Melee (gaming)

In video gaming, the term melee has been adopted and popularized as a cover-all term for close combat.

The term was first applied to games in H.G. Wells's 1913 Little Wars, where the author develops a "melee rule" in his war game. It was later popularized by Dungeons & Dragons, which featured a "melee phase" to represent the fighting of characters outside of bows and magic.

This term still applies to most role-playing games, but is often used in the context of first-person shooter video games to specify a non-ranged attack. This began with the 1992 game Wolfenstein 3D, which featured a knife that could be selected from the inventory, just like a gun. Because of the risk involved in using a melee weapon, they were typically the most powerful weapons available, in terms of damage. Later, Duke Nukem 3D would include a button that allowed the character to kick enemies while still wielding a gun. A Nintendo franchise called Super Smash Bros. had its second game released in 2001 for the GameCube and used the term "melee" in the title.

Melee

Melee (/ˈmeɪleɪ/ or /ˈmɛleɪ/, French: mêlée [mɛle]; the French spelling is also quite frequent in English writing), generally refers to disorganized close combat in battles fought at abnormally close range with little central control once it starts.

The French term was first used in English in c. 1640 (a re-borrowing of a lost Middle English melle, but the Old French borrowing survives in medley and meddle).

In military aviation, a melee has been described as "[a]n air battle in which several aircraft, both friend and foe, are confusingly intermingled".

Lord Nelson described his tactics for the Battle of Trafalgar as inducing a "pell mell battle" focused on engagements between individual ships where the superior morale and skill of the Royal Navy would prevail.

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References

Mêlée (EP)

Mêlée is the self-titled and self released EP by Mêlée, released in 2002

Track listing

References

Tournament (medieval)

A tournament, or tourney (from Old French torneiement, tornei) was a chivalrous competition or mock fight in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (12th to 16th centuries). It is one of various types of hastiludes.

Terminology

Old French tornement was in use in the 12th century, from a verb tornoier, ultimately Latin tornare "to turn". The same verb also gave rise to tornei (modern English tourney, modern French tournoi). The French terms were adopted in English (via Anglo-Norman) by 1300.

The Old French verb in origin meant "to joust, tilt", but it came to refer to the knightly tournament more generally, while joster "approach, meet" became the technical term for jousting specifically (also adopted in English before 1300).

By the end of the 12th century, tornement and Latinized torneamentum had become the generic term for all kinds of knightly hastiludes or martial displays. Roger of Hoveden writing in the late 12th century defined torneamentum as "military exercises carried out, not in the knight's spirit of hostility (nullo interveniente odio), but solely for practice and the display of prowess (pro solo exercitio, atque ostentatione virium)."