-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
Gaming jargon that isn't used much anymore
- Thread starter Phediuk
- Start date
My favorite is probably the term "SGI graphics" to refer to literally any pre-rendered 3D cutscene
Referring to "bit" (it 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit etc) as a reference to console hardware power/performance
Using the quantity of megabits required for a game's storage to infer the length or quality of the game.
Labelling games with stuff like "#1 Arcade Smash" or there-about, or just talking about "arcade perfect" when most 8-32bit ports weren't, like, at all.
There's also all kinds of jargon that's not used any more because the tech is outdated.. like "Sound Blaster Compatible" when configuring your DOS game or whatever.
Referring to "bit" (it 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit etc) as a reference to console hardware power/performance
Using the quantity of megabits required for a game's storage to infer the length or quality of the game.
Labelling games with stuff like "#1 Arcade Smash" or there-about, or just talking about "arcade perfect" when most 8-32bit ports weren't, like, at all.
There's also all kinds of jargon that's not used any more because the tech is outdated.. like "Sound Blaster Compatible" when configuring your DOS game or whatever.
Yall need to get a Nintendo switch if you think that
Um...
no.
There is still no 128-bit architecture.
I don't think I ever heard anyone say this irl.
POKEs and PEEKs were small peices of code you could type in before a game loaded in order tio get things like extra lives etc. Basically really early cheat codes. Mostly used with 8 bit machines like the C64 and the spectrum.
This isn't jargon, but when depicting people playing video games, do some movies and TV shows still use Atari 2600/NES sounds to get the point across? I remember an episode of Dexter season 3 doing this, overlaying Atari 2600 sounds over a session of Halo 3, which Dexter played on a PC with only a keyboard no less.
I still use this in games where party members have to click ready, like in Fornite, Im all 'Green Up', luckily they know what I'm talking about or can figure it out
OP
OP
Yes, it was inaccurate. Nevertheless, Google turns up at least a few hundred thousand instances of "128-bit" being used in relation to the PS2.
https://www.google.ca/search?q="128...6IMnetQWNsJ3QDg&start=0&sa=N&biw=1600&bih=761
Actually, Sony marketed the hell out of the PS2 as being a "128-bit Machine" because of the Emotion Engine. I read about the "128 bit" PS2 (and sometimes GameCube and Dreamcast) *all the time* back then.
All of the big magazines and websites ran with it. The "bit wars" were still very strong, but I think the oXbox's release finally put a damper on all that, and it was dropped with the following generation (thankfully).
With just a few minutes of googling you can find all kinds of stuff.
IGN, 1999: "PS2: PLAYSTATION 2 LANDS WITH A SPLASH" - "Sony Computer Entertainment Inc unveiled to the world the most powerful game console to date, a 128-bit backward-compatible, DVD-based machine currently called the PlayStation 2."
"Sony PlayStation 2 128-Bit Machine - It's Go Time!"
http://www.superstreetonline.com/features/0009-sstp-sony-playstation-2-128-bit-machine/
Referring to "Sony's 128-bit Emotion Engine CPU"
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1143021
"PlayStation 2 to Reach 128 bits?" - Gamespot, 1999, "the chipset will run internally at 128 bits and could give almost unlimited power to game developers."
PC Magazine, Oct 2000, Referring to GameCube as "The 128-bit gaming console is the company's answer to the Sega Dreamcast, the Sony PlayStation 2, and the upcoming Microsoft Xbox."
Ah gotcha. I went from quarter munchers to 2600 to NES so that missed me. To me Poke is slang from the 2002 German Cyberpunk, to get a poke would be to have a cybernetic implant surgically implanted. :)
I hope eight frames stays for a while as an example of what not to do when making a fighting game.
Oh my God I was going to post the boards thing. A friend of mine when I was in middle school called levels "boards" as well. He was from New York and we both were born around the same time (early 80s).
Nonsense.
Save Codes
Cheat codes
Splitscreen/local co-op
cord length
memory cards have basically gone away
Or better yet- referring to available storage space on memory cards as things like "blocks" or whatever.
Old person checking in with a complaint about old people stuff.
Back in the day, and I mean Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, Galaxians and whatnot, people would use different terms for levels. There was "stages" which came in later and likely directly from in-game text - "STAGE 2!" and Levels of course, but because of the wave based nature of early games (waves was also a term) the ludicrous even older guys would sometimes call them "sheets" or boards" - I believe partially influenced by comparisons to a pinball table.
So in an arcade, circa 1982, you might hear these terms for the same thing:
Level
Sheet
Board
Wave
Stage
There were probably more that I'm forgetting.
Back in the day, and I mean Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, Galaxians and whatnot, people would use different terms for levels. There was "stages" which came in later and likely directly from in-game text - "STAGE 2!" and Levels of course, but because of the wave based nature of early games (waves was also a term) the ludicrous even older guys would sometimes call them "sheets" or boards" - I believe partially influenced by comparisons to a pinball table.
So in an arcade, circa 1982, you might hear these terms for the same thing:
Level
Sheet
Board
Wave
Stage
There were probably more that I'm forgetting.
Full Reactive Eyes Entertainment
To be fair, this was basically entirely restricted to Yu Suzuki discussing Shenmue 1, but I always enjoyed that he tried to make it a thing, kind of like stylish hard action but even less appropriate and/or successful.
To be fair, this was basically entirely restricted to Yu Suzuki discussing Shenmue 1, but I always enjoyed that he tried to make it a thing, kind of like stylish hard action but even less appropriate and/or successful.
damn even i forgot about blocks. gamecube used blocks right?
I disagree.
Since I haven't seen it mentioned, I have noticed a near 100% drop-off of the term "rape" being applied to beating someone badly/getting beaten in competitive gaming. It was pretty common as little as five years ago, but it seems most gamers have moved on from using "rape/raped" in that sense. I remember hearing/seeing it used online a lot in fighting and FPS games.
Decent amount of terms listed still being used. Ping, Lag-switch, Frag, Waves, and Mobs are all still used. Ping, Lag-Switch, and Frag in shooters. Waves in any game that uses separate sections where groups of enemies attack you and have to kill them all to advance to the next section. Mobs in MMO's and MMO-lite games where there are Enemy NPC's that hang out until the player gets close enough for them to attack or "aggro."
Leet speak is pretty much dead though.
Leet speak is pretty much dead though.
no more 1ups, no more insert coin(s)/token(s)
agree to disagree
