This week: Game Kid's Essential Dictionary of Gaming.

Foreword

There is so much jargon surrounding the videogame industry these days that reviews often read like bloody technical manuals. And what good is that to anyone? It's all 'fraggin' this and 'fraggin' that, without so much as a thought for the fraggin laybloke. And what is 'fraggin', anyway - apart from some word that rhymes with 'shaggin'? Well, if you need to find out, you need Game Kid's Essential Dictionary of Gaming...

AI HAL off 2001; Data off Star Trek; Bill Giles the weatherman.

arcade A popular haunt for truants.

bugs A crap TV series featuring Craig McLachlan.

burner A dump involving chilli.

CD Means you walk out of a record shop with a pathetically small carrier bag. Not a patch on vinyl.

cheats Diego Maradona; non-English cricket players.

collectibles Other people's cigarette lighters.

clunky Basic, jerky animation; Arnold Schwarzenegger's acting.

cut scenes Practically all of Aliens when ITV showed it.

developer Someone who works in the photographic department in Boots.

diggage [dig-idg!] To dig someone; to get your foot in. Shout often heard from the terraces during an Actua Soccer 3 match. See uppage.

dole Money given out by the government to spend on computer games.

dual shock Finding out that your girlfriend's pregnant - and that she expects you to marry her.

DOS See dole.

Dreamcast An unusually good angler.

Explorer David Hempleman-Adams; Dr Livingston.

hard drive London to Birmingham in less than two hours.