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Abuse
A side scroller that used a combination of the keyboard (to move) and mouse (direction to shoot) which became a cult hit. Made by the now defunct Crack dot com. (WWW)
Alien Breed
The Alien Breed series is a series of sci-fi shooters created by Team17. It all started in 1991 with the release of "Alien Breed". This game, along with all of the other Alien Breed games, was based heavily on the "Aliens" movie. The series was revisited 5 times, with the release of Alien Breed II (1993), Tower Assault (1994), Alien Breed 3D (1995), Alien Breed 3D II (1996), Alien Breed 2004 (Cancelled). Some would say that the series was a 2D precursor to Doom.
Baldur's Gate II - Shadows of Amn
An enthralling game by BioWare as a sequel to their original Baldur's Gate Game. This RPG captures a great deal of imagination in its Isometric simplicity as you travel with up to 5 party members on your journey. One of the little perks in this well written storyline is the way your character interacts with party members of the opposite sex, especially if there are more than one that take an interest. There is a whole lot of gameplay to be had in this masterpiece. There is also an expansion pack to this game titled "The Throne of Bhaal" where you continue your quest towards the ultimate goal of godlike power.
Betrayal at Krondor
A best-selling and award-winning title, Betrayal at Krondor was the first first-person role-playing game to use a true 3D engine, developed at Dynamix in Eugene, Oregon in 1993. Directed by John Cutter and Neal Hallford, it was inducted into the Computer Gaming World Hall of Fame in 1996.
Blood
An early FPS from Monolith based on a raycasting engine and themed with a variety of non-standard weapons, such as dynamite and a voodoo doll. (WWW)
Chrono Trigger
Chrono Trigger is a game made by Squaresoft (makers of the Final Fantasy series.) The original Chrono Trigger was realeased on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), and on the Playstation in the Final Fantasy Chronicles game.

The story of Chrono Trigger deals with a character named Chrono who gets transported through time when one friend's expirement conflicts with another new friend's pendant.

A sequel, called Chrono Cross, was released for the Playstation.

Civilization
One of the leading turn-based games ever developed. Originally based on a board game by Avalon Hill, and put to the computer by design god Sid Meier. The franchise contains Civilization (one by MicroProse and one by Avalon Hill), CivNet (A multiplayer version of Civilization), Civilization II (MPS), Civ: Call to Power (Activision), and various expansions to Civilization 2 (Multiplayer Gold, Fantastic Worlds, Test of Time). Alpha Centauri is often considered to be a Sci-Fi sequel. Civilization III has been announced to be in development.
Command & Conquer
The game that brought the Real-Time Strategy genre to the masses and one of the first major hits to include network play. The Command & Conquer franchise has had a series of hits afterwards such as Covert Ops, Red Alert and Tiberian Sun(WWW)
Counter Strike
A mod to the popular Half Life engine, Counter Strike is with out a doubt the most popular team based FPS (first person shooter). Counter Strike was even cited by ABC News in 2004 as a contributer to the decline in TV viewers in the male 18 to 34 age bracket. Counter Strike blends the quick paced action of a FPS with a team play element that is unmatched.
Descent
A game released in 1995 by Interplay Productions and Parallax Software, Descent was the first commercial game to feature full 6-degrees-of-freedom movement inside a structure. The player's objective is to destory haywire mining robots, save hostages, destroy the mine's reactor and escape before it blows the whole mine to kingdom come. Descent also features an excellent enemy AI which learns the player's combat style, forcing him to change his tactics or die. Interplay has since released two sequels to this popular game.
Diablo
A dungeon based shooter with Isometric graphics and dynamic map creation system that has enormous popularity. Diablo 2 is currently scheduled for release. WWW
DM
Dungeon Master. The term is trademarked to TSR/Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro and refers to the player who runs a session of Dungeons & Dragons. The generic term is Game Master.
Doom
Doom is a game that is a landmark for the first person shooter game genre. Wolfenstein3D was the first FPS game but Doom took this idea to the next level. With unique monsters, dark levels, motivating music and the monster noises designed to give you nightmares for weeks the game is a classic. There were 4 dooms released. Ultimate Doom, Doom ][, Doom: TNT, and Doom: Plutonia. The sucess of these games has spawned off many first person shooters and has made the market what it is today. These games were developed by ID software. Other titles made by ID include Quake 1, Quake 2 and the new Quake 3: Arena.
Dreamweb
A top down Action/Adventure game. The game follows the character Ryan, who hears voices which urge him to assassinate people.

This game featured an interface which was innovative, but not very good. The game had good atmosphere. But many people found the puzzles to be overly difficult. It was given an 18 Certificate in the U.K. for violence and sexual content.

Duke Nukem 3D
Duke Nukem 3D was a game designed by 3d Realms. It uses portals and sectors (similar to Doom) in order to give the illusion of 3d space using a 2d mapping system. The mapping system and level designer are called Build. In addition, the Build Engine was used in other games such as Blood. At the time of release the Build engine was eclipsed by the Quake engine developed by ID software. Duke Nukem 3d was still a successful game due to the nature of the main character and the interactive enviroment.
Elite
Released in 1984, Elite was a milestone in the history of gaming - it was the first truly 3D game on home computers, and was one of the first open-ended games, allowing the player to freely explore a galaxy without tying him to a linear plot. It went on to sell over a million units, and was released on a multitude of platforms. It was followed by two sequels, Frontier and First Encounters (released in 1993 and 1995 respectively). Elite 4 (working title) is currently scheduled to be released in 2002. For more information see www.frontier.co.uk
Ethereal Darkness Interactive
Northampton, Massachusetts based Independent Game Developer founded by Raymond Jacobs and well known to GameDev.net; over the course of three years they designed, produced and sold the Indie game Morning's Wrath.
EverQuest
A massively multiplayer online RPG. Takes place in a fantasy world and is based on the user to create a character using different races and classes in order to survive the harsh realms of Norrath.
Fallout
A computer rpg by Black Isle Studios. Considered by some as the closest to traditional RPGs a computer RPG has come.
Final Fantasy
Very popular RPG series created by Squaresoft, started in the mid-late 1980's. Most take place in a fantasy/sci-fi environment. So far there are 8 Final Fantasy games, with an upcoming 9 and 10. Extra tidbit: It's even getting a movie next year
FPS
First Person Shooter. Shooter of the first person perspective. E.g. Quake, Unreal Tounament, Rainbow Six, etc.
Frederik Pohl's GATEWAY
This game was developed by Legend Entertainment in the early 1990s. It is a Space science-fiction title based on "The Heechee Saga" books by Frederik Pohl.
Gabriel Knight Series
Series created by Jane Jensen for Sierra Online back in the good old days of Adventure games. You play Gabriel Knight, a horror writer from New Orleans, who comes from a long line of Schattenjagers (german for Shadow Hunter). This new title throws Gabriel into a new world of supernatural mystery connected to haunting past events and experiences. Currently, there are only 3 games in the series. 1) Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers 2) Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within 3) Gabriel Knight: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned Fans still hope and pray that there will be a fourth volume of this epic story.
Galaga
Galaga was the definitive triggerhappy space shooter. It was probably the first game to give the illusion of being a topscroller through the use of a scrolling, randomly generated starfield.

Galaga, while no longer popular in its own right long before the advent of the internet, continues to be popular as a "mixing game".

Goldeneye
FPS develped by Rare for the Nintendo 64. Seen by many people as the best fps on the system, and also one of its best overall. The game followed the plot of the James Bond film that it was licensed off, and gave gamers their first real chance to actually BE James Bond. The game is still popular, due to its powerful multiplayer component
Half-Life
Half-Life is an innovative First Person Shooter that brought real scenario and artificial intelligence. Its main ability relied in the fact that it was customable, so that people could program game mods (modifications).
Hypercycle
A evolutionary body that regulates the intrinsic intelligence of Living and Artifical Living systems. Developed in 1979 Eigen, M. and P. Schuster, hypercyclic systems have become primary factor in the study of evolving systems. Since 1999, the Bionic Bros. GmbH lauched the development of an ALife gaming system based on the Eigen - Schuster Proposal. Watch it evolve.. www.bionicbros.de
Jagged Alliance 2
A turn based/real time tactical squad strategy game. A very unpopular genre which is my very favorite. Similar to games such as Silent Storm, Xcom, and Soldiers At War. You were a mercenary leader (with an in-game avatar), who hired other mercs. Each one had TONS of fully voiced lines, and had their own likes and dislikes for other merc. If you ask Drakkcon you'll find that this was the best game ever made.
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
A RPG/Adventure game made by Nintendo in 1998. It is the 5th game out of the series and is about a boy named Link who is courageous to save the Princess Zelda from the evil Gannondorf.

Zelda hold the triforce piece of wisdom, Link has the triforce piece of courage, and Gannondorf steals the triforce piece of power. Link needs to save all the pieces to make a triforce (powers that make up the whole world) so that Gannondorf can't rule the world.

Considered by some to be one of the best games of all time.

Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete
A PSX Remake of the Sega CD game Lunar: The Silver Star. Lunar is an RPG game with almost an hour of anime FMVs and a story about a boys quest to become a hero and his journey to rescue the girl he loves from an evil magical emperor. Of course along the way there are many twists and turns where the hero and heroin both realize thier fate. Lunar also spawned a sequal in which a boy name Hiro must accompany a girl to see the goddess of Lunar. Both stories intertwine greatly and both have endings that set them for a sequal.
Maplestory
A Korean-based translated 2D sidescrolling free MMORPG. Currently (as of Nov 15, 04) in Beta production stages. Features clean, cute anime-style artwork. Can be downloaded at Mapleglobal.com. Warning: Extremely addictive!
MMORPG
MMORPG stands for: Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. A type of role playing game that supports a huge number of players in the game world. Such examples are Ultima Online, Everquest, Ragnarok, the new up and coming Star Wars: Galaxies and many more.
Monkey Island Series
This series of Lucas Arts' adventure games started with The Secret Of Monkey Island, and was created by designer Ron Gilbert. Guybrush Threepwood, it's leading character, continued in three sequels (The last one, Escape form Monkey Island, being 3D).

This series gained a wide variety of fans due to it's witty humour and interesting gameplay.

Morning's Wrath
Created by Northampton, Massachusetts based Independent Game Developer Ethereal Darkness Interactive; Morning's Wrath is a Classical Adventure/RPG game. The emphasis is placed on a strong storyline and intellectually stimulating game play. Players guide the main character, Princess Morning, through a series of locales containing tasks that require the completion of puzzles.
Morrowind
The third installment in the Elder Scrolls chronicles. This is a highly detailed world with a vast amount of freedom for a character while still having a great storyline. Morrowind is a first person Fantasy RPG that aims to bring all of the depth of Daggerfall into the high tech 3D world that is ensuing. As Daggerfall became a timeless classic so should Morrowind.
Mortal Kombat
A series of popular fighting games created by Midway. Mortal Kombat was one of the first console games to show blood. Thus, it has always been a target, for the "Violence in video games" issue.
Myst
A game that is somewhat different than other games; you're alone on a desolated island and you must solve some very complicated puzzles. A game for people with a good brain. Superior graphics. Made with Bryce (graphics) and Hypercard (underlying programming).
NeverWinter Nights
A very in-depth Role Playing Game released by BioWare. It has a very well constructed multiplayer system and allows for DMing. The rule set is based on AD&D but manages to keep the Player away from the dice rolls and other unnecessarily complex systems. The viewing angle is fully 3D isometric, but the view can also be rotated and zoomed in for a different viewing angle depending on the players discression. This game is by far a gem of RPGs and has a very entertaining single player campaign.
Newbie
A derogatory term for someone who has little or no experience.
Pacman
A classic arcade game. The game screen displayed a maze. This maze was inhabited by four little ghosts, and a creature called Pacman. Pacman was the player's character, and looked somewhat like a lemon pie with a slice cut out. Essentially, he was an eating machine.

The player directed Pacman through the maze. The maze was strewn with pellets, and when Pacman came into contact with one of these pellets, he would eat it. The game level would be completed when Pacman had gobbled up all the pellets in the maze. (This ensured that Pacman had been virtually everywhere in the maze at least once.)

The four ghosts would pursue Pacman through the maze. And if they caught him, he would die. When Pacman had died three times, the game would be over. (The player could earn extra lives by reaching certain scores during the game.) So the player would have to direct Pacman through the maze, avoiding the ghosts, and eating up all the pellets.

To help the player out, each maze featured four "power pellets". When Pacman ate one of these, he would gain the ability to eat the ghosts. This power only lasted for a brief time. But this added a wonderful element of strategy to the game.

Another nice feature was the presence of "side exits". These were openings on the side of each maze. When Pacman went out through one of these exits, he would reenter the maze through its corresponding exit on the other side of the screen. In other words, if Pacman went out one of the side exits on the left, he would reappear on the right side of the screen.

This often helped Pacman to avoid the ghosts. But the ghosts could also use the side exits. However, it seemed that the ghosts traveled through the side exits more slowly than Pacman did.

Pacman also featured very nice artificial intelligence programming. Each of the four ghosts actually followed a different strategy when pursuing Pacman. One followed him, one attempted to head him off by taking alternate routes through the maze, one stayed toward the center of the maze, and the fourth, who was a nice fellow (ut-bay ot-nay oo-tay ight-bray,) just sort of wandered about.

PBeM
Play by E-mail. A way to play normally face-to-face games over the Internet. The most common genres include turn-based strategy and roleplaying games.
Planet's Edge
A science-fiction role-playing and strategy hybrid, Planet's Edge grew out of the first attempt to realize a computer driven version of Task Force Games' "Star Fleet Battles." It featured a massive storyline, and offered the first fully customizable starships in a detailed space strategy environment. Created for New World Computing by Eric Hyman, Neal Hallford, and Kenneth Mayfield.
Pokemon
A very, very popular RPG created by Game Freak and Nintendo. It stars 150 unique monsters called Pokemon, that trainers have to catch in Pokeballs.
Pong
The first video game to be a mass market success, Pong was the pioneer of video games in stores and the home. Its creator, Nolan Bushnell, went on to found Atari.
Quake
One of the leading series in the 3D First Person Shooter Genre. Developed by iD Software and the successor to the Doom series. Quake 3 is scheduled for release. WWW
Rainbow Six
Created in 1998 by Red Storm, who was founded by Tom Clancy, Rainbow 6 is a first-person tactical shooter and a major revolution in FPS games, bringing in a new level of depth. (WWW)
Remake
A Remake is generally a newly programmed version of an existing (usually quite old) game. Remakes can be true to the original, but most tend to use improved graphics or enhance gameplay with new ideas. There are several websites dedicated to making Remakes.(e.g. http://www.remakes.org)
Sim RPG
A sub Genre of RPGs. Sim RPGs combine the elements of RPGs and Turn based strategy. They have experience, Levels, Story and Various other Roleplaying elements but the gameplay is focus more towards battles and Story than exploration. Infact Sim RPGs usually lack sidequests and secrets. Examples: Final Fantasy Tactics, Ogre Battle, Vandel Hearts.
Simcity
A series of games from Maxis that allowed the player to create a town. Progressive installments in the series added sewage, garbage disposal, and other resource management to the player's plate. Notable for being one of the first games to simulate a complex reality-based system on the relatively underpowered machines of the time. In series: Simcity, Simcity 2000, Simcity 3000, Simcity 4000 (Multiple expansion packs released for each). Computers/Consoles: SNES, Saturn, PlayStation, PC, Mac among others
Starcraft
A Real Time Strategy game created by Blizzard and the Science Fiction successor to the Warcraft series. (WWW)
StarFox
Highly popular space combat game by Nintendo for their SNES platform. Recently converted into an RPG for the GameCube platform by Rare.
Street Fighter
Thought by many to be the greatest fighting game series on the planet, and is most likely the longest running. Street Fighter II set off the 2D fighting craze that has slightly died down in recent months. The Street Fighter series has an ever growing number of titles which include Street Fighter, Street Fighter II, Street Fighter II Turbo, Super Street Fighter III, Street Fighter Alpha (Zero), Street Fighter Alpha (Zero) II, Street Fighter Alpha (Zero) III, Street Fighter EX, and many more. Street Fighter characters are also used in many games such as Pocket Fighter, Marvel vs. Capcom I and II, and SNK vs. Capcom. Street Fighter also spawned a cartoon series and several animation movies, as well as a live action movie.
Super Mario Bros
Mario and his brother Luigi were invented by Shigeru Miyamoto in the late 80's. Known as the trademark of Nintendo he has become the star of many games. Probably the greatest Mario game ever would be Super Mario 64 on the N64 which invented the 3D platformer genre.
Tetris
A wonderfully innovative Puzzle game, designed by Alexy Pajitnov. Tetris was the original "falling blocks" game.

Tetris was a 2D puzzle game. The play area was an empty box. A number of different shaped, randomly selected pieces would fall one at a time from the top of the screen. The player would be able to rotate these blocks, and move then toward the left or right as they fell. Once the current block came to rest at the bottom of the screen or on another block, its place would be fixed, and another block would enter the playing field.

The blocks would continue to fall until they were piled to the top of the screen, at which point the game would end. But a player would put this off as long as possible by carefully stacking the blocks in a compact manner.

Whenever the blocks were stacked in such a way that an entire horizontal row of the play area was completely filled with blocks, that row would disappear, and the blocks above would fall down to take their place. Every time the player completed a row, he would be awarded points.

Through careful planning, is was also possible to complete several rows at once. When this happened. the player would be awarded more points in proportion to the number of rows completed simultaneously.

The game mechanics of Tetris were uncomplicated, and it was easy for people to learn to play in just a few moments. Yet the gameplay was addictive, and Tetris became very popular.

A whole host of Tetris clones have been created. And because this type of Puzzle game is relatively easy to program, it is common for new programmers to learn by creating their own versions of Tetris.

The Sims
An innovative simulation of suburban life. This game was designed by Will Wright, and published by Electronic Arts.

The gameplay in The Sims is open ended. The player is not given a definite set of goals, and so there is no distinct set of win or loss conditions. The player makes use of the game mechanics in whatever way he chooses.

The Sims was very popular, and a number of sequels have been made. A new MMORPG version is currently in development.

Trespasser
Released in 1998 by DreamWorks, Trespasser was very much overhyped to contain realistic physics, highly intelligent dinosaur AI, and hyper-realistic environments. Unfortunately, it didn't meet its expectations and was immediately shunned by the industry as a flop. Regardless, it was years ahead of most games in terms of physics, shadows, and simply realism.
Tyrant
A graphical roguelike/RPG game written in Java and released as open source GPL software.
Ultima
A popular series of games, from Akalabeth in 1979 (often referred to as Ultima 0) to Ultima IX in 1999. U-VII also had to extensions. Ultima Online was released 1995 and still (2001) has thousands of active players. The most of the Ultima games are played in a fantasy world called Britannia (except U-II and U-VIII). Britannia is ruled by Lord British which is the alias of Richard Garriot, the original creator of the Ultima world. All games in the Ultima series is tile-based except U-IX and Ultima Online 2 which is yet to be released.
Unreal
This was a 3-D first person shooter by Epic Megagames. It was very similar to Half-Life in that you had to explore a unknown world and fight the alien race in it. It featured Stunning graphics for the time of release (roughly 1997) The game featured huge worlds to explore and was one of the first game that used scripted events to increase the in-depth perspective. Unlike what many people think.... the coming sequel tot he game is NOT a sequel for Unreal Tournament it is a sequel for Unreal... unreal is more single-player based althought it does have multi-player support, Unreal Tournament is almost completly multi-player based but it does include very challenging bots as well as it's own built in server so it is easy to find other online games.
Unreal Tournament
A very popular First Person Shooter, developed by Epic Games. Many people have developed mods for this game. This support of the Unreal Tournament community helps to provide great replayability.
Warcraft
One of the first mass market successes in the Real Time Strategy genre, War Craft pitted Orcs versus Humans in battle and resource management. This title originally came out around the time Westwood Studios made Dune, and Warcraft 2 around the time of Command & Conquer. (WWW)
Wolfenstien 3D
Critically acclaimed and the game that brought real-time first person game play to the masses, Wolfenstein 3D was a raycasting based engine set in Nazi Germany. Created by id Software and published by Apogee (now 3D Realms). (WWW)
Xbox360
The successor to the Microsoft Xbox, this console uses new ATI graphics chips as well as multi-core IBM PowerPC CPUs capable of running six simultaneous threads in hardware.
See Also:PowerPC, XBox
Zelda
One of Nintendo's most popular game series. Zelda always centers around an action/adventure style of play in different fantasy worlds. The main characters in the series are Link, an elven heroe (the player), and Zelda, a princess who is, most often an intricale part of the plot. Zelda's appeal and history have made it a best-selling series throughout Japan and the United States.


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