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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"You Win - Advance to Level 7"''|''[[
For whatever reason, video games seen on TV never evolved past a very primitive state. Classic 8-bit games (such as [[
In live action, standard practice is to render bleeping [[Arcade Sounds]], and bounce a shifting light pattern off the characters playing. In animation, actual game graphics can be rendered, but they are seldom very sophisticated. Game music is almost never heard, and if it is, it's almost always an 8-bit chiptune.
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This trope has many root causes. Most important of all is that high quality game graphics/sounds/music competes for screen time and viewer's attention — similar to the cause of [[Stylistic Suck]]. Plus the music in particular may ruin the overall tone. The second reason would be money. While it wouldn't be hard to toss in some footage and sound from a modern game, it may cost quite a bit to get the rights to do so, and it would definitely cost quite a bit to make something original. Last of all, since [[Most Writers Are Adults]], they may not be avid gamers, either knowing only the 8-bit glory they grew up with or came of age before video games.
If you're too young to remember what ''[[
This may be a [[Discredited Trope]] before long. [[Ultra Super Death Gore Fest Chainsawer 3000]] seems to be replacing it as a result of the [[Moral Guardians]] whining about violent games. [[Product Placement]] is also becoming more common.
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Note that we're assuming the characters haven't modded their consoles to play old games, or purchased them online in the case of the [[Virtual Console|Wii/3DS]]/[[Xbox Live Arcade|Xbox 360]]/[[Playstation Network|PS3/PSP]], unless otherwise stated.
Also see [[Arcade Sounds]], [[Beeping Computers]], [[Fictional Video Game]], [[Video Arcade]], [[Public Medium Ignorance]], [[Two Decades Behind]], and [[Hollywood Game Design]]. Compare [[Stock Footage]]. If pushed far enough, can lead to [[Schizo
{{examples}}
== Straight Examples ==
=== Advertising ===
* An ad for Subway restaurants had a kid playing an Atari game where the [[Player Character]] ate burgers, hot dogs, and other junk foods, and then got so fat he couldn't fit through a gap in the platforms to get at a gigantic sundae. The game's graphics are actually too ''advanced'' for an Atari console to handle, and it comes complete with the requisite random jerking around of the joystick.
* A relatively recent (2007?) ad for batteries seemed to advertise their potential for gaming, particularly handheld gaming, despite the fact that 1) you're unlikely to find a modern game about "space ninjas" where you go for a high score that isn't a parody or homage minigame, which shows how well they know their target demographic, and 2) [[Did Not Do the Research|both of the two major handheld systems this generation use proprietary rechargeable batteries rather than double-A's.]] An egregious example as, unlike most of these, this ad was aimed at gamers.
* The makers of ''Fruit by the Foot'' once struck a promotional deal with Nintendo to print gameplay tips for [[Nintendo 64]] games on the snack's cellophane wrappers. The commercial showed two teenagers grown old, with one who's been waiting 62 years for his friend to finish playing. He's supposedly been using the snack's hints to keep from losing for all these years... but he's playing ''[[
* A Mexican ad for Mirinda promoting ''Pokémon'' bottle caps started with four kids yelling and button mashing like savages... while playing ''[[
* A Russian ad for Choco-Boy snacks tells there is a contest to win a PSP Go and shows a kid playing it, but what we see on the screen is Choco-Boy running with a background taken right from the ''Super Mario All-Stars'' version of ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]''
* Look no further than the box cover of the AK Rocker gamer chair for a prime example of this: A family of three (dad, son, daughter) are all on the eponymous chairs playing a game together... with an [[
* And then there's a commercial for becoming a game designer that's so bad Alta Colleges doesn't want you to see it. Parodied by ''Three Panel Soul'' [http://threepanelsoul.com/2008/06/04/on-level-three/ here].
** I'll click that link as soon as I finish "tightening up" the graphics.
* One advertisement for an online ''[[
* A print commercial for ''[[Crash Bandicoot|Crash: Mind Over Mutant]]'' shows two kids playing the game with a [[Nintendo
* Parodied in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZYQiXKvZDg this] commercial for [[
* A commercial for a racing game falls victim to this. Two gamers are sitting in their car, fooling around with the car customizing tool when they notice the changes they make in game affect a nearby woman's [[Power Perversion Potential|dress]] [[Fridge Horror|and body]]. Despite being in a customization screen, both gamers appear to be playing, and at the end they make her rotate in place while rapidly changing the color of her dress... by slamming the joysticks and mashing the buttons repeatedly. They then remove the dress completely, which by the commercials [[Magic A Is Magic A|own logic]] would require them to strip off the outside of their car.
* Gamer Grub is a semi-example. It doesn't depict games themselves in unrealistic ways, but it does bring up the strange idea that games aren't compatible with most snacks. Granted, the package can be tipped so the food can be eaten without being handled, but that hardly narrows the field.
* The above is nothing compared to [https://web.archive.org/web/20111124103639/http://www.gillette.com/en/us/
* In Canada, a recent Tim Horton's ad includes a scene of a guy nearly being caught playing video games at work (he gets away with it because his Boss is more interested in his Tim Horton's latte). It clearly shows a screen of actual gameplay from ''[[
* Verimark, a South African store selling assorted tat, advertises the "i-Play" games console, a little Game Boy-type gadget along the lines of the PSP with "60 built-in games!!!". It claims "high-resolution graphics!!!" and all sorts of magnificent gaming blurb. Just a shame the device itself uses pretty basic graphics that at best approach SNES-era gaming.
* In an Australian ad for ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr7omem9R0k RACV]'' insurance, while inspecting the house, one of the insurance men grabs a generic Playstation game box called "Zombie Attack!" from a shelf and exclaims that it is his favorite. Needless to say, there is no game called "Zombie Attack" on Playstation.
=== Anime & Manga ===▼
* Done deliberately in ''[[
▲== Anime & Manga ==
* A fairly obscure example lies in the sole English-subbed episode of ''[[Kyou Kara Ore Wa
▲* Done deliberately in ''[[Arcade Gamer Fubuki (Manga)|Arcade Gamer Fubuki]]''. Fubuki's first opponent plays a joystick game while wearing boxing gloves.
* In an early episode from the English dub of ''[[
▲* A fairly obscure example lies in the sole English-subbed episode of ''[[Kyou Kara Ore Wa (Manga)|Kyou Kara Ore Wa]]!'', where at one point, the main character is waiting for someone, and playing early [[Game Boy]] shooter ''Solar Striker'', complete with actual footage. However, the sounds are your generic random bleeps and bloops as opposed to the actual (bleeping and blooping) soundtrack.
* ''[[
▲* In an early episode from the English dub of ''[[Cardcaptor Sakura (Manga)|Cardcaptor Sakura]]'', Kero is seen playing an RPG that looks similar to ''[[Shining Force]]'', but with sound effects from the [[Atari 2600]] version of ''[[Donkey Kong (Video Game)|Donkey Kong]]'' in the background.
▲* ''[[Ouran High School Host Club (Manga)|Ouran High School Host Club]]''. In a flashback, the twins Hikaru and Kaoru are playing (well, ''one'' of them is playing) a game on what is clearly a [[Game Boy Advance]]--but when we see the screen, the graphics are comically low-rez, looking more like an LCD Game & Watch (Maybe they were playing ''Game & Watch Gallery 4'').
** Averted in a later flashback, where they've upgraded to a DS.
* The game that [[K-On!
* [[Durarara
* Played with in ''[[
* ''[[Cat's Eye]]'' episode 8 averts it somewhat with Asatani playing ''[[Pengo]]'' on a computer. The series was made long enough ago that the game is contemporary. It's unclear whether there was even a PC port that good at the time.
=== Films -- Live-Action ===
* Wonderfully averted in ''[[
* ''[[Shorts]]'' features a particularly bad example of this. Various characters in the film are often shown playing ''[[
* In ''[[Charlie's Angels
* ''[[Rumble in The Bronx]]'' and ''[[Airheads]]'' featured cartridgeless Sega [[Game Gear]] consoles. ''Rumble in the Bronx'' was particularly amusing, as the wheel-chair bound kid exclaims while playing the cartridge -and ''battery''-less [[Game Gear]]: "Thank you for the game, uncle Jackie!"
* As does ''[[Surf Ninjas]]'', though there it was a bit of a plot point.
* Two friends of the title character in ''[[The 40-Year-Old Virgin]]'' play ''[[Mortal Kombat
** See that the console is also wrong? It was intentional. They tried to get as many wrongs in that scene as possible as a shout out to this trope.
* In ''[[Elephant]]'', one of the characters who shoots up his school plays a game in which he shoots several identical people in the desert. (The people seem to resemble the characters from ''Gerry'', Gus Van Sant's previous film, about two guys who get lost in a desert.) The point of the game seems to be to shoot people who don't do anything but walk around.
* ''Live Free or [[
* ''[[Jarhead]]'' has a few lines of dialogue referring to levels in ''[[Metroid]]'', and that if you reach the tenth level, nothing happens, you just start at the beginning again. Erm, no. Unlike games broken into levels, [[Metroidvania]] games are the poster child for [[Sequence Breaking]].
* ''Training Day'': A kid plays on a Dreamcast controller while stock 70s Arcade sound effects play in the background.
* In ''Return of the Living Dead 3'', a group of thugs are playing what's clearly ''[[
* In ''[[Transformers (
** You can turn off auto-save, which maybe 2 gamers in the history of gaming have ever done for a game where you can't lose progress like DDR.
* ''[[Inside Man]]'' went the opposite extreme. A kid plays an ersatz ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' [[PSP]] game. When we see clips, the game's graphics are too advanced for the PSP, especially since at the time Sony had the CPU speed slowed down to preserve battery life. This has since been lifted.
* ''La Maquina de Bailar'' ("''The Dance Machine''") was a film made in Spain where the plot involved a nobody winning a ''[[Dance Dance Revolution]]'' tournament in order to pay off a debt. Even with official endorsement from Konami, many "liberties" were taken with the
* The low-budget horror film ''How to Make a Monster'' was obviously written by someone who had no knowledge of video game development, or video games in general. A triple-A title game is being created by three programmers and a producer. Now that's an efficient developer. The programmers are in charge of "AI", "Weapons" (?), and "Music". Those are apparently the only three components to a video game. No art, no design, etc. Further, the programmers work in isolation from each other and in competition, as the best aspect of the game will earn the corresponding programmer $1 million. Sounds like a good business model. When we see footage of the industry-conquering game they're creating, it's a generic first person shooter that is years behind the times. Funnily enough it actually does look like something four men could hammer out in a few days.
* ''[[Grosse Pointe Blank]]'' features a kid playing an arcade game in a convenience store, but the game he's playing is ''[[Doom (
* In ''[[Beethoven (
* ''[[Meet Dave]]'' has an extremely stupid example. The eponymous alien plays against a kid in what appears to be ''Kinetica'', an ''[[F
* In ''[[Homeward Bound:
* Don't forget the horrific ''[[Police Academy]]: Mission to Moscow''. Not only do various characters in the movie sport cartridgeless Game Boys (of the black and white
* In the [[Hulk Hogan]] movie ''[[Suburban Commando]]'', there is a section where a kid and Hulk Hogan's character play ''[[After Burner]]'' all while randomly yelling nonsensical crap about some space alien and phasers despite briefly showing us some gameplay footage that depicts a very much Earth-based fighter jet. They're also playing it very wrong, but then, Hogan's character doesn't know it ''is'' a game.
** Oh, but Hogan totally beats the game anyway, as in "he defeats it and he makes it surrender."
* The brief scene supposedly parodying ''[[Grand Theft Auto (
* The [[Lindsay Lohan]] movie ''[[Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen]]'' has a scene in which Lohan's character plays ''Dance Dance Revolution'', or a ''DDR'' ripoff, against the antagonist (played by [[Megan Fox]]). They both actually ''dance in synchronous'', from the waist up and everything, nevermind the way ''DDR'' actually works.
* In the B-movie ''[[
** The reference was a mix up in the ''[[Silent Hill]]'' series and an attempt at being clever and accurate that failed. What's described in the movie is the (accurate) trick method of defeating the final boss from the ''first'' game in the series instantly. As mentioned, however, they specifically were talking about ''[[
* ''[[World's Greatest Dad]]'' features technology contemporary to the year it was released, 2009, yet the teenaged son announces that he's going to play ''[[Doom (
** It could be ''[[Doom (
** And the son uses his computer for porn far more than games. He could've just said the first thing that came to his mind as an excuse.
* In a scene in ''[[Big Daddy]]'', Julian is seen playing ''[[Twisted Metal]] III'' on [[
* One scene in ''[[Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars]]'' shows a character playing a licensed video
* Almost averted in ''The Rocker''. In the movie, there are a couple scenes where the main characters are playing Rock Band on Xbox 360. They use the actual game guitars, the music plays as normal and they don't mash the instruments like crazy, but when they stop playing (without pausing), the game is still being shown in background, with the notes still going on, and the notes being mysteriously still played, making it clear that it was just a video of the game being played.
* In ''[[Bring It On]]'', [[Kirsten Dunst]]'s character's brother is seen playing ''Twisted Metal III'', and he actually looks like he's playing it and not randomly smashing buttons, and the sound effects are typical of what you'd hear from that game. All goes well until he makes a smartass comment about her boyfriend, causing her to get mad and rip the controller out of the system so hard it pops open the console, revealing no game inside of it.
* In ''[[Superbad]]'', there is a brief scene where Evan is playing The Getaway: Black Monday, and he says he needs to get the M16. There is no M16 in the actual game.
* ''[[The Wizard (
** There's also the bit where someone comments on Jimmy getting so far in ''[[
*** He even keeps playing after Haley sets a magazine down over 90% of the screen, though that could possibly be because he's [[Hollywood Psych|"autistic"]].
** Not to mention, after the dad (Beau Bridges) gets hooked on ''[[Zelda II:
*** And also the other scene when the dad mashing buttons like he's playing ''[[Double Dragon]]'' when you can clearly hear the sounds from ''Zelda II''.
** In the ''[[
** To make the ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (
*** From Progressive Boink's [https://web.archive.org/web/20110913055812/http://www.progressiveboink.com/archive/thewizard.html rendition]:
{{quote|
'''Christian Slater''': That's funny, because it looks like you're on Level 1 & sucking hard to me. }}
* While in the book it was never shown, the movie adaptation of ''[[Diary of a Wimpy Kid]]'' shows the fictional "Twisted Wizard" game, and is... well... ''[[Superman 64]]'' [[Recycled in Space|with]] [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons|dragons]], multiplayer mode and, of course, Pac-Man sound effects. [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|On Wii.]]
** The sequel has a scene panning over a retirement home rec room, and shows how old the games are by having a shot of two seniors playing [[Pong]]...with Xbox controllers
=== Literature ===▼
* In ''[[Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (
▲== Literature ==
▲* In ''[[Harry Potter (Franchise)/Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire|Harry Potter]]'', Harry mentions that Dudley broke his [[Play Station]] (and comments about Dudley playing [[Ultra Super Death Gore Fest Chainsawer 3000]] games). Given that he was writing that in the summer of 1994 and the system would not be available in Japan until that December, nor in Europe until September of the following year, [[JK Rowling (Creator)|JK Rowling]] admits she [[Writers Cannot Do Math|screwed up with the numbers]].
=== Live-Action TV ===▼
* ''[[Law
▲== Live-Action TV ==
** ''SVU'', again, featured an episode centered around a fairly typical hack-and-slash dungeon crawler... and then subverted this trope like mad. The characters refer to the game having "levels", but use it to refer to levels of the game and the game hero's character level interchangeably, which does actually make way more sense than you'd expect. The sound effects correspond to the gameplay being
▲* ''[[Law and Order Special Victims Unit]]'' created a game called ''IntenCity'', an obvious ''[[Grand Theft Auto (Video Game)|Grand Theft Auto]]'' ripoff, to create a far-out story about games causing prostitute murder -- [[Ripped from the Headlines]], depending on who one asks. The game was 3D, but extremely lousy-looking. And short, for when the suspects were asked to play the game in order to measure their brain activity, the same 10 seconds of game footage was looped over and over, broken by close-ups of the suspect.
* ''[[Married... with Children]]'' has one episode with a nerd playing an original [[Game Boy]], mashing the buttons while arcade noises sound. When the Game Boy is broken, he pulls a second one out of his pants, immediately playing it with the same sound effects.
▲** ''SVU'', again, featured an episode centered around a fairly typical hack-and-slash dungeon crawler... and then subverted this trope like mad. The characters refer to the game having "levels", but use it to refer to levels of the game and the game hero's character level interchangeably, which does actually make way more sense than you'd expect. The sound effects correspond to the gameplay being shown -- clashing swords, monster noises, and a triumphant horn chorus straight from ''[[Ever Quest (Video Game)|Ever Quest]]'' for leveling up -- and it's Captain Cragen, the eldest cast member, who discovers a talent for the game and actually manages to beat it, and then uses their shared love of the game to talk to the main suspect, a kid who's obsessed with the game and has a bit of trouble telling fantasy from reality. Oh, and in one final subversion, {{spoiler|the kid ''didn't do it''. He was roleplaying the hero and tried to ''save'' the girl.}}
* In the ''[[
* ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'' reprehensibly abuses this trope in one episode by showing House playing ''[[
** If you want to get really technical, the visuals suffer from a similar but extremely specific form of "Wrong for the sake of accessibility". In game, main character Samus can roll into a ball and download maps from statues. However, makers of the episode decided that the image of Samus being held in the claws of a big alien thing worked better as something recognizably negative (despite being something the player has to do to progress), complete with an "Oh, that's gotta hurt!" reaction shot from House.
▲* ''[[House (TV)|House]]'' reprehensibly abuses this trope in one episode by showing House playing ''[[Metroid (Video Game)|Metroid]] Zero Mission'' on his [[Game Boy Advance]] SP... however, despite going close-up on the GBA screen several times, you very pointedly hear ''Pac-Man'' bleeps and bloops. He also makes the same mistake as in ''Jarhead'' of referring to numbered levels in a [[Metroidvania]]. Maybe people just associate 2D with levels.
▲** If you want to get really technical, the visuals suffer from a similar but extremely specific form of "Wrong for the sake of accessibility". In game, main character Samus can roll into a ball and download maps from statues. However, makers of the episode decided that the image of Samus being held in the claws of a big alien thing worked better as something recognizably negative (despite being something the player has to do to progress), complete with an "Oh, that's gotta hurt!" reaction shot from House.
*** Nevermind the fact that several hours of playing doesn't seem to advance House beyond the first thirty seconds of gameplay.
** In another episode, House holds up a [[Nintendo DS]] to a patient's ear to see if he can hear it. While it is quite clearly playing the Morph Ball time trial from ''Metroid Prime Hunters'' ([[Attract Mode|without any input from a player]], interestingly enough), we hear the stock sound effects. Maybe the writers are ''Metroid'' fans, but the sound effects guys think it's just ''Pac-Man'' with better graphics.
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** In a recent episode, this is done slightly less poorly: House is playing ''[[Ninja Gaiden]] II'' on an [[Xbox 360]] with realistic sounds and button inputs. The only problem is that House seems to think that his goal is to kill the protagonist Ryu. Admittedly, as antisocial as House is, one could see him play a game just to kill the main character. It'd help if he was using the left stick and not the d-pad, though.
** Another episode had the team treating a video game designer and even trying out his virtual reality emersion equipment for the game. It had some very good graphics and FPS views. This specific example was an aversion, but a later episode showed Foreman and Taub bonding over playing xbox together (mashing buttons and analog sticks) while the exact same game footage plays on the tv.
* On an episode in the 5th season of ''[[
** The sound effects are right for ''Donkey Kong'', and Spike's comments make sense in the contexts of the sound effects.
** Later in that same season, [[Physical God|Illyria]] and [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|Drogan]] are shown playing the same system while the rest of the heroes are away, and making bemused remarks to one another about the gameplay that clearly suggest they're playing a ''[[Crash Bandicoot]]'' game. What sounds do we hear coming from the unseen television screen? Pac-Man beeps and whistles.
** And in the first issue of the season nine comics of ''[[
* In one episode of ''[[
* The Australian soap opera ''[[Neighbours]]'' became infamous among schoolkids of the 90s for frequently showing one of the children playing a Nintendo [[Game Boy]] ''with no cartridge installed''. This wasn't possible until Nintendo introduced the [[Game Boy Advance]] in 2001, which could load a game into RAM from another GBA or a GameCube.
** This happened ''again'' in 2008. The child in question was ''still'' playing an original Game Boy.
** Also in Neighbours, well past 2000, whenever a character played a computer game, the sound effects were the distinctive background music and projectile-launch sound effects of Magic Carpet, a game first released in 1994...
* [[Harry Enfield and Chums]]'s Kevin the teenager sketch starts as a sweet kid who spontaneously turns into a stereotypical teenager. On his thirteenth birthday, he opens a present and pulls out a Game Boy. He exclaims that "''[[
** This gets even more ridiculous when you know that ''[[
*** And when you notice that he's clearly holding a copy of ''[[
* Done by Feedback on ''[[Who Wants to Be
** Considering his official profile gets the details right,<ref>He gains powers from video games; the example given is ''Prince of Persia'', saying that the game would give him the Prince's acrobatic skills and limited control over time.</ref>
* In two separate episodes of ''[[Roseanne]]'', a [[Super Nintendo Entertainment System|Super NES]] is clearly being played, complete with actual sounds and music from the game ''[[Super Mario World (
* ''[[
** Worst of all, the characters all explicitly mention that they are playing co-op mode on the same machine, but the screen clearly shows single-player mode in progress.
* ''[[Life]]'' had an episode where the victim was tied to drug dealing, and the detectives figure out that he managed to store files pertaining to the crime on his [[
* In an episode of some Disney TV show (''[[Hannah Montana]]'' or ''[[
* In a 2001 episode of [[The BBC]] children's television program ''WATCH!'', two kids play ''[[Super Smash Bros
* A truly atrocious example appeared in an episode of ''[[CSI: Miami]]'', where a group of killers was linked to a ''[[Grand Theft Auto (
** If that wasn't enough, at the beginning of the episode {{spoiler|a group of kids rob a bank with uzis, and one of them was shot by Delko after he tried to rape a woman for "extra points". It was later revealed they specifically picked a bank with a cop present (again, for extra points), the PR guy (yes, there was only one) encouraged them (and provided the uzis) to do it for advertising purposes, one of the suspects was found to have "gamed himself to death", and the token [[Gamer Chick|Girl Gamer]] apparently did it to get in with the highly elitist gamers.}}
* In the ''[[
** Somewhat averted in another ''[[
* Episode 6 of ''[[Dexter]]'' has his girlfriend's son pick up a PS2 controller and start playing what appears to be ''Doom'' with ''Pac-Man'' sounds over the background music from ''[[Space Invaders]]''.
** A Season 3 episode has the eponymous [[Anti-Villain]] playing the PC version of ''[[Halo (
* A ''[[Step
* There's a video poker machine in multiple episodes of ''[[Sliders]]'' that produces ''[[Pitfall]]'' sound effects.
* [[Playing
** In the episode "Avatar" of ''[[
** In the ''[[
** In the season three episode of ''[[
* ''[[Two and A Half Men]]''. Jake mentions that he wants to get the "new Final Fantasy game", and when he goes to a video store and gets the game, it turns out to be ''[[
** Another example (possibly a case of [[Did Not Do the Research]]) is when Jake plays his DS with a high volume and Alan gets annoyed by the Pac Man sounds, he plugs the cable to Jake's headphones into the charge slot on the top rather than the standard headphone jack on the bottom. Alan must have been used to the GBA SP, which uses special headphones that plug into the charge slot.
* ''[[Malcolm in
{{quote|
'''Hal:''' Because that's just ridiculous. No one beats Sub-Zero! }}
* ''[[
** It was averted somewhat with the skit where Dave beats a kid with cancer in Street Hoops. While there was a bit of button mashing seen when they're playing, the skit featured actual footage from the game.
* At the end of an episode of ''[[Murphy Brown]]'', Murphy mentions that she and Frank still haven't beaten ''Mario 3''. The scene comes ''so painfully close'' to inverting this trope: they both pick up NES controllers and when the game starts up, neither of them hammer on the buttons. But alas, the music that plays is not of ''Mario 3'' at all, but instead that of ''[[Super Mario World (
* An episode of ''[[
* An episode of ''[[
* On one episode of ''[[
* In ''[[
* In an episode of the German crime show ''Polizeiruf 110'', a criminal smuggled pirated copies of a game called ''Killman 4'' into the country. When the police officers get a copy of the game and play it on their PC (playing as in doing nothing and staring at the screen) the sounds heard are an air raid siren, rifle shots and screaming children. Even worse, the cover of the game shows African kid soldiers holding AK 47s.
* ''[[
** There is one episode where Spencer gets addicted to a game called "Pac(k) Rat" which has 8-bit graphics and sounds, but this would be a [[Justified Trope]]
*** Bonus points as it is a parody of ''Pac-Man''.
** Any [[Dan Schneider]] series is generally good about this, as they seemingly are set in a [[Shared Universe]] with the fictional Gamestation console.
* In ''[[
* ''[[Modern Family]]'' plays it nice and simple with Luke using a DS, playing a game with 80s beeping noises and high scores. And it probably wasn't ''[[Retro Game Challenge]]''.
* ''[[Law and Order UK]]'' has a teenager using his [[Xbox 360]] has an alibi for not committing a crime. Subsequent investigation shows that he ''was'' online at the time the crime was committed (not ridiculous at all), that he made three saves at three specific times (okay, real-world time is saved for a lot of games), and that he ''had'' to be the one who made them because the saves were password protected, which on the face of it appears to be this trope, except that [[Justified Trope|you don't have to automatically sign into an xbox profile]], meaning that the saves could have been protected because he was the only person who was able to sign into his profile to save the games in.
* While generally decent about video games, ''[[
** Additionally, McGee stated that a witness held the high scores in multiple MMORPGs, a genre largely devoid of easily-tracked scoring systems.
** In another episode, the kid of an army commander is shown playing a Nintendo DS, sound effects and all. The sound effects were indeed the ones heard when you turn on a DS; the one from the initial title screen, and the one from choosing a game to play. Unfortunately, that's ALL that was heard, as, for the next few minutes, the only sound effects were those two noises, looped ad nauseum. This either implies [[They Just Didn't Care|utter laziness by the show's sound guys]], or the kid finds complete joy in repeatedly turning his DS on and off, which seems a tad unlikely, particularly with all the [[Button Mashing]] he was doing.
* ''[[Clarissa Explains It All]]'' goes the opposite direction. [[Once an Episode]], Clarissa will slap together a video game that she can use to vent her frustrations from her current dilemma. These games are graphically far beyond what could be done at the time, often using high resolution photos of Fergusun or her parents that rotate without any artifacts. Amusingly, both this style of graphics and the speed she can put the games together would make much more sense today in Flash.
* ''[[Dynasty Warriors]] 4'' makes repeat appearances in ''[[The OC]]'', yet the characters always play as Xiahou Dun and refer to the characters as "ninjas".
* An episode of ''[[Just Shoot Me]]'' has Maya buying Elliott a [[
* ''[[Good Luck Charlie]]'' seems to be very bad about this, as you can often see characters mashing Xbox 360 controllers to ancient chiptunes, and appear to have figured out how to play Wii Sports on a VCR.
** Additionally, when Charlie's brothers bring a TV to their room, you can see two characters talking in a modern-esqe game... with heavy metal rock and machine gun sound effects in the background.
* ''[[Breaking Bad]]'' had one partway through it's fourth season. Jesse Pinkman is seen playing ''[[Rage (
** Worth nothing that the lightgun has nothing to do with the writer thinking lightgun games are still popular, but is in fact a character-based decision, as Jessie had recently {{spoiler|murdered someone by shooting them in the head, and was struggling to deal with it}}.
* ''[[Ghost Whisperer]]'', in the episode "Ghost in the Machine", centered around what seemed to be a [[Second Life]] clone. While the graphics for the game, as it was depicted, were pretty close to on par with [[Second Life]], the "graphics" when she [[Don't Ask|jumps into the game]] (i.e. a live representation), are closer in quality to what a modern game would have, than the game depicted.
* ''[[
* A [[Mad TV]] skit has former US president [[George W. Bush]] being distracted by a [[Game Boy]] when being asked questions during a presidential debate. His response is "I have a question for you. Have you played Super Mario Brothers? I'm in the water level and I can't beat the Kooper Trooper." Super Mario Brothers was released on the [[Game Boy Color]] and the use of "Kooper Trooper" was to make fun of Bush's [[Verbal Tic]] so what's the problem? Koopa Troopas (nor Bowser, if that's who he's actually referring to) can't be found in water levels.
* ''[[Frasier]]'' features a single but painful instance of
* Some 90's sitcoms have the characters (faking) playing games using controllers from a NES, but the sounds are clearly from ''Donkey Kong'' for the Atari 2600.
* ''[[Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]'' has John playing Gears of War with somebody. Him playing it by randomly hitting buttons is justified, since he's never played an Xbox before and is given no instruction. The fact that the two players are shooting each other in what's clearly a co-op campaign, however...
=== Music ===
* ''[[
* Herman Li, guitarist for [[
* Being a seasoned gamer and a lover of the classics, Lupe Fiasco purposely invokes the trope in his music video for "I Gotcha", in which he is briefly shown sitting on a couch playing Pong, 80s one-button joystick and all.
** In the song "Go Go Gadget Flow" : "All me, no ghost no 16-bit like Sega GENESIS."
** He mentions Atari a lot in his songs. Like in "Go Baby": But we go back like a set of Ataris...from baby fat til we skeletons, darling...me starring you is what it says on the marquee, so lets go give 'em a show!"
* In [[Chamillionaire]]'s "Ridin'" video, the lyric goes, "Next to this new chic she like cola, next to the [[
* LM.C's song John starts with various sound effects from Super Mario, e.g. the "Get coin" and "Become Big" effects.
* People Under The Stairs has a ton of effects, references, and even the [[Konami Code]] in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbIxL-EDsuk Gamin' on Ya].
* The [[Trope Namer]] is the title of the song and album by [http://www.bucknergarcia.com/ Jerry Buckner and Gary Garcia]. These two singers hailed from Akron, Ohio, making songs based on the video games that was popular in the 80s, featuring "Hyperspace" (Asteroids), "Goin' Berserk" (Berserk), "Ode to a Centipede", and "Do the Donkey Kong".
=== Video Games ===
Worth noting: any appearance of this trope in actual video games can usually be assumed to be [[Stylistic Suck]], similar to [[You Fail Film School Forever]].
* ''[[
** ''[[God Hand]]'' does the same thing, but to a significantly lesser extent.
* Justified in ''[[Grand Theft Auto (
** Kinda-sorta justified in ''[[Bully (
* Complete ''[[Katamari Damacy|Me And My Katamari]]'', and {{spoiler|you'll be taken to an 8-bit minigame with a blooping version of "Katamari on the Rock", with the King commenting entertainingly on the graphics}}.
* ''[[Doom (
* The "Void Quest" dungeon in ''[[
** And one of the boss's schticks is the giant 8-bit warrior that fights for him. If you bring Yousuke into battle, [[Lampshade Hanging|he gets a little angry that video games are being represented by things from the 8-bit era]].
* Each of the main ''[[Pokémon]]'' games feature Nintendo's current home console in the player's room. However, due to the gap between the Japanese and English releases, the English version of ''Red'' and ''Blue'' featured a SNES, even though the games were released after the N64. This made even less sense in those games' GBA remakes, ''FireRed'' and ''LeafGreen'', in which the hero(ine) has an ''NES'' (as it's basically product placement for discontinued products).
** GBA also has the Classic NES Series, budget Game Paks that ran an old NES game in an emulator.
* While you wait for ''[[
** That would be ''Star Blade'', an arcade space shooter Namco released in the mid-90s. The full game is available as a bonus game along with the arcade versions of ''[[
* In something of a [[Real Life]] version of this trope, most handheld ''[[
* In some of the ''[[
* In ''[[
* ''[[
=== Web Comics ===
* ''[[
* Parodied with a recent ''[
* Parodied in [https://web.archive.org/web/20090104092750/http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=060219 this] ''[[
** Sluggy normally averts this. Older strips made reference to real games and systems. Later on, he switched to using obvious [[Bland-Name Product|Bland Name Products]] of current systems (The Playstashun and the SuWii). The game that comes up the most often is Fashion Rancher and various spinoffs, most likely a reference to the ''[[Monster Rancher]]'' series, and possibly a [[Take That]] at the ''[[
=== Web Original ===
* In one ''[[
* ''[[
* Surprisingly, [[
** Naturally, the [[
* At the beginning of the [[That Guy With
* Invoked in a episode of ENN, where Jeremy Petter interviews a representative of Atari. When the rep shows him a commercial for ''[[The Witcher]] 2'', it shows Paul holding a keyboard like he's playing ''[[Frets On Fire]]'' while playing a RPG.
=== Western Animation ===
* ''[[
** In some episodes, video game sounds are clearly from ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]''
** It should be noted that Ron and Felix discuss a game called [[Resident Evil|Zombie Mayhem]], arguing which is the best out of two or three, which fits as ''[[
* The ''[[
* ''[[
* Early in the first ''[[Jimmy Timmy Power Hour]]'', Timmy is seen playing a video game called ''[[Ultra Super Death Gore Fest Chainsawer 3000|The Decimator]]''. It's in [[Art Shift|3D]] (foreshadowing the game's role to the plot, as it comes into [sorry] play in Jimmy's universe) but played on a "Game Buddy" (guess what handheld it is based on) and comes on a CD. Everything else in the screen is animated in standard ''[[The Fairly
* ''[[
* The arcade game in the ''[[
** Of course, considering that [[
*** The second movie retcons that by having the internet so it's 1996 at earliest. It's a bit old school even then considering the 64 bit era was starting but not a stretch.
* One egregious example appeared on an episode of ''[[The Secret Show]]''. Everyone was buzzing about the popular new game system, "The Hand." It was simply a vat of "nano-goo" that users dipped their hands into, causing the goo to harden around their hands and turn them into portable game systems and controllers. Despite the ludicrously advanced technology the system is based on, it makes references to linear levels and only seems to play one built-in game. Single-game consoles weren't even made between the '70s and 2001, when Jakks Pacific introduced Plug and Play TV Games.
* ''[[
* ''[[Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends
* In an episode of ''[[
* In the ''[[
* An episode of ''[[
** The two kids in question were explained as to designing and making their own video games, so assumingly they did all this from scratch (in a matter of days), so it's likely the creators were totally clueless. It does reach a humorous pitch when Hank is more upset about inaccuracies in how they portray his own work; such as the grills that make up the scenery having incorrect logos.
*** The whole episode seems to run off of [[Rule of Funny]], since Peggy breaks Hank's addiction to the game by having the programmers make her character [[God Mode|invincible]] and giving her the power to [[Self-Destruct Mechanism|self-destruct]], [[Earthshattering Kaboom|ending the game forever]].
* It might be [[Author Appeal]], but in ''[[
** It's most likely author appeal, since there are quite a few shout-outs to other games, not to mention the fact that the primitive state of the games are lampshaded in one episode.
** The show takes place in an alternate universe, so the 80s style of the games is explained by that. The games themselves generally make sense internally (again, in the universe's logic), with just enough weird stuff to be entertaining, like someone getting 1 more point in a game where every other high score is a multiple of 100.
* ''[[Fanboy and Chum Chum]]'': the only games seen in the show so far were arcade games and a digital pet, even though the characters have mentioned the Internet on at least one occassion.
* In the "If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?" episode of ''[[Batman: The Animated Series
** May have been intentional, since this would go with the [[Anachronism Stew|anachronistic style]] of the show's take on Gotham City, where it's clearly the present day and modern tech abounds, but people dress like it's 1930 and TV is broadcast in black and white.
=== Real Life ===
* Hard to pull off a real life example, but: ''[[Penny Arcade (Webcomic)|Penny Arcade]]'s'' stock promotional shot of the two creators deliberately invokes this tropes, showing Krahulik and Holkins flailing around on a couch, pretending to play a game. Holkins is holding a PSP as if it's a controller and Krahulik is holding an Xbox 360 controller ''upside down''.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_QNdPcYzPw This] news announcement about GTA4, on RAI (the Italian national broadcasting company), featuring a guy furiously mashing random buttons DURING THE TRAILER. Obviously, they're talking about the game in "Seduction of the innocents"-like terms, because GTA4 doesn't have RE4-style interactive cut scenes.
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=== Advertising ===▼
* There's a battery commercial that features a kid playing what looks to be a (fictional) [[Game Boy Advance]] fighting game against his grandpa, and defeating him over and
▲== Advertising ==
▲* There's a battery commercial that features a kid playing what looks to be a (fictional) [[Game Boy Advance]] fighting game against his grandpa, and defeating him over and over -- until his batteries start dying on him, allowing his grandpa to turn the tables. The notably true-to-life moment comes when we see the grandpa's character continuing to land sorta-registered blows even as his opponent falls, which seems to indicate that ''someone'' on the team, at least, was doing their homework.
* Episode 28 of ''[[
▲== Anime & Manga ==
▲* Episode 28 of ''[[Keroro Gunsou (Manga)|Keroro Gunsou]]'' shows Natsumi playing a game that's obviously supposed to be the first ''Dobutsu no Mori'', better known in the states as ''[[Animal Crossing (Video Game)|Animal Crossing]]''. A much later episode shows kid Keroro playing what is clearly ''[[Super Mario Bros]]'', and few episodes after that, we get one about the characters entering a RPG that is very clearly a ''[[Dragon Quest (Video Game)|Dragon Quest]]'' parody.
** That first one got spoofed in the dub, where Fuyuki asks what she's playing because he's never seen that GameCube game before.
* ''[[
* ''[[
** The opening sequence, in fact, features a clip of Sol Badguy performing a simple combo... and the music is timed to match the move.
** Be prepared to watch the exact same footage of Sol [[Curb Stomp Battle|curb-stomping]] Jam over and over and over and over again, though.
* ''[[
** The OVA goes one-up with an [[RPG Episode]] rendered in full 3D with (of course) lots of snarking about various game mechanics. For an idea of how convincing it is, just go count the number of Youtube commentors saying that they'd play it if it were real.
* Vaguely averted in ''[[
** The manga has a different ''[[
* In ''[[
** "[[Narm|Will you... press my... reset button?]]"
* In a late [[Manga]] chapter of ''[[Ranma ½
* ''[[
* In one of the final chapters of ''[[Mai-HiME (
* ''[[
** He is also seen to be playing ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[
* Parodied in ''[[FoxTrot (Comic Strip)|FoxTrot]]'' when the mother demanded to see the video games Jason played. Her first response is, "why is [[Donkey Kong Country (Video Game)|that monkey]] [[Goomba Stomp|jumping on someone's head]]?" ''Foxtrot'', much like ''[[Zits (Comic Strip)|Zits]]'', is more accepting and aware of technology than most comics (it once featured a comic parodying webcomics like ''xkcd''). ▼
** Not to mention the ''[[Penny Arcade (Webcomic)|Penny Arcade]]'' [http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/9/9/ guest strip] he did after PAX 2009.▼
** Early strips featured both Jason and Peter playing ''[[Super Mario Bros]]'', Jason bringing a Game Boy on a family trip, and the release of the SNES. Also, one recent sunday strip has Jason attempting to get a copy of ''[[Super Smash Bros (Video Game)|Super Smash Bros]] Brawl'', and he regularly plays ''[[World of Warcraft|World of War]]<s>[[World of Warcraft|craft]]</s>Quest''.▼
** And let's not forget Jason's [[Long List]] of then-recent game releases (complete with [[Take That]] at ''[[Duke Nukem Forever (Video Game)|Duke Nukem Forever]]'') in a later strip. ▼
** Don't forget Jason going into denial about wanting to play [[Tomb Raider]] because it featured a female heroine.▼
** A recent comic was about ''[[Starcraft]] II''. ''The week it was set to come out.'' I tip my hat to you, Bill Amend.▼
*** It also mentioned its long release cycle and lampshaded [[Comic Book Time]] simultaneously. Jason said he'd been waiting eleven years to play ''Starcraft II'' - but because he's only ten years old, he started waiting while he was in the womb.▼
** Another one involved the Xbox 360's Kinect, demonstrated why you shouldn't play it with mosquito bites, and even included a fake achievement in the game Jason was playing.▼
** One that deserves special mention: Jason pretending he's shooting [[Portal (Video Game)|portals]] at his sister in real life. The portal gun has the same orange/blue light that shows the last-fired portal in the game. [[Shown Their Work|Goddamn]].▼
* ''[[Mad (Magazine)|Mad]]'''s "The Lighter Side Of" often features kids who are playing video games on consoles that vaguely resemble actual ones. However, one strip shows a girl eagerly grasping the controller while the disk door is open.▼
=== Films -- Animation ===
* Played with in the beginning of ''[[Toy Story 2]]''. While the graphics are every bit as advanced as the movie's animation ([[Fake-Out Opening|and intentionally so]]),<ref>so much so that some [[Xbox 360]] and [[Play Station 3]] games look slightly worse or merely ''as good'' a decade later</ref>
* In the 2006 CGI film ''[[Monster House]]'', uber-nerd Skull is a purported master of ''Thou Art Dead'', an arcade game at the pizza joint he works for. He is shown playing it when the main characters go to consult him about the neighborhood's supposedly haunted house. The game shown on the screen is actually the side-scrolling platform game ''Barbarian'' published for home computers back in 1987. While the graphics were indeed advanced and breathtaking by the standards of 1987, modern viewers would find the low-resolution pixelated 2D graphics very dated. (The film's producers obviously took the in-movie name for the game from the iconic game over screen which featured the skeletal [[Big Bad]] of the game leering at the player with the words "THOU ART DEAD" in flaming letters)
=== Films -- Live-Action ===
* Similarly, in [[Simon Pegg]]'s ''[[Shaun of the Dead]]'', playing ''[[Time Splitters]]'' (appropriately a UK-developed shooter game) on a PS2 is depicted accurately, aside from a "Player 2 has entered the game" voiceover narration added for the audience's benefit.
** Admittedly, Simon Pegg is a [[One of Us|massive video game nerd]], as any typical episode of ''[[Spaced]]'' will show you...
** The "Player 2" quote was probably added as a joke for an early scene:
{{quote|
'''Ed:''' Haven't you got work?
*Player 2 has left the game.* }}
* ''[[
* ''[[Reign Over Me]]'' features ''[[
** They did refer to it as "''Shadow'''s''' of the Colossus''", however.
* In ''[[Going the Distance (Film)|Going the Distance]]'', the main character is playing an old ''Centipede'' arcade machine properly, even correctly using the classic 80s "put a quarter on the machine console to reserve my turn" arcade etiquette.
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* The Mexican film ''Duck Season'' is very accurate in depicting two 14-year-old boys playing ''[[Halo]]'', with the TV even announcing "Slayer", the typical versus mode in the game, as they begin. The only unrealistic detail is the improbably frequent rate, based on the sounds, at which their characters seemed to die.
** Maybe not that improbable. Spawncamping can lead to rather frequent death, though that would end the match fairly quickly. It all depends on if they were playing 1v1 or online.
* The 2010 movie ''[[Percy Jackson
** Of course, this is also played straight in that he is playing it on a PC, with an Xbox control scheme, using a [[
*** That last part's actually very accurate for someone who's used to playing single-player constantly, and is now getting into multiplayer for the first time. And no, hearing/reading someone go "WHAT THE HELL I paused it!" ''never'' gets old.
* The 2009 movie ''[[The Hurt Locker]]'' shows Eldridge playing ''[[
* The 1996 movie ''[[Swingers]]'', featured the characters arguing over ''NHL Hockey '94'' on the Genesis. They even referred to the lack of fighting in that version of the game, but that's made up for by being able to make Wayne Gretzky's head bleed.
** The actual game they were playing is ''NHLPA Hockey 93''.
* In ''[[
** This trope is still in play, since he's playing a mission from the single-player campaign, when he's depicted as playing on Xbox Live.
* The video game horror movie ''[[
** Still, they managed to mix up two games, admittedly in the same series. Early in the movie the protagonist's boss is asking about beating the final boss in ''[[
* While the game shown in the beginning of ''[[
* ''[[Lost in Translation (
* In ''Four Christmases'', a character is playing a game in one scene, and sounds from the classic ''[[
* ''The Score'' has the main character ([[Robert De Niro]]) phone someone who is shown playing ''[[
* The title video game in ''[[
* ''[[The King of Kong]]'' is a documentary about ''[[
* Towards the beginning of ''[[Zathura]]'', the younger of the two brothers is shown playing ''[[Jak 3
** No surprise - ''Zathura'' was produced by Sony company [[Columbia Pictures]], making this [[Product Placement]] as well.
* In ''[[Three Ninjas]]'' one of the main characters is seen playing ''[[
* [[Jim Carrey]] was actually [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxX0KG2DcYc taught to play DDR for this scene] in ''[[Yes Man (Film)|Yes Man]]''. For the more savvy players reading:
** You can see him pull off some crossovers at 13 seconds in.
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** He's playing on Expert difficulty, and has at least a 100 combo going when the camera shows the screen.
** Of course, Hollywood has a creative way of making sure some of this Trope still exists, but it doesn't make the scene (or Jim Carrey) any less awesome.
* Surprisingly, ''[[
* ''[[Bringing Down the House]]''. George is seen holding a DualShock 2 controller and he's not mashing the buttons. Listen closely and you can hear sound effects from [[Jak and Daxter|a certain game about an elf and his ottsel]].
* Averted in the ''[[Hitman]]'' movie. When Agent 47 runs through the hotel, he enters the room where two kids play a modern console game. One of the games the movie is based upon, to be precise.
** Although played straight in that two kids are playing a single-player game.
* While there is an anachronistic 8-bit wrestling game in ''[[The Wrestler]]'', it's used to demonstrate how the main character is caught up in the past, not because the writers think that's how all games are. The kid he's talking to even mentions ''[[
* The British horror-comedy ''[[Tormented]]'' has the characters play ''[[
* There is a '''porn''' video where a girl is distracted by her boyfriend while playing ''Warcraft 3'' (with the proper sounds). Of course, this is a [[Real Life]] style video.
** Well, [[The Rule of First Adopters|Porn always liked technology]]...
* When Columbus mentions in ''[[
* Strangely, ''[[
* In ''[[
* In ''[[Cool
* In ''[[Salmon Fishing in
=== Literature ===
* In ''[[Alex Rider
** In ''Skeleton Key'', he gets a Game Boy Advance with a [[Rayman]] game that doubles as a Geiger counter.
* ''Christopher Brookmyre'' regularly averts this trope, and several of his books not only mention various real life games, but also clan gaming, DS homebrew, and mods. Of course, his books will also contain nods to a number of games, as well as more general consideration of video gaming tropes.
=== Live-Action TV ===
* ''[[Malcolm in
* In Episode Five of ''[[Primeval]]'', Connor plays ''[[The Elder Scrolls IV
* In ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'', in a bit of [[Product Placement]], Jessica and Micah are seen playing ''[[Heavenly Sword]]'' on the PS3; a game which, at the time of the airing, was yet to be released.
* In ''[[Spaced]]'', Tim is clearly shown playing ''[[
** In a display of doing the research, when Daisy said something while Tim was playing, Tim ''pressed the pause button'' before turning to speak to her.
*** Simon also missed his lines quite few times because he got too engrossed in the game.
*** However, before Daisy leaves to go to the shop, Tim is clearly at the start of the game, having not even reached the RPD yet. When Daisy gets back, Tim is at the end of the game, in the run-up to the final boss battle of Leon's scenario. Either Daisy took hours at the shop or Tim is just ridiculously awesome at Resident Evil.
*** Also, Daisy has a go at ''Tekken'' one of episodes. She is convincing as a non/infrequent gamer who, in willing the character to obey her commands, embellishes each button-press by shouting "Kick!" and jerking the controller to the side.
* In the US version of ''[[Shameless]]'', there is a scene where Ian, Mickey, and Mandy play ''[[Halo: Reach]]'' together. Not only do they show actually game footage, they use the correct controllers, sound effects, etc. Apart from some sound effects not corresponding to that the actors are actually doing, overall it is a pretty accurate portrayal. Hell, there's not even a hint of seizure on the actors' part.
* Despite being released in the early 90s, ''[[
* Sitcom ''[[
** In episode three of the second season, Sheldon shows Penny the [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPG]] ''[[Age of Conan]]'', to which she becomes addicted. The game as well as the behaviour of the players ("I'm AFK", level meaning character-level, enchanted armour etc.) is very well-depicted, with the [[Rule of Funny]] exception that, at the end, the characters mouths' moved in sync with what the players spoke over their headsets.
** One episode opens with the guys preparing to assault the Gates of Elzebub to claim the Sword of Azeroth in ''World of Warcraft''. Neither the location or the sword exist in the actual game. However, when Sheldon gets the sword and teleports out of the dungeon leaving the rest to die to the enemies, he snarks "I don't know why you're surprised, I'm a night elf rogue, don't you read the character profiles?", and that race and the class ''do'' exist. Furthermore afterwards he asks if anyone wants to log on to ''[[Second Life]]'' and have a swim in his new pool.
** In another episode, the characters are playing Boxing in ''[[Wii Sports]]'', complete with look-alike Miis.
Line 391 ⟶ 377:
** On the other hand, playing ''Halo'' apparently consists of rotating the analog stick as quickly as possible while hitting buttons at random.
*** [[Take That|It doesn't?]]
** On the other end of the scale, in another episode they plan to play ''[[
** Apparently Sheldon sucks at Mario Kart Wii
* ''[[Veronica Mars]]'' has characters playing video games that are recognizable as ''[[
** A Season One episode took the research even further; in order to reveal the fraud of a couple of game programmers, Veronica lured them in with promises to see "the new Matrix Online" before it was released. When the episode was aired, ''[[The Matrix Online]]'' was both still yet to be released and also anticipated.
** It was distracting, though, that three people were gathered around, controllers in hand, to play what looked like a single/first person shooter. Also the fact that in the middle of the game Veronica was able to pick up a controller and start button mashing immediately.
* ''[[CSI: NY]]'' had an episode, "Down the Rabbit Hole", using ''[[Second Life]]''. {{spoiler|Where an assassin uses the program to get to her targets.}} However, just like ''[[
* ''[[
** ''NCIS'' was generally good with game technology. All (at the time of broadcast) current gen consoles and handhelds got namechecked.
** In an episode McGee sat in what is essentially the NCIS command centre, playing ''[[
** However, in an episode where a sailor is playing out his MMORPG in real life, Abby hacks the game to get his account name by storming the castle.
** One episode has the NCIS team question a Japanese kid who just saw the criminal they were chasing. When the kid says that the criminal escaped in a karuma, Dinozzo assumes he just meant car (Karuma is Japanese for car) until McGee not only identified that the karuma is a specific car in the Grand Theft Auto games, but also identified what real life car it's based on so they could put out an APB.
* ''[[The Dead Zone]]'' got it right in a way that would have been remarkable if it hadn't smacked of blatant [[Product Placement]]. A Christmas episode featured as its B plot Johnny Smith's quest to get his son a copy of ''Ratchet: Deadlocked'', which is not only a very real game, but we see the game and its immediate predecessor ''[[Ratchet and Clank Up Your Arsenal]]'' actually ''played'' in the episode.
* There is a brief but surprisingly accurate shout out to ''[[Second Life]]'' in the fourth season of ''[[The Office]]''.
** Another episode features a storyline involving the employees at the Stamford branch playing the first ''[[
* Nicely averted in an episode of ''[[Psych]]''. In order to get on the good side of another police officer, a detective heads to her house on Thanksgiving with the gift of a [[Nintendo Wii]] that he got as seized property during a recent drug bust. He proceeds to play Boxing in ''[[
* One episode of ''[[The Suite Life of Zack and Cody|The Suite Life On Deck]]'' features several of the characters getting involved in a social MMORPG, similar to IMVU and the like; when footage of the game is shown, it's done in CGI, but not in a noticeably primitive way, and despite the lack of a HUD it could probably pass for a real game. There's even a [[Shout
* ''[[Chuck]]'' has the eponymous character and his friend play ''[[
** The episode "Chuck vs. Tom Sawyer" was a mixed bag. The actual play of ''[[Missile Command]]'' was realistic, but its knowledge of how the game worked was deeply flawed. The "killscreen" referred to by the characters is actually more of a [[Nonstandard Game Over]]. And the programmer and company responsible for the game were portrayed as East Asian, whereas Atari and programmer Dave Theurer were both American.
* In Season 2 Episode 9 of ''[[
** ''Pac-Man'' seems to be a favorite of KITT's; in the made-for-TV movie ''Knight Rider 2000'', KITT complains to Michael in an early scene that he can no longer play ''Pac-Man'' due to his state of disassembly (to which Michael replies, "you're dating yourself, pal. ''Pac-Man'''s in the Smithsonian now.")
* A recent episode of ''[[New Tricks]]'' had Jack Halford speaking to some college guys about the murder of an old flatmate of theirs. Throughout the discussion, they're playing a generic ''[[Point Blank (
* In one episode of ''[[Law and Order Special Victims Unit]]'', the team has to investigate a game that looks a lot like ''[[Second Life]]''. Turns out that the killer they're looking for has made a replica of one of his earlier killings in said game. It's on the side of a lake, and they need to find the real world-cabin, so Olivia has to yell at the owner to [[Narm|"Turn on the sun!"]] in order to determine which side of the lake. He actually hesitates before deciding between catching a serial killer and inconveniencing his players. Apparently ''L&O'' doesn't have Google Maps.
* In an episode of ''[[Threshold]]'', Lucas plays ''[[Halo (
** [[Hilarious in Hindsight|Hilariously]], the ring in the first ''Halo'' orbited a planet called Threshold. So the guy in ''Threshold'' is playing ''Halo'', which takes place near Threshold.
* A Canadian TV show called ''[[
* ''[[
** He could mean difficulty level. That's how I'd refer to it.
** If you're ''really'' geeky, you can also use level to refer to the song.
* In ''Da [[Kath and Kim]] Code'', a Vatican City version of ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' is shown. It's surprisingly accurate, featuring a similar HUD and box-art, and appropriate sound effects. The graphics are also quite close, while obviously being fairly low-quality compared to the real games, they're nevertheless in the same style and about as good as you'd expect from a 10-second clip specially made for the show.
* Somewhat averted on a [http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-november-2-2004/indecision-2004---behind-the-curtain clip] from ''[[
{{quote|
** He even correctly calls the enemies "Covenant Aliens", which is probably a little confusing to those unfamiliar with ''Halo'', so I'd call this completely averted.
* Mostly averted in ''[[Packed to
* In Season 1 of ''[[
* An old ''[[Taxi]]'' episode has Jim Ignatowski becoming addicted to ''Pac-Man'' after Louie has a game console installed in the garage. Several scenes show Iggy playing the game, with the actual music and sound effects heard. (Granted, this was circa 1980, ancient history from a gaming standpoint.)
* ''[[True Blood]]''. Bill Compton occasionally plays a golf game on the Wii. It seems more or less correct.
* In ''[[Gilmore Girls]]'' Lane's bandmates are often seen playing ''[[Soul Series|Soul Calibur 2]]'' on a GameCube, and are actually playing the game properly.
* ''[[
* In ''[[Californication]]'', Hank Moody, his daughter and her boyfriend are often seen playing ''[[
* "The Frogger" episode of ''[[
* In the ''[[
* In an episode of ''[[
** And in a more literal application of this trope, there's the episode where Phoebe gives Monica and Chandler a Ms. Pac-Man arcade game, and the three of them become completely obsessed with playing it and beating each other's high scores.
* Nicely attempted in ''[[Mr. Sunshine]]'', where they use the [[Product Placement|Wii Wheel]] for ''[[
* ''[[Frasier]]'' has an episode with a fictional game, with no atari sounds and the screen obscured from view. A red glow comes from the screen when the player dies, suggesting that the screen turns mostly red, which is [[Have a Nice Death|pretty common]].
* A 1999 episode of ''[[The Sopranos]]'' has Tony playing ''[[
* In ''[[Good Luck Charlie]]'', Gabe and his mom play a [[Brand X]] version of Wii Tennis. Granted, there's not much noise to a Wii Tennis game anyway (just some bouncing ball sounds and cheering).
* ''[[Coronation Street]]'' varies wildly with this trope. Sometimes it features character endlesslly button mashing (or even just hitting the same button over and over as fast as possible) while 1985 "missle" sound effects repeat nonstop from the offscreen TV. On a [[
* An episode in the second season of ''[[Seven Days]]'' begins with a young woman playing ''[[Doom]]''. While the game was several years old by this point, that's still pretty good by TV standards. However, they still managed to pull a [[Did Not Do the Research]]; as they show it as an arcade game.
=== Newspaper Comics ===
▲* Parodied in ''[[
▲** Not to mention the ''[[Penny Arcade (Webcomic)|Penny Arcade]]'' [http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/9/9/ guest strip] he did after PAX 2009.
▲** Early strips featured both Jason and Peter playing ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'', Jason bringing a Game Boy on a family trip, and the release of the SNES. Also, one recent sunday strip has Jason attempting to get a copy of ''[[Super Smash Bros
▲** And let's not forget Jason's [[Long List]] of then-recent game releases (complete with [[Take That]] at ''[[
▲** Don't forget Jason going into denial about wanting to play [[Tomb Raider]] because it featured a female heroine.
▲** A recent comic was about ''[[
▲*** It also mentioned its long release cycle and lampshaded [[Comic Book Time]] simultaneously. Jason said he'd been waiting eleven years to play ''Starcraft II'' - but because he's only ten years old, he started waiting while he was in the womb.
▲** Another one involved the Xbox 360's Kinect, demonstrated why you shouldn't play it with mosquito bites, and even included a fake achievement in the game Jason was playing.
▲** One that deserves special mention: Jason pretending he's shooting [[Portal (
=== Periodicals ===
▲* ''[[
=== Web Comics ===
* ''Digital Unrest'' has had a couple of cracks at this trope: [
* ''[[
** Early in the strip's run (2001) characters are seen wearing [[Play Station 3]] paraphernalia, including a jacket with the line "Live in your world, Die in mine." parodying a Sony ad campaign of the time.
*** Said character has been updated to feature a [[
* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in [http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20081122.html this strip] from ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]]''. Bob just isn't a very "state-of-the-art" kind of guy.
=== Web Original ===
* ''[[The Guild]]'', consisting largely of references to a game similar to ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' (by a writer who [[One of Us|was addicted to it for several years]]) obviously averts this for the most part. It seems like it falls into this trope, though, with Tinkerballa, who's constantly playing a [[Nintendo DS]] with old-school ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'' sounds.
* [[
** Also parodied in the ''[[
* Agents of Cracked - Swaim mentions emulation and ''Night Trap'', and is shown playing ''Metal Slug''.
* Yang, Ruby and occasionally Qrow are shown playing a game not unlike ''[[Street Fighter]]'' in early episodes of ''[[RWBY]]''.
=== Western Animation ===
* The ''[[
** Not to mention the ''[[
*** "YOU. ARE. '''FAGS!'''"
** Episode 1214, "The Ungroundable", had the kids playing the PC version of the recently released ''[[
** In "Whale Whores", the boys are seen playing [[
* The male characters on ''[[Teen Titans (
** Not necessarily out of place; it's likely enough that [[Gadgeteer Genius|Cyborg]] has a retro gamer streak, and the scene establishes Robin as dangerously supercompetitive.
* Played with in an episode of ''[[Arthur (
** In the episode, "D.W's Stray Netkitten", D.W plays an online game which looks like a VERY accurate depiction of WebKins, complete with the real-life stuffed animal that you buy in order to take care of your pet online.
* The depiction of games on ''[[The Simpsons (
** The game played by Bart and Homer in "Moaning Lisa" (1990) is similar to ''Mike Tyson's Punch Out'' (1987).
** "Bonestorm", as depicted in "Marge Be Not Proud" (1995), is named after ''[[Blood Storm]]'' and parodies ''[[Mortal Kombat]]''-style games. [[Super Mario Bros.|Mario]] and [[Sonic the Hedgehog]] also appear in the episode.
** However, it stumbles into the trope ''[[Rule of Cool|spectacularly]]'' in "Yokel Chords" (2007). Therapist Dr. Swanson attempts to gain Bart's interest with the popular video game "[[Ultra Super Death Gore Fest Chainsawer 3000|Death Kill City II: Death Kill Stories]]". (Bear with me here...) Swanson and Bart [[Button Mashing|button mash]] furiously, both swinging their controllers side to side like an angry chimpanzee (Bart's tongue is out, too), playing what is apparently a fighting game. A martial artist and cyborg fight each other for a bit, and both are dispatched by a sudden ninja attack. A missile then comes down and nukes the area. An announcer then says "You have destroyed all human life on Earth. Level 1 complete."
** [[The Movie]] goes the other way: Homer plays ''Grand Theft Walrus'', in a convenience store, ''on an arcade machine''. ''In Alaska.''
** Another episode had Lisa becoming addicted to "Dash Dingo", an obvious homage to ''[[Crash Bandicoot]]'' which was released at the height of that series' popularity on what was clearly a [[
** And then there was an entire episode inside an [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPG]] and many of the townsfolk were playing it. They had plenty of jokes like how silly it is to accept quests from strangers, Bart being a kid IRL but [[A Darker Me|really powerful in the game]], Moe wondering why he is paying $15 a month for this, etc. Granted, there were also departures from realism, but they were not greater then the show's usual departures from realism of [[Mundane Fantastic|the "real" town]] in comparison to real life.
*** Overall, the depiction was pretty accurate and faithful, even complete with a [[HUD]] accurate for MMORPGs. What's strange though, is that people in real life knew who each other's avatar equivalents were, perhaps because their avatars were identical to their real-life selves and even their personalities (Moe being the [[Butt Monkey]] in the above example, for example).
** And then there's the [[Dangerously Genre Savvy]] 2007 game, ''[[
* In the "Chicken Ball Z" episode of ''[[The Grim Adventures of Billy
* In an episode of ''[[
** If he killed [[The Scrappy|Navi]], he may not be so bad at the game after all.
** Played straight in "The Powerpuff Girls' Best Rainy Day Adventure Ever", Blossom seeks out the other two after a long-since abandoned game of hide-and-seek and finds them using N64 controllers to play... ''[[Pitfall]]''.
** In one scene a TV screen displayed a picture and played noise that was more or less pulled directly from one of the TV's in the GameCube release of ''[[
* In ''[[
* ''[[Fanboy and Chum Chum]]'' does use [[Arcade Sounds]], but surprisingly, it's [[Justified Trope]]; the only video games or other forms of interactive electronic entertainment seen in the series (so far) are a virtual pet and an arcade game. The latter's status as a homage to old-school ''[[
* ''[[The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
* One episode of ''[[Doug]]'' features Judy talking in an online avatar-based chatroom similar to IMVU, accurately predicting technology that ''would not
* Largely averted in ''[[
▲* Largely averted in ''[[Code Lyoko (Animation)|Code Lyoko]]''. This is not surprising, since the relationship between kids and video games is [[Word of God|a big inspiration for the series]]. The fictional video games discussed in the show are realistic for modern games (though rarely seen on-screen). However, the "penguin cup-and-ball" game played by Jean-Pierre Delmas do use ''Pac-Man'' music — but here it's more of a shout-out.
** One episode featured Odd playing ''Tetris'' on what clearly looked like a Game Boy. It's even mentioned by name! It comes back later in the episode as an actual part of the plot.
* One episode of ''[[
* One episode of ''[[
* Averted in ''[[
* An episode of ''[[
* Most of the video games on ''[[
* The ''[[
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