"Wrapped" Games

So the other day my son came to tell me that his friend has recently "wrapped" the game Gun. I asked him "what do you mean?", to which he replied that his friend had finished the game. I briefly thought about telling him why this is not "wrapping" the game, but thought, how do you explain the nuances of an archaic style of game play in a manner befitting a 7 year old to impress upon him the magnitude of this anachronistic term he is using? Obviously I couldn't come up with anything so I'll explain it here.

The term "wrap" actually dates back to the origins of video games when there was essentially no story for a video game, a concept was conceived, graphics were created and the game played, essentially the same screen or style of screen, time and time again with very little change other than an escalating level of difficulty, usually just more bad buys moving faster (although they often changed the color on the bad guys too). You see in those days the point of games was to accumulate points; although the further into the game you got the more points you got, the main goal was the points, not so much the level you reached. On top of this, these primitive games had limited scoring capabilities, meaning that you generally had one of two options, once you reached the highest score possible, usually 999,999 points, the game either froze or rolled over to 0 and started again, literally wrapping the score.

I remember the first game I ever wrapped, Megamania; not only was it the first, it was probably the only one. These games just got so boring after a while, no variety or anything new once you got past the first 10 levels as a general rule, that I got bored with them before I could run up massive numbers or roll over the score. I'm pretty sure the only reason I stuck with this game is because my ship reminded me of the Enterprise, and that was about as close as you could get to Star Trek games in those days, especially shooters.

I am not aware of any game that it is possible to wrap in this day and age, the game either has a limited storyline that is completed, it is a sandbox with no scoring value, or the system you are playing on has the ability to track the score as high as it is possible to go, thereby making the term "wrapped" an anachronism. Most console and PC games don't even track scores any more other than to give rewards for experience, they're purely story driven, and that suits me fine.

Now to "wrap" things up here, I don't have a problem with people using this term. Gaming is a full blown culture that deserves its own lexicon and this term does have its place and a real basis in the origins of the species, so to speak. I just dislike seeing people using anything that they don't understand.

Now go forth and wrap something baby.