Pac-Man Fever/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: All fictional video games are portrayed as 50s-80s era games.

  • Straight: Bob is playing on a PlayStation 2. The graphics are 8 bit and the sound effects are beepy.
  • Exaggerated: April is playing Pong on a Play Station 3 which isn't plugged in to the television or the wall socket. The controller is from a SNES, and the SFX sound suspiciously like Halo.
  • Downplayed: Alice and Bob are playing on a console from a previous generation which, while plausable, raises the question of why they haven't upgraded yet.
  • Justified: Bob and April have modded their consoles so that they can play classic games, or else bought a compilation of them from the PSN.
    • Alternatively, the game is simply a port for the console
  • Inverted: A younger Bob is shown playing a Play Station 3 game with Alice on an original Game Boy in the 60's.
  • Subverted: We hear Pac-Man style beeps as Bob and Alice play on an Xbox 360. The camera then pans around to reveal a modern game on the screen. Alice compliments Bob on his ring tone as he answers his mobile. They're actually playing Halo 3.
  • Double Subverted: Lacking a second player while Bob's on the phone, Alice quits Halo 3 and begins playing Pac-Man on the 360.
  • Parodied: Bob excitedly gloats how many points he's got, and that he's reached level 80. Alice points out the console isn't plugged in, and that he hasn't played videogames in a while, has he?
  • Deconstructed: Bob only plays old Atari games because he's stuck in his childhood and can't acknowledge that anything has changed.
  • Reconstructed: Alice buys him a newer console to try and get him to man up. It's a SNES.
  • Zig Zagged: Bob is seen playing on an 80's era game. Then he gets bored and he and Alice play a modern FPS...which turns out to be Doom. Then Bob's younger brother Rob comes in and asks if he can play on his new game when they're done with their old ones. Alice and Bob decide to let him have his fun. The game is then reveal to be completely sprite based. It's Disgaea 3.
  • Averted: The Alice and Bob show is sponsored by Microsoft. Their favorite game is Halo 3 multiplayer, on Bob's Microsoft XBox 360 Elite, over his Microsoft XBox Live Gold Subscription. Both Bob and Alice like to brag online about their "leetness".
    • Alternatively, Bob is playing a game that, while still fictional, looks and sounds like what a PlayStation 2 game would be like.
  • Enforced: Stock CGI footage and sounds are used to avoid lawsuits.
  • Lampshaded: "Why don't we have any games from less than 15 years ago?"
  • Invoked: Bob and Alice prefer the classics.
  • Defied: Alice and Bob are hardcore gamers. They pour all their disposable income into their consoles, PCs, games and seating.
  • Discussed: "I wish I could afford something more modern but this Megadrive's all I've got..."
  • Conversed: "Hey, have you heard about that new sitcom about gamers?" "Hm, they'll probably just hammer a joypad and make Atari sounds."
  • Played For Laughs: Everyone but Bob has modern games and consoles.
  • Played For Drama: Bob ends up going to prison after trying to steal a newer console and cracking it to play downloaded games.
  • Plotted a Perfectly Good Waste: Turns out Alice and Bob are both part of an experiment by the U.S. government to see if regular civilians can suscessfully replicate conditions from the 80s, and the duo are fittingly playing games from that time period.

Back to Pac-Man Fever...it's driving me crazy!

Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Pac-Man_Fever/Playing_With?oldid=1505736"