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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.
It's arguably the one move that symbolizes the medium to those outside it. The ability to jump, be it onto a building, a platform, or a skull, is one of the all time most important abilities ever put in a video game.
These games are based off of established licenses, such as movies, comics, or TV shows. Examples are the James Bond 007 and Spider-Man franchises.
A two-dimensional image or animation overlaid into a scene. The foundation of early 2D games, making up everything from props to the player-controlled character.
Side-scrolling games present the world as viewed perpendicular to the direction the characters are facing on screen. With a heavy focus on lateral movement, objectives are often met by moving from one end of a stage to the other.
A boss fight is a culminating challenge that pits the player against one or more enemies representing a greater threat and/or difficulty than those previously faced. These scenarios typically feature unique antagonists.
In many games there is a ranking system, the players with the highest point value are listed in a "high score" table.
This concept is for games in which at least one of the main characters is male.
The Virtual Console is a platform service that first appeared on Nintendo's Wii and later on the 3DS and Wii U. Games from past consoles are emulated to run on the new hardware with the added benefits of system-level save states and other features.
Pixel art refers to digital images composed of visible pixels, drawn with individual pixel-level intent and precision.
Games whose main character is so egotistical that the whole game just HAS to be named after them.
The main line of distinction between victory or failure in video games, death is the process of a biological being ceasing to be alive.
Bosses are enemies that fight you at the end of a level or at a significant point in the story.
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
Game Over originally appeared in pinball machines, and later, arcade machines. When players lose at a game, it is game over.
Anthropomorphism is the concept of an object, concept or character that has human qualities or traits, such as speech, a level of intelligence similar or higher than a human's and self consciousness. "Anthro" means "of human" and related to the concept of humanity.
A mode in the game, often an unlockable, allowing players to listen to individual music tracks, voice clips and/or sound effects.
The concept of lives in video games evolved to let the player get a second chance after failing once. The most recognizable symbol is the heart.
The first subscription based video game serviced offered through your cable company.
Video games that, for better or for worse, are based on an existing non-video game franchise. Usually drawn from movies, tie-in games have also been made about TV shows, novels, and even one-hit wonder pop bands.
Parallax scrolling is a scrolling effect used in video game graphics, employing multiple scrolling layers to create the illusion of depth, for a pseudo-3D effect in an otherwise 2D scrolling game.
Games whose titles consist of a single word.
Special codes or button combinations used to gain powers or advantages in a game. Generally hidden.
Chiptunes are musical compositions that are synthesized by a computer or console sound chip.
These Master System games can have FM sound.
The concept of purchasing media and having it delivered over the internet. No physical representation of this content is given, and although the content resides on the user's hard drive they are typically granted a license to the product, rather than ownership of it.
When a certain amount of time is given to the player to reach a goal or finish an objective.
Whenever there's a new Pixar, superhero or Harry Potter movie they have to make one of these.
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.
Bonus levels, rounds, or stages give players a chance to gain extra points, powerups, or lives. Occasionally bonus stages will play completely different than the rest of the game, like as a slot machine or pinball minigame.
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