Gaming terms in your language

[ZeroAX]

Growing up as a kid in the 90s I remember spending a lot of time, with my summer friends, playing games at the local arcade.

I also remember we used a lot of the standard (at the time) Greek gaming vocabulary, but as I notice these days, in Greek gaming forums, no one uses those terms anymore, instead everyone uses the English terms, because they are used to reading them, all over the internet.

So for old time's sake, I thought of posting some of that gaming vocabulary here, but I also would love to ask, non-English people what gaming terms you use in your country?


"Mana" my most favorite term, and one I STILL use today is the word "mana" it's Greek for mother, and it's how we used to call the bosses in a game. In fact when I first learned English, I thought it was funny calling them bosses. I guess since most enemies, at the time, were monsters, we thought the biggest one much have been their mother (also this might have something to do with it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echidna_(mythology))

"Aima" which is Greek for blood, and of course we refer to the health bar that way. Which doesn't make a lot of sense, if you think of it as a BAR, but I guess when you play a violent game, you lose blood when you get hit, so that might have something to do with how the term came to pass.

"Kanonaki" which is really confusing even for me. In loose translation it's either a small cannon or a cute cannon, and it refers to lives in a game. You know 1-ups. Yeah that doesn't make ANY sense even to me. In fact I never used the term, neither did my friends, we just called them zoes (greek for lives). I only heard it from people older than me. The only way, I can think this came to pass, is a game that had a cannon as the "lives" sprite, was really popular at some time during the 80s.

"Flogobolo" which is greek for flamethrower, and we refered to Mario's fireflower like that. And when smash bross came out, we were proved right.

"Papoutsaki" which translates, to either small shoe or cute shoe (if you put the "aki" at the end of a greek noun, it means a small or cute version of the noun) and we refered to Sonic's speed power up that way.



While some of these terms are stupid imo (see cannon=life WTF) I still love using some of them, and I find it kind of sad that newer gamers (I'm only 21 btw) don't know these terms and just use the English ones, even when speaking in greek.



oh well. Anyone else have some foreign gaming terms to share with us?

[MrPopo]

The cannon actually makes sense. Some of the most popular arcade games were Space Invaders, Galaga, and Centipde, where you would control what was essentially a moveable cannon on the bottom of the screen.

[ZeroAX]

oh.

as a kid who grew up playing platform games, I've never actually played many shooters, but now that you mention it does make sense

[gtmtnbiker]

I wonder when the word "boss" came into popular usage. I grew up with the Atari 2600/800, Intellivision and I don't recall ever hearing the word boss. I guess it started with the NES.

[ZeroAX]

I wonder when the word "boss" came into popular usage. I grew up with the Atari 2600/800, Intellivision and I don't recall ever hearing the word boss. I guess it started with the NES.

and the funny thing is, it only finally made sense at this fantasy deprived generation of game consoles, where you only see human characters, and the main bad guy IS the boss

[RCBH928]

very interesting topic, first time to read anything similar to this.

While I do not recall many, if they existed, but here are some in Arabic.
there are like 7 letters in Arabic missing in English but I will try to compromise .

Rooh: It literally means a soul, and you can guess it is the lives count you have. also the 1up is called a rooh because when you pick it up it adds to your lives count.

marhala: literally stage or phase, and this was for levels, like in Mario and Sonic.

alraees: literally The Boss, and we call any boss , The Boss. I guess it is referring to the boss of each stage or level.

shreet: literally tape, like the audio cassettes ones . This was the popular and about the only name for console cartridges and is extremely popular. Cartridge is almost dead, and to be honest when ever there is a cartridge they still call it "shreet" even myself! There are some people still calling console games shreet even in CD form(If it is a PC game it is a CD, don't ask me why), I heard one guy the other day saying this. I am guessing back then, you insert a cassette tape in the stereo and it plays the tape, your insert cartridge in the console and it plays the cartridge, then this must be the tape(shreet) of the console!

Gear: Ok this is English , but I heard some people call controllers gears I have no idea why. I personally call them joysticks , whatever you control the game with is a joystick. I sometimes call it controller, specially 360 one.

gyamt-ha: Slang for completing a game, obviously from the English word game. I do not use it but I know some people do. I do not know how this comes to be, I do not know if there is an English equivalent to this expression, but I recall something like saying "game" when the game ends or "thats game". You know better than me.

This is new and funny, I am not sure how popular this is:
mlagleg: If you did not figure it out , it is lag. If a connection has a lag, they call it "mlagleg". What is funny is this is an English noun, but applied to it the grammar rules of Arabic in turning a noun into and adjective and you end up with this. Like Justice and Just.

That is about a ll that I can recall

[ZeroAX]

alraees: literally The Boss, and we call any boss , The Boss. I guess it is referring to the boss of each stage or level.



Gear: Ok this is English , but I heard some people call controllers gears I have no idea why. I personally call them joysticks , whatever you control the game with is a joystick. I sometimes call it controller, specially 360 one.

lol. Gear is really cool for controllers, and calling a boss THE boss is badass

[Gooseberrysoda]

I remember any kind of falling/flung rock was a "meatball". And that's about it.

[fastbilly1]

This is an excellent idea for a topic. I do not have any slang from my past, that I can think of, but if I or my friends come up with any I will post it.

[ZeroAX]

just one small thing, tell us which language you are talking about, because most of you don't have a location in your info