837: R1 to Brood
Giant Bombcast
Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine Issue 36
Demo Derby
Game Mess Mornings 04/22/24
GrubbSnax
The Community Spotlight 2024.04.20
The Community Spotlight 2024.04.13
Community Endurance Run XIV - April 12-14
Person »
A game that uses a mixture of 2D & 3D techniques. Commonly used to describe the use of either 3D graphics restricted to a 2D perceptive, or 2D graphics used to fake the appearance of a 3D perceptive.
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.
Chiptunes are musical compositions that are synthesized by a computer or console sound chip.
Environments cycle between day and night, often with effects on other aspects of the game.
The wear and tear of a character's outfit as he or she receives damage. It can be done for realism, but often serves to titillate.
A destructible environment means the player has the ability to destroy his/her surroundings. This allows players to use the environment to their advantage.
Drifting is a technique used in motorsports that involves intentionally over-steering the car to create a slide. This is done both as a competitive and exhibitive technique.
First-Person is a vantage point that attempts to simulate looking through a game character's eyes. It is most commonly found in first-person shooters, racing games, and visual novels, and to a lesser extent in other genres, such as RPGs, 3D platformers, and adventure games.
It's not just for airplanes anymore: Game mascots and MMO players alike have taken to the skies. Players can use flight to quickly navigate large levels, find hidden items, or take opponents down.
"Hand to hand. It is the basis of all combat." -Gray Fox
Kart racers are cartoon-like racing games that often feature fantastical power-ups.
Martial arts are a popular set of skills that many video game characters possess. Martial arts are the cornerstone of any fighting game, and have influenced many platforming and adventure games.
Using gestures with the controller to control on-screen actions. Alternatively, these gestures can also be detected by motion-sensing cameras.
Characters controlled by the game for players to interact with, as opposed to player characters which are controlled by whomever is playing the game.
Non-linear level design where the player is able to freely traverse the game world and choose where and when to visit certain areas in the game.
Various effects using "particles" (billboard/sprite planes or full models).
Any character you can control in a game is a Player Character (PC), as opposed to a non-player character (NPC), which is a character that can only be controlled by the game.
Who needs 2D when we've got 3D? 3D, or 3 dimensions, is what we're used to seeing in almost every game these days, letting us do all sorts of awesome stuff like run in circles!
Quick Time Events show up in all sorts of games as an attempt to make cutscenes interactive. Press the buttons displayed on-screen before time runs out, or else.
Rain can heavily increase the atmosphere of a video game. Some games use it to add detail to an environment, while other games use it to make it difficult to see.
Games that have an open gameplay structure that allow players to interact with the world as they choose.
Crunchy frozen water fallen from the sky. Many games feature a snow world, a snow level, or otherwise-connected regions of wintery landscapes.
Protagonists that have gravity defying hair styles and often appropriately spikey personalities.
Whether it's Super Scaler or Mode 7, growing and shrinking sprites/textures is a concept often used in sprite-based games. It was a popular technique used to create three-dimensional games with sprites, mostly during the 16-bit to early 32-bit eras. Sprite-scaling was an early form of 3D texture-mapping.
The player character is seen at a distance from a number of different possible perspective angles. There is generally a movable camera but it can also be in a fixed position. It most commonly refers to a viewpoint behind the player character.
Games that are controlled partially or entirely with a touch screen.
Variable and dynamic simulation of weather conditions can be used to add variety, atmosphere (a rainy day in an RPG) and/or challenge (rain on the racetrack in a driving game) to a game.
This edit will also create new pages on Giant Bomb for:
Until you earn 1000 points all your submissions need to be vetted by other Giant Bomb users. This process takes no more than a few hours and we'll send you an email once approved.
Use your keyboard!
Log in to comment
Log in to comment