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.
Games that feature co-operative play for 4 players.
An AI companion is a computer-controlled ally who follows and aids you through your adventures or who requires your protection. The AI companion's survival is often essential to game and story progression.
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.
Present in most action games, where people can say cheesy stuff and get away with it. Usually spoken by the hero, before or after wasting a dude.
Games often use iron sights to define precision shooting with non-scoped weapons.
Albino Cyclopes are enormous creatures able to hurl bolts of energy at Sam. They start out as larvas(!) which can be spotted (and felt, if not careful) in the Giant Junkyard level.
Extraterrestrials appear in many video games in a variety of styles. Sometimes they're evil, sometimes they're benevolent, and sometimes they're very similar to humans.
Games with stories that involve aliens invading another planet.
Alternative blood is blood other than the usual red variety.
Huge four-armed creatures that possess the ability to summon homing orbs into the battlefield. They agreed to fight for Mental in exchange for the spell-casting powers it gave them.
In games, the player is usually the ambushee, not the ambusher, but certain multiplayer and open-world games give players a chance to try this sneaky tactic themselves.
This concept occurs in many RPGs and Sci-Fi games. The Ancient Advanced Civilization Technology is often a giant weapon (Halo Rings, Giant of Babil, etc.) that becomes a major plot focus in the stories of these games.
Games that allow fauna to be used as weapons.
Ants are small insects that live in nests and work together for a queen. Can be gene-modified to grow huge.
Apes are primates that lack tails. They swing from tree to tree and sometimes fling poo. Not to be confused with monkeys (who have tails).
A creature with characteristics of both a human and an arachnid, most often a spider or scorpion.
Some games offer alternate modes or specific sections of the storyline that involve arena combat, gladiator style.
The protagonist arrives by a helicopter, a plane, or similar; the vehicle is subsequently shot down, stranding the protagonist on unknown soil. This can occur either at the beginning of a game or to start off a level.
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.
A mode in which a game will play a gameplay demonstration video as a means to entice players into playing the game.
Characters that are described and interact with the character primarily or only via audio (most often through dialogue, but usually also using some audio effects). As opposed to cutscenes which often emulate film, the way aural characters are presented in games often more closely parallels radio dramas and other audio-exclusive media.
The game automatically saves for you when you reach certain points. Implemented in order to reduce frustration for forgetful savers.
Videogame bosses, generally enormous ones, that take up the entire background of the screen you fight them on, usually only extending the body parts they attack with (and for some reason, their weak point) into the foreground where the player can interact with them.
Backstab is a skill utilized most commonly by rogues. By attacking from behind an opponent, backstabs significantly increase the damage dealt. Sometimes a backstab can mean a one hit kill.
Backtracking is the act of navigating through previously explored areas, usually for the purpose of progressing in an objective-based adventure game. Players who are lost may also backtrack to reorient themselves.
Barbarians in games are often known for their brute strength, large size compared to normal humans, appetite for meat and ale, general crudeness, and prowess in melee combat.
When the player character (re)visits a certain area or location that was also present in a previous game, or visited later on in the same game, with some alterations.
"AAAaaaAAAaaaAAAaaaAA—" BOOM!
Biological mechanisms grown in Mental's bio-tanks. They are adjusted to attack without thinking.
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