Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine Issue 36
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Sure, these days have almost every game sporting the newfangled 3D, but way back when, everyone had to live with plain old 2D. 2D, or two dimensions, limit the game to scrolling backgrounds, but some games even now make use of this basic concept.
Achievements are extra challenges added into video games that sometimes carry a point value or unlock bonus material, and are sometimes solely for bragging rights.
Artificial Intelligence, or AI, commonly refers to the programmed behaviors of NPCs in a game, whether it's the fact that a soldier takes cover behind a wall in Gears of War, or that townspeople cheer upon your arrival to their village in Fable.
Athletes are people that play sports, anything from baseball to football to track and field. Athletes in video games typically give gamers a chance to hit that home run or kick the winning goal that normally would take years of training to do.
The Atlanta Hawks are an American professional basketball team based in Atlanta. The Hawks compete in the National Basketball Association as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Southeast Division. The team plays its home games at State Farm Arena.
A professional and amateur sport, played world-wide, in which two teams advance a ball up and down a court in order to score "field goals," by throwing the ball through a basket or hoop. The team with the highest score at the end of timed play wins.
An option that makes the physical character models in the game have enormous heads, and occasionally equally oversized arms. Usually accessed through a cheat code.
A large ape-like creature that lives in the North-American Wilderness.
Games that are depicted with a predominantly black-and-white appearance, with sequences to this effect, or optional color filters.
A marketing term coined by Sega in 1992 to advertise the Genesis console's faster performance compared to the rival SNES. Sega originally coined the term to refer to the high-speed bandwidth and fillrate of the Genesis VDP graphics processor's DMA unit. The term is also often used to refer to Sega's advertising campaign for the Genesis in the '90s.
The Boston Celtics are a professional basketball team that competes in the NBA.
In video games, breaking the fourth wall occurs when a game becomes aware of its nature as a game, or when a character directly acknowledges the player.
The Brooklyn Nets (formerly known as the New Jersey Nets) are a professional basketball team that competes in the NBA.
A specific phrase that gets attached to a specific character, something they are known for saying.
Videogames with extreme or controversial content will often be altered for release in certain countries, usually to comply with local laws or prevent cultural misunderstandings.
A position in basketball, generally played by someone of great height.
Sometimes, rather than building a character model from scratch, a developer will sometimes use a real person as a template and use his or her physical attributes to create a similar character model to be used in their video game. In some cases that real reason will appear as themselves in games.
The Charlotte Hornets are a professional basketball team that competes in the NBA. They were an expansion team called the Charlotte Bobcats in 2004, but changed their name to Hornets in 2014 after reclaiming it from the team that moved from Charlotte to New Orleans in 2001 (now Pelicans).
Special codes or button combinations used to gain powers or advantages in a game. Generally hidden.
The Chicago Bulls are a professional basketball team competing in the NBA.
The Cleveland Cavaliers are a professional basketball team that competes in the NBA.
Cartridges are typically one specific color for a particular console. But, on occasion, a game is released with a different color either for a limited edition, special occasion, or for marketing.
Cooperative play in games allows humans to play together as a team to accomplish a task. Instead of playing against a human opponent, the team must defeat an AI. Cooperative Play in some games also means 2 human versus 2 human, this occurs in some Billiards games. (Scotch Doubles / Doubles)
Create-A modes allows the player to create the skate park of their dreams, their own action hero, or the next champion of wrestling.
A crossover occurs when a character from one franchise makes a special appearance in a game from an unrelated franchise. Some games are specifically designed to be crossovers that bring together characters from two or more franchises.
Some of these games were trying to approximate the person's actual features with little success, and others stylized them on purpose. Either way, no one would confuse the resulting characters with the people they represent.
The Dallas Mavericks are a professional basketball team that competes in the NBA. They are currently the defending league champions.
Over time, it's common for publishers to stop supporting the online components of old or unpopular games. In addition to saving money, this also serves to boost sales of newer games in the same series or genre.
Sometimes designers add old-school things on purpose to enhance game design. These games tend to be heavily inspired by hardware limitations of older systems. NES, Atari 2600, and early computer platforms (DOS, Commodore 64, MSX, etc...) are common sources of inspiration.
The Denver Nuggets are a professional basketball team that competes in the NBA.
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