.

1. Shooter: 38 (this includes first-person, third-person, even arcade shooters - there were very few arcade shooters so why not roll them into just "shooters")

2. Action Adventure: 33 (this includes open world action-adventure and other variations of games that still have action-adventure in their description)

3. Sports: 32 (Query: do boxing games go in sports or fighting? I chose sports. Contrariwise, do F1 games go in sports or racing. I chose racing.)

4. RPG: 18 (so many variants of this here but all have strong RPG elements above all else)

5. Platform: 17 (I had trouble with the Ratchet & Clank games because they are platformers but also shooters and adventure games. Since any hint of platforming in a game raises my concern, I put them in "platform").

6. Fighting: 14

7. Racing: 13

8. Adventure: 11 (A curious description. I included games like those made by TellTale and point-and-click adventures like Secret of Monkey Island. I don't want lots of specific genres with just 1 or 2 games in them for this table. They're close enough.).

9. Rhythm: 10

10. Puzzle: 6 (Does Zen Pinball belong here? Is pinball more a shooter? Maybe, but I didn't want it to stand alone in it's own category with one game, and it kind of fits for me alongside games like Peggle and Shatter. So, what the heck. I mean, I love the "Arcade" genre description but few games fit there during these PS3 days).

11. Tactics: 4

12. Survival: 4 (Some uncertain choices here like should Dead Space be a purely survival game even though it's kind of a third-person shooter and resembles Resident Evil which was described on wiki as more of a shooter? Or does Minecraft go here even though it's labeled primarily "sandbox" although it does have survival mode. I put them both here because, in the end, it made for more than two games in this category).

I thought that these 12 genres are a pretty good summation of most game types out there. I think if I continue on it might expand as more games fill a particular niche. I don't want a lot of single games in their own categories for this table.

So let's roll up a game based on this. Use your favorite randomizer (I used random.org's app) or for more fun, a D12, for genre. Then the game (It dawns on my now that I should try and make the # of games match what you can roll easily with DnD dice: 4, 6, 8, 12, 20 plus combinations of those).

Roll 1: 7 - Racing

Roll 2: 11 - Split/Second (this is the tricky part. I have a list of the numbers assigned to games based on rating from the Metacrtic list. I didn't want to type all that out from my phone. Plus it's ugly to look at (just a long list of numbers). The 11th racing game is #185 on the best-of-all-time list for PS3.

So there you have it. Split/Second.

A fine racer I've played back when I was looking for a Burnout style game. I'd gladly play it again on PS3 for trophies.

Post Script: I noticed with random tables compiled this way, that they just up the odds you are going to get the games that are most popular on a given system. That's not really my aim, and so I might try and alter the numbers to favor genres I like from most to least. The whole process is really to come up with ratios or odds that fit your own interests while also occasionally exposing you to new games.

Also, this was just a nerdy way to dig in deep with a game collection and think about the types of games out there and how they're categorized by gameplay. For instance, it's interesting that Shooter ended up winning out over the first 200 on PS3 over Action Adventure. Action Adventure led for most of the time I was compiling until I got near 200. Sports was a close second or third most of the way. Everything else falls off from there pretty steeply with RPG, Platform and Fighting games being 50% less frequent than those first three. After that it's really small numbers. It's just an interesting analysis.

Have a good Labor Day!