Below are a list of common terms associated with Video Games. For Boardgames see our Glossary - Board Games, and for RPGs, see our Glossary - RPG. Thanks to IGN for many of these definitions.
3DS - Follow up to the DS, Nintendo's 3DS is a glasses-free 3D portable device. The handheld features dual screens — a top screen producing autostereoscopic glasses-free 3D effect and a bottom non-3D touch screen. The 3DS released in Japan on February 26, 2011 and in North America on March 27, 2011.
Action Game - A game characterized by simple action and response gameplay. This is the broadest category of games, there are many variants and sub-genres, and not many games fit neatly into just one. Under the most basic definition the player's on-screen character can run, jump, roll, shoot or fly, but the defining obstacles are overcome by "physical means", rather than involved intellectual problem solving. Examples include some of the earliest video games (Donkey Kong), but the genre also includes more titles (God of War 3).
Action Adventure - A game which is nearly all action (see Action Game), but that also includes a good deal of strategy and more advanced problem solving. Often this is simply in the form of finding the correct series of buttons, levers, switches, etc. which can give the player access to new stages and levels (Shigeru Miyamoto's Mario World series) but can be much more complicated and include collecting special objects for later use (The Legend of Zelda: Skyword Sword, Uncharted 3: Drake's Decepetion).
Alpha - The first playable version of a game. Alpha software generally barely runs and is missing major features like gameplay and complete levels. See also Beta. Also: The transparency of pixels in bitmap images. See Alpha Channel.
Atari VCS/2600 - The first home video game system to achieve major consumer success, the Atari VCS (Video Computer System), later renamed the 2600, sported an 1.19 MHz 6507 processor and 128 bytes of RAM. Games came on ROM cartridges. Graphically primitive to today's eyes, it was amazingly popular, creating an awesome boom and raking in hundreds of millions of dollars for Atari, a division of Warner Bros. Eventually the market became super saturated with bad games and crashed between 1983 and 1984.
Beta - Software nearing the release stage of development that still contains bugs or other problems. At the beta stage, software is stable enough to distribute to reviewers and to show retailers: all the final play elements should be in place.
Bonus Level - A level or stage in a game where the character can gain special items like free guys, power-ups or extra points. Typically bonus levels are either hidden and require discovery or appear after a certain number of regular levels have been completed. In most bonus levels you can neither be hurt nor die, but in the rare cases that you can die, your death will not impede the main games progress.
Boss - A larger, more powerful and more difficult to defeat enemy than those normally encountered in a game. A typical boss is a singular enemy fought only once, usually at or near the end of a level or stage (see Level, Stage). In some games it may be encountered several times, but may be more powerful and difficult to defeat each time. If the same boss is encountered multiple times, it generally requires a different strategy to defeat each time.
Cartridge - A small device, containing chips, designed to be inserted into a computer or system. It contains either ROM chips with program information or RAM chips (generally for saving information). Before the advent of CD-ROMs, most video games for home systems used to come on cartridges (also called "carts").
CD-ROM - A compact disc, similar to an audio CD, containing information that can be read by a computer or console. Since CDs can only be written to once (using special equipment), they are functionally read-only in nature, hence the suffix ROM (see ROM). CD-ROMs can hold about 650 megabytes (650 million bytes), far more than a magnetic disk or cartridge, allowing them to store memory intensive data, like video. Reading from a CD-ROM is far slower than reading from a cartridge or magnetic disk.
CES - Consumer Electronics Show. A huge trade show for consumer electronics, like computers and TVs. Until E3, it was also the premier trade show for video and computer games. Although some companies still have a presence at CES, its influence is greatly diminished.
CGA (Color Graphics Architecture) - A graphics standard designed for XT machines. CGA cards were capable of displaying graphics at 320x200 and 4 colors - black, white, magenta, and cyan. Even for the time (early 1980s), these graphics were terrible, paling in comparison to other color machines available on the market.
Cheats - Codes, tricks, or exploits that are programmed into a game which give the player special abilities, like invulnerability or extra weapons. Cheats are often programmed into games to facilitate easy testing, and left in to add depth.
Classic - In game terms, a classic game is an old game, like Pac-Man. More generically, it is used to describe consoles and software from before the crash of '83-'84, like the Atari 2600 and Intellivision and games like Combat, Target Fun, and Ninja Golf — whether or not they were actually classic in the fun-to-play sense.
Coleco - A video game pioneer, Coleco designed the first digital home video game system in 1976, the TelStar arcade, which could only play one type of game, Pong. A cartridge-based system, the ColecoVision, followed in 1982. The ADAM computer (1984) was released just as the home computer and video game industries crashed simultaneously. Coleco is actually an acronym for COnnecticut LEather COmpany.
ColecoVision - A cartridge system introduced by Coleco in 1982. It was far more powerful than the other systems available at the time (the Intellivision and Atari 2600). Although it sold more than 500,000 units in two years, it didn't have the installed base to survive the crash of '83-'84 and was discontinued in '84.
Commodore 64 - A classic 64 K computer introduced by Commodore in 1982. It had a cartridge slot and was originally intended to be used with a cassette tape as the storage mechanism. It was very inexpensive, but displayed only 40 characters across the screen at a time and was functionally unexpandable. It had better graphic abilities than a stock Apple II, but not the Apple IIe.
Console - A computer dedicated to playing video games. Examples include Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360, and Sony PlayStation 3.
Doom-like - A term to describe Id's landmark game Doom with gameplay consisting largely of running around mazes, looking for hidden doors, and killing things. The term "first-person shooter" has replaced Doom-like to describe this kind of particular game.
DOS (Disk Operating System) - DOS has come to be a casual term for the MS-DOS operating system that runs IBM-PC compatibles. Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 may access this mode by holding the Windows Button + R and typing in cmd.
Dreamcast - Sega's 128-bit videogame console, released on November 27, 1998 in Japan and on September 9, 1999 in the U.S. The system runs a customized Sega OS as well as a custom flavor of Microsoft Windows CE. The Dreamcast media format, dubbed GD-ROM, is capable of holding 1GB of data.
DualShock - Sony's second generation PlayStation controller. It features dual analog sticks and a built-in dual rumble feature. Released in 1998 and later packed in with the PlayStation console instead of the standard digital controller.
DualShock 2 - Updated version of the original PlayStation DualShock controller for use with the PlayStation 2. Although similar to its predecessor, the DualShock 2 features analog buttons and a pressure-sensitive digital pad.
DualShock 3 - Sony's DualShock controller for the PlayStation 3, which debut approximately one year after the Sixaxis.
Dynamic Play Adjustment - An AI routine, pioneered by Sega, that adjusts the difficulty of the game on the fly to the user's skill level.
E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) - An annual computer entertainment and video game trade show presented by the ESA.
Easter Egg - An inside joke hidden in a program which is accessed by performing a certain sequence of commands. The first Easter egg was found in the Atari 2600 game Adventure. By following a special sequence of commands, the character could pass through a wall into a hidden room that contained the programmer's initials. Easter eggs are present in many games including Grand Theft Auto IV and Call of Duty: Black Ops.
EGA (Extended Graphics Architecture) - A replacement for the CGA standard for PC video display, EGA cards displayed a standard 320x200 resolution at 16 colors. EGA was also capable of several higher-res modes that were very rarely used in gaming.
EISA (Enhanced Industry Standard Architecture) - Invented by a group of electronic manufacturers to answer the proprietary Microchannel architecture released by IBM. The EISA specifications consisted of a 32-bit bus, a method for machines to look at what cards were in the system, and what resources those cards need. This ability to look at the card's resource requirements was one of the big factors in developing a plug-and-play operating system.
Emulation - A mode which enables a computer to simulate the operation of another computer. The universal computing nature of modern computers means that any computer (given enough time and storage space) can emulate any other computer. In game terms, many classic games are being released for next generation systems in emulated form. That is, instead of rewriting a game for PlayStation, you simply write an emulator of the original computer or arcade board for the PlayStation and let the emulator run the original code. For classic games, this is considered preferable than rewrites of the games, since some of the most warmly remembered "features" of classic games were actually bugs.
Encryption - To prevent unauthorized use, many consoles require that their cartridges or CDs have specially encrypted code on them before they will work in the console. This encryption can only be placed by the console manufacturer, which allows them some measure of control over who produces games for the system. Most encryption routines can be bypassed, some more easily than others. The PlayStation, notably, has an almost criminally easy way to bypass encryption.
Famicom - Short for FAMIly COMputer, the Famicom is the Japanese name for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).
Fighting Game - A game which consists of fights between two or more characters, one controlled by the player, the other controlled by either another player or the computer. The fighting may be executed hand-to-hand, but characters may also use weapons, or have supernatural powers such as the ability to throw fireballs. See also 2D fighting game, 3D fighting game.
First Person - A perspective in which a player's character is not represented on the screen, but rather the view is such that the player "sees" what he or she would if they were actually performing the actions found in the game (looking through the window of a cockpit, for example). See also third person, simulation.
Flight Sim - A simulation which attempts to duplicate as closely as possible the experience of flying an airborne craft. The game may be based on a real craft (Falcon 3.0, Apache), or an imaginary one (the Wing Commander series), but the game must be designed with an emphasis on realism and include as much detail as technically possible.
Frames Per Second (FPS) - A measure of how many frames are drawn per second on a screen. In standard US NTSC TV broadcasts, 30 frames (and 60 fields) are drawn on the TV screen per second whereas standard motion pictures run at 24 FPS. The more frames drawn per second, the greater the realism of the motion shown on the screen. Many games draw less than 30 frames per second to the screen. The TV image is still refreshed at a rate of 30 FPS, but a new image simply isn't drawn with each new pass.
Game Boy - A portable game system by Nintendo introduced in November 1989 and loads game software by cartridge. The original model featured a monochrome LCD screen, which could display 16 shades of gray and was powered by a 1 MHz processor.
Game Boy Advance - Nintendo's backwards-compatible 32-bit handheld. GBA features a 2.9 inch (40.8mm x 61.2mm) reflective TFT color LCD screen and uses Nintendo-made game paks. Launched in Japan on March 21, 2011, June 11, 2001 in North America and June 22, 2011 in PAL territories.
Game Boy Color - Backwards-compatible color incarnation of Nintendo's best-selling handheld, introduced on November 18, 1998 in North America. Using a TFT Color liquid crystal reflective screen at 160x144 pixels resolution, the GBC is able to display 56 colors at once (out of 32,000) and 10 sprites per line.
Game Gear - Eight-bit portable game system introduced by Sega in April 1991. Although the cartridges are different sizes, it is "partially" compatible with the Sega Master System. It has a 32-color LCD screen, and is powered by a 3.5 MHz Z80 CPU.
Game Cube - Abbreviated: GCN. Nintendo's follow-up to the Nintendo 64. This 128-bit console uses 405mHz IBM PowerPC copper chip technology and uses Matsushita's proprietary mini-DVD format for data storage (1.5GB). The system launched in North America on November 18, 2001 and in Japan on September 14, 2001.
GD-ROM - Proprietary CD-based media format used for Sega Dreamcast. The disks, which are the same size as CDs, are capable of holding 1 gigabyte of data.
Genesis - Also: MegaDrive. 16-bit console introduced by Sega in August 1989. It took about a year before it caught on, but it managed to wrest control of the video game market from Nintendo by 1991. It has a 7.8 MHz Motorola 68000 processor (the same one used in the original Macintosh — a Mac OS Genesis cart was once produced at a Mac Hack conference as a technical demonstration), 64 Kilobytes of RAM, and can display 64 colors at once.
Genre - A game category that can be generally described as having similar styles of gameplay and goals, like fighting, driving, shooting, action, puzzle, etc. Many games fit into one genre or another, and many are hybrids.
God Game - A sub-genre of strategy games in which you run a civilization or small tribe, often with the tribe represented by tiny, on-screen animated people. The prototypical god game is Populous, although the definition has been stretched to include titles like Sim City. Usually the perspective is isometric or overhead.
Graphic Adventure - An adventure game which has graphics in addition to (or completely in place of) text. Due to limitations in storage technology, graphic adventures are necessarily more limited than text adventures, unless the graphics are used purely as illustration for a text adventure. They can range from totally text-free games like MYST, which simply involves pointing and clicking with a mouse, to games like Mission Critical, which contains almost as much depth as a text adventure.
Hack - (1) The process of breaking into a proprietary system without the owner's consent.
(2) The practice of taking an existing program or hardware, and reverse-engineering it to modify or improve the software or system.
In the case of software, the result can be a similar program, but changed with the addition of new levels, graphics, features, etc. For hardware, it may be the addition of new peripherals or removal of territorial lockouts.
Icon - A small, abstract graphic representation of an object (a free life or power-up, perhaps). Generally, a game character needs to touch an icon to gain its power.
Intellivision - Classic console introduced by Mattel in 1982 that had greater graphics power than the dominant Atari 2600. It was slower than the 2600 and had less software available, but it was known for its superior sports titles.
Interface - Anywhere the user interacts with the software is interface. This includes everything from select screens to character control. The term interface, though, is generally used as a noun to describe the part of the software designed with user interaction involved. Thus, if you must go through 20 select scenes before you start playing the game, you can say the game has a poor interface.
Jaguar - A cartridge system released by industry pioneer Atari in late 1993, Jaguar has a Motorola MC68000 CPU and two 64-bit RISC graphics coprocessors. Although the system had some power, the software support was notoriously weak, with mediocre games being the rule rather than the exception. Software standouts include Tempest 2000, Rayman, and Power Drive Rally.
Joypad - An input device, which works the same as a joystick but without the stick. Instead, there is a pad (usually called a D-pad), which is cross shaped (Nintendo has the patent on the cross, so non-Nintendo joypads usually feature a cross in a circle) and is manipulated with the thumb instead of the hand. There are also usually two or more buttons on the joypad. Joypads are much more common on console systems than on the PC, where joysticks are more popular.
Joystick - An input device, which consists of a stick, a base unit, and usually at least one button (with the exception of such games as Pac-Man). Moving the stick can move objects on-screen (like your character) and pushing the button(s) perform(s) some actions. There are two types of joysticks, analog and digital. While analog joysticks relay to the computer how far in a given direction the joystick is being moved, digital joysticks merely indicate if the joystick is being pushed in a certain direction or not. Its output is binary, and hence less flexible in use.
Latency - Refers to the time lag between commands given by a remote device (such as a home computer) and execution (by an online service, for instance). Latency is a huge problem with online gaming, since many games require an instant response, and even a tiny latency can destroy the feel of gameplay.
Level - A level is a discrete stage in a game. In early games, such as the original Donkey Kong, each level was almost a complete game, with a specific end unto itself, and each level was markedly different. In one you might need to wind your way up the girders of a building, avoiding barrels, while in another the goal might be to cross over rivets in girders while avoiding roving fireballs. In more modern games, the levels often scroll off the screen. Sometimes levels are called "stages" or "zones" as well, and often groups of similar levels are grouped into mega-levels called "worlds."
Life - Plural: Lives. Many video games give you three chances with which to play. These are commonly called lives, because most of the time failing in a video game results in your character getting killed in the game fiction. When all the lives are lost, the game is over. Almost always, there is a way to get more lives, either by finding special items or reaching a certain score in the game.
Light Gun - An input device that resembles a gun. The gun is in sync with the screen update rate. It can also sense when the pixel at which it is pointed is updated, and from those two pieces of data, can determine exactly at which pixel on the screen it is pointed at any given time.
Maze Game - A game that consists, in whole or part, of being chased (or chasing things) around a maze, which may or may not fit entirely on the screen. The most classic examples of a maze game are Namco's Pac-Man and Rally-X. Current maze games include The Last Guy and Pac-Man Championship Edition.
Memory Card/Cart - A peripheral that contains RAM instead of ROM and is used to save games when a battery back-up isn't possible (i.e. on CD-ROM based systems). Today, consoles use a hard disk drive for storage for saved games.
Mine Cart Level - A level in a (usually side-scrolling) game in which characters get into mine carts and careen around mines. Mine cart levels are generally faster than most, and involve memorizing the location of specific obstacles.
MMORPG - A genre that stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. MMORPGs typically feature hundreds of players “living” in the same persistent game space for social as well as combat gameplay. Examples include World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic.
MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) - A sub-genre of the real-time strategy (RTS) video game genre. The gameplay in a MOBA involves destroying the opponents’ base, which is heavily guarded and located in opposing corners of a map.
Moves - At its most basic, a move is anything a character can do in a game. While early games, like Galaga, may have had only three moves (move left, move right, and shoot), newer games, particularly fighting games, may have hundreds, from low punch, to block, to mid-kick, etc. Often, in fighting games, many of the moves are hidden, and not revealed in the documentation.
MUD (Multi-user Dungeon) - A real-time Internet game where users can adopt aliases and participate in adventures and combat. As the name implies, any number of players can be on the site at once. Some MUDs rival RPGs in complexity while others focus strictly on person-to-person combat or social interaction.
Neo Geo/Neo Geo CD - A 24-bit system developed by SNK, the Neo Geo arcade unit enables the easy switching of games. SNK brought the concept home with the Neo Geo Gold system and found a niche market with a steady stream of 2D fighters, shooters, and arcade sports titles. In an effort to bring cart prices down from the $200 zone, a single-speed CD based unit was released overseas, but not in the U.S.
NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) - Nintendo's 8-bit cartridge system, introduced in the U.S. in limited markets in 1985, against the advice of almost everyone on the continent, who, still smarting from the crash of '83-'84, thought that video games were finished. Nintendo single-handedly revitalized the industry, and was rewarded with total market dominance, which lasted until Sega introduced Genesis.
Nintendo 64 - Nintendo's 64-bit system, the cartridge-based Nintendo 64, codesigned with Silicon Graphics, contains hardware for mip-mapping, z-buffering, and bilinear interpolation. After a Spring launch in Japan, the console was released in September 1996 in the U.S.
Nomad - An elegant hand-held version of Sega's Genesis, it was released in November 1995. Battery powered, it provides video output and can accept a standard Sega controller as an accessory. It accepts any 16-bit Genesis cartridge.
NPC (Non-player Character) - Taken from the world of pen-and-ink role-playing games, an NPC is a character encountered in an RPG who is not controlled by the user.
Odyssey2 - Magnavox's last entry into the video game console market. Released at the same time as Atari's 2600. Noteworthy for its inclusion of a membrane keyboard, and the available addition of a speech module. With less processing power than even the 2600, and hampered by lack of third party development, it never quite caught enough market share to survive the Atari's massive popularity.
OnLive - A cloud-based gaming platform. Games are synchronized, rendered and stored on remote servers that are accessed from the Internet. Since games are rendered on servers over the Internet, computers with not that much power can play any kind of game so long as it can play video.
Over the Shoulder - A third-person point of view where the player's view of the game-field is consistently "locked" behind the character being operated. This sub-genre distinguishes itself from traditional third-person games with that view (no free-rotating camera).
Overhead - Also known as top down, this is just what it sounds like — looking down on the action, as if the roofs of buildings had been removed and the player floats above them. Often the on-screen characters are seen as if from the side, or foreshortened to simulate perspective.
Password - Before today’s modern games that feature an abundance of game saving options, many games in the 8-bit and 16-bit eras featured a password system. Essentially after a player beat a level or when all lives were lost or continues used, the game would show a password, that once entered would allow the player to continue to a certain part in the game or restore a game to the previous state it was in.
Pippin - An Apple-licensed "multimedia player" console to be introduced by Bandai in Japan, Pippin uses the Mac OS and hardware. Basically, the Pippin is a nonexpandable Mac Jr. that uses a TV as the monitor.
Platformer - A sub-category of action game characterized by requiring the player to (in addition to any shooting and fighting) make his character run and jump across gaps and other obstacles. See also side-scrolling action game.
Playstation - A 32-bit video game console introduced by Sony in September 1995. Originally conceived as an add-on to Nintendo's SNES, the CD-based standalone console went on to become the most successful of the '90s "next-generation" gaming consoles, beating out Nintendo's N64 and Sega's Sega Saturn.
Playstation 2 - Sony's follow-up to the PlayStation console. Although it utilizes more advanced circuitry and chipsets, this DVD-based system is fully backwards compatible to its predecessor. The console is powered by a 300 MHz CPU and outputs DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound in DVD playback mode. The PS2 launched in Japan on March 4, 2000 and October 26, 2000 in the U.S.
Playstation 3 - Successor to Sony’s PlayStation 2. Noteworthy specs of the system include a Blu-ray Disc drive, PlayStation Network connectivity and an internal hard drive. The console released in Japan on November 16, 2006 and shorty after in the North America on the 17th.
Playstation Move - A motion-sensing controller for the PlayStation 3. The Move is Sony’s answer to Nintendo’s Wii Remote for the Wii console. The Move utilizes the PlayStation Eye camera to track the motion controller’s position along with the internal sensors in the controller to detect its motion. There’s also a supplementary PlayStation Move navigation controller.
Playstation Portable - Sony’s first portable video game system. The handheld features the use of an optical disc format called the Universal Media Disc (UMD), large LCD display and multimedia capabilities. The handheld was released in Japan on December 12, 2004 and in North America on March 24, 2005.
Playstation Vita - The successor to the PlayStation Portable. The handheld features two analog sticks, a 5-inch multi-touch OLED display and Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity. The handheld released in Japan on December 17, 2011 and launches in Europe, Australia, and Latin and North America on February 22, 2012.
Power-up - An object that immediately improves the ability or add extra abilities to a game character. A classic power-up is the Super Mushroom from the Super Mario Bros. series that when obtained, increases Mario’s size, allows him to destroy certain blocks and take an extra hit of damage.
Prestige/Prestiging - An activity which gained popularity from the Call of Duty franchise, where players who have reached an in-game level cap may restart their online characters to re-earn all their previously earned levels for a "prestigious" award, usually a unique marker or symbol within the game.
Puzzle Game - A video game genre that test problem-solving skills — logic, strategy, pattern recognition — to solve puzzles. Puzzle games can range from the block-puzzle game Tetris to the physics-based puzzle game Portal.
Realtime - Adjective which indicates that the thing it modifies happens immediately. Almost all games, except adventure games, function in realtime. Another peripheral definition is where things progress in a temporal sequence whether a player is there to witness it or not.
Region Coding - DVD players and gaming machines are often "region (en)coded," which means they are limited to playing back software made for the local market. Region coding is basically a pretty straightforward way of ensuring that the varying worldwide release dates of movies are adhered to by consumers. The region codes for DVD players are as follows:
RPG (Role-Playing Game) - The category means slightly different things depending on whether one talks about PC RPGs or console RPGs, but the main characteristic of both is that the player is free to move from place to place in the game environment, interact with other NPCs, solve puzzles, find and collect tools and weapons, keep track of numerous character statistics like Hit Points, and (usually but not always) combat is decided by choosing battle options from menu screens. Console RPGs, heavily influenced by Japanese games like the Phantasy Star and Final Fantasy series, tend to have a strong emphasis on storyline and character interaction, while PC RPGs, typified by the Might and Magic series, more heavily favor statistical bookkeeping and tightly constructed puzzle solving.
Rumble Pak - Nintendo's limited force feedback device. Plugs into the N64 controller's memory pak slot and sends out jolts and buzzes when prompted by compatible games. Initially viewed as a silly gadget, the Rumble Pak quickly paved the way for built-in "shock" features in controllers. The Rumble Pak shipped with Nintendo's Star Fox 64.
Saturn - A 32-bit console introduced by Sega in May 1995, it features dual Hitachi 28 MHz RISC processors. Released early in a surprise move by Sega, it suffered until late 1995 when the first excellent titles, Virtua Fighter 2 and Sega Rally were released.
SCUMM - The long-running adventure game engine found in many LucasArts' games. Stands for Story Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion, the first game in which it appeared.
Second Person - A game perspective in which the player's view is locked behind (and usually slightly above) their on-screen character, as in Virtual Hydlide or Drahken.
Sega CD - A CD-ROM drive add on for the Sega Genesis. Hampered by poor sales, long load times, dated graphics, and flat-out bad games, the Sega CD never caught on and died a quiet, unnoticed death when Sega pulled the plug on it in late 1995.
Set-top Box - A media invention that goes along with the information superhighway, the set-top box will (in the future) control your cable, Internet access, play games, and do everything else you could ever want it to do. Some companies have attempted to generate some media hype by referring to their consoles as set-top boxes.
Shareware - Software which is made easily available (usually online) with a "try-before-you-buy" strategy. If you download and use the software, you are expected to pay the shareware fee. Shareware is based on the honor system, but many games have key features disabled or don't include all levels until you pay the shareware fee.
Shoot-'em Up - Also: Shooter. Referring to a videogame in the shooter genre, typified by space shooters (Gradius), third-person shooters (Dead Space), and first-person shooters (Killzone).
Side-Scrolling Action Game - A sub-category of action game which consists of having your on-screen character run (usually from left to right), and jump, shoot, fight, collect special items, etc. as he or she goes. Possibly the most prevalent action category, it stretches back at least as far as the original Pac Land and Mario World, through the Shinobi, Ninja Gaiden, and Castlevania series, to present examples such as Cutthroat Island, just to name a (very) few. The number of such titles has steadily dwindled as the use of 3D has caught on.
Simulation (Sim) - Any game which attempts to re-create, with as much detail and realism as possible, any "real" activity. Action-based games which "put you in the driver's seat" of a tank, plane, ship, and so on, are the most typical examples, but the category has been stretched to include some kinds of strategy titles which attempt to re-create certain real-life resource management problems, such as The Perfect General which attempts to "simulate" running a war. See also flight sim.
SMS (Sega Master System) - Sega's 8-bit answer to the original NES, it and the Atari 7800 shared less than 10% of the U.S. market to Nintendo's 90+% in the 8-bit age.
Super Famicom - The Japanese name for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super NES).
Super NES - The Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Nintendo's 16-bit cartridge game console.
Text Adventure - An early genre of video game which relies on written text to convey all descriptions and actions, typified by Zork and King's Quest.
Third Person - A point-of-view in video games where the character you control is seen and controlled from an "out-of-body" viewpoint.
Top Down - Also overhead. A third-person view where the vantage point is placed above the character and his surrounding world.
Track Ball - An input device which uses a sphere to move a pointer or object on the screen. By rotating the ball directly, the object(s) tied to the peripheral moves accordingly.Several games were trackball controlled, such as Marble Madness and Missile Command.
Transfer Pak - Nintendo's plug-in interface between the Game Boy and the N64. The device attaches to a standard N64 controller and offers the ability to import game data from a Game Boy game into an N64 title. First supported title: Pokemon Stadium.
TurboGrafx - System released by NEC in the late '80s, it used flat cards instead of cartridges, had an 8-bit processor with a 16-bit graphics processor, and had only one joystick port. Despite several innovations, like the first CD-ROM drive for consoles released in the US and an awesome hand-held version of the console, the TurboGrafx never caught on in the US, although it still has an extensive following in Japan, particularly with RPGs.
VGA (Video Graphics Array) - A graphics card standard that demands a resolution of at least 640x480 at 16 colors. These cards also made 256 color graphics (at lower resolutions only) available to PC owners.
VR (Virtual Reality) - Any attempt to make working with a computer mimic the actions that a user would use to do the same thing in real life. Different examples include: first-person 3D graphic worlds, HMDs, Datagloves, and light-guns.
Wii - Also: Nintendo Wii.
A Nintendo system launched in 2006 using a motion control interface in the form of a Wii Remote and Nunchuk. Options for controlling games via a Classic Controller or GCN Controller were sometimes made available. The system was backwards compatible with GCN software, with four GCN controller ports and two slots for GCN memory cards. Additionally, the system had an SD-Card port for other data storage options.
The Wii was able to connect to the internet through wired and wireless connections. The system used starndard DVDs as the storage medium for its software library.
Wii U - Also: Nintendo Wii-U, WiiU.
A Nintendo system following the Nintendo Wii. For more information, please see the Wii-U wiki.
Windows - Graphic operating system shell for MS-DOS computers, it is visually similar to Apple's Macintosh O/S.
Windows 95 - A version of Windows for MS-DOS computers first introduced in 1995. Win95 makes running games on PCs far easier for the end-user than under DOS, and created standards for game hardware. Microsoft has developed a number of gaming related APIs which aid in achieving better performance than a comparable PC running Windows 3.1. Unlike Windows 3.1, Win95 is a true OS and does not act as an overlay on MS-DOS.
Wizard - (1) A character archetype or character profession in fantasy games. Also: Sorcerer, Magic-User, Mage.
(2) Someone who has obtained a certain experience level on a MUD, and is endowed with special powers, including (but not limited to) the ability to add to the adventure world.
WonderSwan - Released only in Japan in 1999, the WonderSwan is Bandai's answer to Nintendo's Game Boy. Though smaller in size and cheaper in price, the WonderSwan is slightly more powerful than the Game Boy. Like the Game Boy, the WonderSwan was designed by the late Gumpei Yokoi.
WonderSwan Color - Upgraded color version of Bandai's Japan-only WonderSwan handheld. Released on December 30, 2000, the WonderSwan Color retails for 6800 yen (around $65). The unit displayed up to 241 colors on-screen at once, and featured as many as 28 sprites per line.
XBox - Also: Xbox Original. Microsoft's first videogame console, launched in 2001. The system was initially powered by an nVIDIA 300MHz custom Xchip and a 733 MHz Intel CPU. It is a DVD-based system but included a hard drive for storing data and game updates/patches
XBox 360 - Also X360, 360.
Microsoft game console which followed the Microsoft Xbox Original. Launched in November 2005. It featured wireless interfaces in the form of Kinect and wireless controllers, swappable hard drives, two USB 2.0 ports, 12X DVD-ROM capable of reading dual-layer DVDs, and an Ethernet (CAT-5) port.
The system had limited backwards compatibility with XBox Original titles due to the different code architecture.