How has computer and video game software changed, evolved, diversified, etc over time?

Advancement in technology and ideas on how to improve gaming experience made this happen. Improvement in graphics and technical stuff is obvious so I'll talk about other things. Back in the day when mario was saving a princess, there originated a game from Japan called "metal gear". This game was the only game that had a deep story. Thus the trend of good storytelling in games began. Later as the series progressed, it introduced action set pieces in gaming, the likes of which are now being copied by games like 'call of duty'. Now a days set pieces have gone real time. This means that you are in control of the character in an action scene and you are playing the game, can fail and die in that intense scene. The kind of action sequences that were only shown in cutscenes in previous games are becoming playable now. This was also done first by metal gear solid 4. Another name which should be mentioned when talking about real time cutscenes is 'uncharted 3'. You can check it out on youtube. Metal gear also gave birth to the stealth genre. Hitman, thief, dishonored, splinter cell all stealth games came from here. Convincing voice acting is important these days because story plays critical roles in games now. Actors like ellen page are acting in games. Motion capture, facial capture, etc makes it a lot more believable. Checkpoint system is a relief. Now we dont have to hit F5 to quicksave. Quicksave was a relief when there were only limited saves. Saves were a relief when there were no saves in games like contra. The latest stuff happening now is saving the entire state of action of the game and resuming whenever u play again. This means that if you fire a bullet and the animation is playing, and you turn your PS4 off, the next time you turn it on, you will find the same animation resuming in that game and the bullet being fired. Health regeneration was begun with halo. No draining life bars, just hide from the enemy and your health will be back to normal. This is a negative feature and needs to die as it takes away the challenge from the game. It has corrupted the gaming crowd and turned them into casuals. Now if a challenging game appears, like resistance 3, the game doesn't sell but games like call of duty and halo with health regeneration are best selling ones. A core gamer prefers the old school health system, or better yet- the health system of the game called 'stalker', where when u get hurt, your life starts draining continually unless u find something to patch the wound. Now that's realistic and hard. About genres- earlier it used to be simpler. Games were either platformers or puzzlers or shooters or hack and slash action. New types of innovative gameplay were found. But with time, as the industry grew and games started becoming expensive to produce, they stopped taking risks and either kept milking the same genres (shooters) or started combining multiple genres in a game (uncharted, dishonored, bioshock, far cry 3, etc). Innovation is lacking because of business risk. This saturation of market with similar gameplays and expensive games may cause the industry to crash just like it did in the old days. Indie developers are the ones who innovate with games like fez, closure, limbo, etc. AI has significantly improved over time. Smart allies and enemies change the way you play. Its impact on gameplay was most felt in the recently released game 'the last of us'. Enemies are not rambos who will come running at you and allow you to easily shoot themselves, they will hide, sneak up on you, flank you, divert your attention so others can kill you. They fear you as you fear them. If you fire a shot, they shout and inform one another that you are armed. If you try to fire an empty pistol in some corridor, they hear the clicking echo and understand that you are out of ammo, thus becoming bold and fearless and gang up on you. If you beat someone down in a closed quarter combat, he will beg you to let him live. Another example of good AI could be 'the last guardian' but unfortunately the AI of the beast in the game is so complicated and coding for PS3 is so difficult that it has not yet seen the light of day.