A Guide to Video Game Lingo 10

1. Platforming (verb) - jumping from suspended platforms and/or over obstacles.

"I can handle the enemies, but these platforming sections are killing me, literally."

2. Boss (noun) - a computer-controlled opponent who is usually far stronger than any opponents faced previously which generally occurs at the climax of section of a video game.

"That boss battle was a breeze. Wait a minute. It's back form the dead and changing into a secondary form. Are you kidding me?"

3. Mini-boss (noun) - A.K.A., middle boss, sub-boss, midboss; a smaller boss, usually less powerful than the main boss for that particular section of the game, sometimes simply a more powerful version of regular opponents.

"If the mini-boss was that hard, I'm not looking forward to the boss."

Scott Pilgrim

When I watched the movie Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, I was told that it is basically a frame by frame remake of the graphic novel series titled Scott Pilgrim. However, reading the graphic novels, I found that there's much more to this story, and it's told in a really interesting way. The graphic novel series gives much more back-story and makes the individual encounters more fleshed out. It's much less episodic, but still episodic in the sense that Scott Pilgrim continues to battle mini-bosses in a very Mega Man style. The first volume is almost entirely the same as the film, but stick around until the second volume and you'll find a lot more meat to the story. Bryan Lee O'Malley mixes all-too-timely web comics with all-too-untimely video game themes, throws in a dash of anime/manga, and all of a sudden he's got a brilliant graphic novel series that speaks to this generation.