fandomhigh | Pop Culture: Everything I Ever Needed To Know I Learnt From... [Thurs, 1st Period]

Oz had his class meet him in the Danger Shop today, inside was a mass of consoles, cables, controllers, and screens, as well as a number of desktops and handhelds, and even a few arcade cabinets here and there.

"Morning, kids," Oz greeted them, half his attention on an old Starfighter cabinet. "So, video games, probably one of the most interesting mediums in terms of modern pop culture, and one highly relevant to your generation, however some of you technically aren't from your generation, so this week is going to be a bit of a crash course for the newbies, and getting acquainted for the not so newbies. What we have here are most of the major gaming platforms, along with copies of best selling games ~~or their appropriate metas~~ for each of them. I want you to spend this class playing them. Use a couple of different platforms, and play a bunch of different games, rather than just sticking to one, and try to help each other out if anyone has trouble figuring out anything."

"At the end of the class, feel free to talk with the other kids about anything in particular you noticed, and we'll go into more detail on the subject next week."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Emily decided to watch, because her childhood sucked. She might also not want to make a fool of herself, so it was better to watch others making fools of themselves.

"Wait, are you actually- talking to that dog?" Talk about interactive.

"Yeah," Evan replied, blushing just the tiniest bit as he realized that his effort to train Picklechips, his video game beagle, how to sit on command was something that everyone else could hear, too. "I... think it records a sample of your voice and stores it away, so that it can recognize certain commands. He'll answer to his name, too."

His really embarrassing name. Evan had been kind of hungry when he'd named him.

"Oh. Cool," Emily muttered, partially oblivious to Evan's blushing. Hey, everyone was playing, no biggie. "So it's like having a pet, without having to clean up. What's his name anyway?"

Well, so much for not looking too silly.

"It's Picklechips..."

The dog on the screen looked up and barked, happy that he was being spoken to. Dammit, Nintendogs.

"Um," Emily started as she stared at the happy dog. "That's...cute?" Never mind the probably too wide grin on her face. "He likes it, anyway."

"Well, yeah... He's kind of programmed to."

Though, in fairness, if Evan had named his real dog something equally silly, he'd probably be getting the same reaction. Ozzy was not a difficult puppy to please, just so long as someone was paying attention to him.

"If he didn't like it, he'd probably run away or something, I guess."

"Wasn't he programmed to like it? It wouldn't be a good game if he runs away," Emily pointed out, the thought of it making her tilt her head. "And pretty short lived too. What else does...he do?"

Yeah, she wasn't going to learn that name anytime soon.

"The gameplay works in realtime," Evan explained, rattling off what he read in the instruction manual. "So your dogs can run away, if you neglect them, forget to feed them or take them for walks or things like that."

He navigated the screen with his stylus, clicked through his inventory, and pulled out a tennis ball.

"He'll fetch, too."

In fact, he did pretty much anything a real dog would do. And that included pooping.

"For walks? Isn't that all kind of demanding? For a game?" asked Emily as she stared at dog going after the ball. "I mean, if you're going to need through all that trouble, you could just get a real dog."

Not that he didn't have one. Not that Emily knew, as well.

"I've got a real dog," Evan replied with a shrug. "But I could see how this game could be given to little kids who aren't ready for the real thing yet, or to people who are allergic, or something like that. I mean, Ozzy chews my things, and he wakes me up early if he needs to go for a walk, and someday he'll get sick and vet bills aren't cheap, and real dogs... they don't live as long as people do. They grow up and they get old and they die, and the puppies in this game stay puppies forever. It seems like the kind of game that would be great for people who want a pet they can put away without guilt when they're done playing with them."

Emily sighed. She supposed it was her fault she got into this conversation, because now all she could think about was how Sammy had probably died years ago. She pushed the sadness and snorted a bit though. "You've thought about it pretty well, apparently," she said in a measured tone. "I guess it makes sense though; I thought Sammy and I were going to stick around forever and yet-" Emily cut herself mid-sentence, and then just shrugged. She really didn't need to ruin someone else's mood.

"Anyway. Cant hey have puppies too?"

Evan gave her a weird little look at that.

"They're going to be puppies forever, themselves. I think that's kind of like asking if kids can have more kids." Kind of. At least approaching it from a purely scientific standpoint. "You can get more dogs, but you have to buy them using money you earn at dog shows. You know... doing all the tricks you taught them."

Roll over, Picklechips.

"So it's pretty realistic, just not that realistic," Emily said with a little nod. In hindsight, having little kids putting down their dogs made no sense at all.

"I would ask you why are you playing such a game, but I would probably be right if I assume you're far from the oldest person to play this seriously."

"I... guess?" Evan blinked and then waved at the games that had been set up. "I'm mostly playing it because it's part of the assignment, and I wasn't any good at the action games."

Which, if you asked him, was a little backwards and a little wrong.

Pop Culture: Everything I Ever Needed To Know I Learnt From... [Thurs, 1st Period]

Re: Play Games! - Pop Culture [10]

Re: Play Games! - Pop Culture [10]

Re: Play Games! - Pop Culture [10]

Re: Play Games! - Pop Culture [10]

Re: Play Games! - Pop Culture [10]

Re: Play Games! - Pop Culture [10]

Re: Play Games! - Pop Culture [10]

Re: Play Games! - Pop Culture [10]

Re: Play Games! - Pop Culture [10]

Re: Play Games! - Pop Culture [10]

Re: Play Games! - Pop Culture [10]

Re: Play Games! - Pop Culture [10]

Re: Play Games! - Pop Culture [10]

Re: Play Games! - Pop Culture [10]