Computer Gaming Online

Further Reading: Gaming

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Gizmondo ... With fewer than 25,000 units sold, the Gizmondo was named by GamePro as the worst selling handheld console in history. By February 2006, the company discontinued the device and was forced into bankruptcy...

Nintendo DS ... On March 2, 2006, Nintendo released the Nintendo DS Lite, a redesign of the Nintendo DS, in Japan. It was released in North America, Europe, and Australia in June 2006...

Parimutuel Betting ... The parimutuel system is used in gambling on horse racing, greyhound racing, jai alai, and all sporting events of relatively short duration in which participants finish in a ranked order. A modified parimutuel system is also used in some lottery games...

Role-playing Game ... There are several forms of RPG. The original form, sometimes called the tabletop RPG, is conducted through discussion, whereas in live action role-playing games (LARP) players physically perform their characters' actions...

Redemption Game ... A variation on the ticket-based redemption game is the merchandiser, which directly displays and dispenses merchandise, rather than dispensing tickets which are then redeemed for prizes. Redemption games can be seen as the modern successor to carnival games, as the same general principles apply...

History Of Video Games ... In 1949–1950, Charley Adama created a "Bouncing Ball" program for MIT's Whirlwind computer. While the program was not yet interactive, it was a precursor to games soon to come...

Dartball ... Dartball rules and board configurations vary from league to league, but generally teams comprise either seven or nine players plus possible alternates. Dartball teams are usually formed by churches, often playing their games during fall and winter months in church basements or common areas...

Special Versions Of The Nintendo DS ... In Australia, the DS Lite was also only available in white (Polar White) at launch. On September 21, 2006, the Jet Black (Onyx) color was released...

Gambling ... The term gaming in this context typically refers to instances in which the activity has been specifically permitted by law... The two words are not mutually exclusive; i.e., a “gaming” company offers (legal) “gambling” activities to the public and may be regulated by one of many gaming control boards, for example, the Nevada Gaming Control Board... For instance, in the UK, the regulator of gambling activities is called the Gambling Commission (not the Gaming Commission)...

Razer Switchblade ... They started a project, codenamed the "Switchblade", which is a portable gaming device that "would revolutionize the future of gaming"... When asked about the development of the Switchblade, Razer's CEO, Min-Liang Tan, believed that the development of the Switchblade started from a small gaming peripheral company, into a well-known corporation that would develop the first full portable PC gaming console... He said "Razer isn’t just about bringing innovation to the PC, but creating products that will change the future of gaming...

Problem Gambling ... According to a logical study conducted by Alec Roy, M. D. formerly at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, norepinephrine is secreted under stress, arousal, or thrill, so pathological gamblers gamble to make up for their under-dosage...

PlayStation Portable ... Several gaming websites were impressed by the handheld's computing capabilities and looked forward to the system's potential as a gaming platform...

Cricket (darts) ... Numbers can be closed in the standard fashion i.e. hitting a single 3 times, hitting a double and a single, hitting a triple, etc...

Atari Lynx ... The Lynx was also the first gaming console with hardware support for zooming/distortion of sprites, allowing fast pseudo-3D games with unrivaled quality at the time and a capacity for drawing filled polygons with limited CPU intervention...

American Darts ... Embedded in the board are thin steel wires that separate the board into scoring sections, as opposed to the wider steel dividers placed onto the surface of traditional boards. On those English boards, the wider steel makes it much more likely that the dart will hit the steel divider and bounce off onto the floor...

GP32 ... The console has a four-way mini-joystick controller, two main buttons ('A' and 'B'), two shoulder buttons on each side of the SMC slot ('L' and 'R') and two other menu buttons on each side of the screen ('SELECT' and 'START'), made from a softer, translucent rubber. The console also has a USB 1.1 port for connection with a host computer, a serial expansion port, a 3.3 V power adapter input, a headphone connector and a rear compartment which holds two AA sized batteries...

N-Gage ... This was unsuccessful, partly because the buttons, designed for a phone, were not well-suited for gaming and when used as a phone the original N-Gage was described as resembling a "taco"... Instead of using cables, multiplayer gaming was accomplished with Bluetooth or the Internet (via the N-Gage Arena service)...

Game Boy Advance ... Around the same time as the release of the Game Boy Micro, Nintendo released a new backlit version of the SP (model AGS-101) in North America (commonly referred to as the "GBA SP+", SPII, or SP2). The switch that controls the light now toggles between "normal" (which itself is already brighter than the original Game Boy Advance SP's screen), and "bright", an intense brightness level similar to an LCD television set...

Pandora (console) ... When announcing the system, the designers of Pandora stated that it would be more powerful than any handheld video game console that had yet existed. It includes several features that no handheld game consoles have previously had, making it a cross between a handheld game console and a subnotebook...

Sports Betting ... Bookmakers usually hold a 11-10 advantage over their customers—for small wagers it is closer to a 6-5 advantage—so the bookmaker will most likely survive over the long term. Successful bookmakers must be able to withstand a large short term loss...

Online Text-based Role-playing Game ... Play-by-post and PBEM Play-by-post role-playing games or PBP RPGs refer to another type of text-based gaming... Such broad freedom of expression can easily be grossly abused, most often by new players unfamiliar with the mostly unwritten etiquette of the text-based gaming community... In addition to rules there is usually a universal set of mores and a terminology common to text-based role playing games, that more or less constitutes gaming etiquette...

Live Action Role-playing Game ... In 1981 the International Fantasy Gaming Society (IFGS) started, with rules influenced by Dungeons & Dragons...

Role-playing Game Theory ... In 1994-95 Inter*Active, (later re-named Interactive Fiction) published a magazine devoted to the study of RPGs. In the first issue Robin Laws called for the creation of a critical theory for role-playing games...

Handheld Electronic Game ... The initial success of Mattel and Parker Brothers' entries spawned a wave of similar handheld devices which were released through the early 1980s. Notable among these were a series of popular 2-player "head-to-head" games from Coleco...

Nintendo 3DS ... The Nintendo 3DS was released in Japan on February 26, 2011; in Europe on March 25, 2011; in North America on March 27, 2011; and in Australia on March 31, 2011. On July 28, 2011, Nintendo announced a major price drop starting August 12...