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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.
The spiritual successor to the Infinity Engine. This 3D engine made its appearance in the Neverwinter Nights series, and provided a toolset along with multiplayer where players could be Dungeon Masters and make their own stories and play them out with friends.
Some game characters just cannot swim. This usually means automatic death as soon as they hit the water.
Character Creation refers to characters created by players themselves, rather than developers.
An attack that does more damage than usual, usually affected by random chance and some sort of modifier.
Some games let players customize their character (or characters). Degree of customization may vary, with some games simply allowing to choose between different types of clothes, while others provide more detailed tinkering of features such as the distance between a character's eyes or hair color.
Customization in games that allow users to change various parts of their equipment or moves to fit their gaming style.
A non-interactive sequence within a game most often used for plot advancement.
Dialogue trees are a feature through which the player selects responses from a list of choices, eliciting reactions from NPCs and determining the path of the conversation and story.
The concept of using two weapons at once, often for more damage at the cost of accuracy, the use of a shield, grenades, or other similar accessories.
The Eclipse engine was developed by BioWare for Dragon Age: Origins. It is the successor of the Odyssey Engine used in Knights of the Old Republic.
Developed by Obisidan Entertainment, the Electron Engine is based on Bioware's Aurora Engine. The Electron engine is used in Neverwinter Nights 2 series of games.
Experience Points are part of a character advancement system commonly found in RPGs. These points are generally gained by defeating an enemy or completing a task.
A powerful release of energy. This energy is usually expelled in all directions very quickly, typically giving off orange or red flames.
Whether it be Mario vs. Bowser, Jedi vs. Sith, Link vs. Ganon, or Elves vs. Orcs, the forces of good are in an eternal battle with the hordes of evil.
A heads-up display is a graphical overlay of vital information used in most modern games.
Health is a value that gauges how much damage players can take in a game before they die or pass out. Also known as life in some games. Health is usually represented by a bar or a percentage instead of an exact amount. Found in most non sport games
An numeral indication of how much damage a character can sustain. The loss of all hit points results in the death of the character or another penalty.
Developed by BioWare for the first Baldur's Gate game, the Infinity Engine features an isometric perspective, pre-rendered 2D backgrounds and sprite-based characters.
A gameplay mechanic allowing players to store their items and freely carry them around.
Any object that holds health, ammo, equipment, money, etc. The container must be opened or destroyed in order to procure the items within.
The process by which characters reach a new level, gain greater attributes, and learn more abilities. It usually involves earning enough experience points by completing a variety of tasks such as quests or by "farming" such as killing other characters for their experience points.
Loading Screens are specific screens that are displayed while a game is loading resources so that the player has something to distract them while the game loads. Loading Screens can be images, text or even mini-games - and sometimes a combination of all three.
Collecting objects in a game such as weapons, armor, items, and currency. Loot is often associated with RPG games and MMOs with RPG elements.
Moral dilemmas presented to the player that often have a significant effect on the story or other characters.
Games that are in genres where the ability to jump is expected, but do not allow the player character to jump on command.
Characters controlled by the game for players to interact with, as opposed to player characters which are controlled by whomever is playing the game.
Obsidian's own in-house Onyx engine that powered Dungeon Siege III, cancelled Third-person survival horror Alien adaptation RPG title Aliens: Crucible and cancelled Microsoft exclusive Stormlands
A system in which the player is allowed to control multiple characters. Most commonly seen in role playing games. Can also be used to describe party systems in the MMORPG genre, which brings a group of players together to accomplish various tasks.
Combat that takes place in real time, but that can be paused to give commands to certain characters.
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