History Main / PacmanFever

** On the other hand, playing ''Halo'' apparently consists of rotating the analog stick as quickly as possible while hitting buttons at random, though based on their comments and the sounds, they're playing some game called Halo that isn't part of the [[Series/{{Halo}} Halo series]].

** On the other hand, playing ''Halo'' apparently consists of rotating the analog stick as quickly as possible while hitting buttons at random.
*** [[TakeThat It doesn't?]]

* ''TheDeadZone'' got it right in a way that would have been remarkable if it hadn't smacked of blatant ProductPlacement. 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 ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClankUpYourArsenal'' actually ''played'' in the episode.

* 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 ''VideoGame/{{Banjo-Kazooie}}!'' [[FridgeLogic If the tips are so useful, why hasn't he]] ''[[FridgeLogic beaten]]'' [[FridgeLogic it by now?]] Answer: nobody involved with this commercial got the memo that video games aren't about playing until you lose for a high score anymore, and actually have endings. It's even worse for the next commercial, where he's playing ''VideoGame/MarioParty 2'', which not only has an ending, but is specifically designed to be ''[[PartyGame a multiplayer game.]]'' 62 years and he never thought to go to the store and buy a second controller?!

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 StylisticSuck. Plus the music in particular may [[SoundtrackDissonance ruin the overall tone]] if they actually use the in-game soundtrack. 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. Thirdly, primitive game graphics can be a visual shorthand for "not real" in cartoons, which are already moving, simplified graphics. Last of all, since MostWritersAreAdults, they may not be avid gamers, either knowing only the 8-bit glory of their youth or having come of age before video games.

In live action, standard practice is to render bleeping ArcadeSounds, 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.

* ''{{Jarhead}}'' has a few lines of dialogue referring to levels in ''VideoGame/{{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 SequenceBreaking.

* Invoked in a episode of ENN, where Jeremy Petter interviews a representative of Atari. When the rep shows him a commercial for ''TheWitcher 2'', it shows Paul holding a keyboard like he's playing ''FretsOnFire'' while playing a RPG.

** If that wasn't enough, at the beginning of the episode 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 [[GamerChick Girl Gamer]] apparently did it to get in with the highly elitist gamers.

** 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 [[GamerChick Girl Gamer]] apparently did it to get in with the highly elitist gamers.]]

* LightNovel/{{Durarara}} decided to go for broke on this one, with Celty and Shinra seen in a later episode playing what appears, from Shinra's comments, to be a Mario Fighting Game, with requisite Atari noise, with PlayStation controllers. BonusPoints, because the Game case is a PSX-style CD Jewel case, but the system clearly loads ''carts''. (They don't appear to be playing it on any sort of TV either, but that's okay because Celty doesn't have a head)

* ''Manga/OuranHighSchoolHostClub''. In a flashback, the twins Hikaru and Kaoru are playing (well, ''one'' of them is playing) a game on what is clearly a GameBoyAdvance--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'').

* A scene in the "Main/HouseOfCardsRemake" has the main character Frank Underwood sitting in his basement playing an online deathmatch session from a Call of Duty title. Although Call of Duty games are first-person shooters, Frank isn't using the thumbsticks or any of the triggers much, but is mashing the face buttons like a madman. The in-game footage shown is used twice in the same scene.

** The Season 10 finale shows Abby complaining that while [[NewMediaAreEvil she hates violent video games]], [[SeriesContinuityError (Not true, she plays them with [=McGee=] all the time.)]] that she has designed a homebrew game to vent her frustrations at the Department of Defense special prosecutor who is targeting [[spoiler:Gibbs]] with a homebrew video game. The game involves shooting an effigy of him with a [[NintendoEntertainmentSystem NES]] "Zapper" gun at her PC monitor.

** The Season 10 finale shows [[NewMediaAreEvil Abby complaining that while she hates violent video games]], [[SeriesContinuityError (Not true, she plays them with [=McGee=] all the time.)]] that she has designed a homebrew game to vent her frustrations at the Department of Defense special prosecutor who is targeting [[spoiler:Gibbs]] with a homebrew video game. The game involves shooting an effigy of him with a [[NintendoEntertainmentSystem NES]] "Zapper" gun at her PC monitor.

** The Season 10 finale shows Abby complaining that while she hates violent video games (Not true, she plays them with [=McGee=] all the time.), that she has designed a homebrew game to vent her frustrations at the Department of Defense special prosecutor with a homebrew game that invovles shooting an effigy of him with a [[NintendoEntertainmentSystem NES]] "Zapper" gun at her PC monitor.

Because Bill Amend is OneOfUs and a major gaming geek, this is often parodied or averted in {{Foxtrot}} (it once featured a comic parodying webcomics like ''xkcd'').

* Parodied in ''Comicstrip/{{Foxtrot}}'' when the mother demanded to see the video games Jason played. Her first response is, "why is [[VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry that monkey]] [[GoombaStomp jumping on someone's head]]?" ''Foxtrot'', much like ''ComicStrip/{{Zits}}'', is more accepting and aware of technology than most comics (it once featured a comic parodying webcomics like ''xkcd'').
** Not to mention the ''Webcomic/PennyArcade'' [[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/9/9/ guest strip]] he did after PAX 2009.
** Early strips featured both Jason and Peter playing ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'', Jason bringing a Game Boy on a family trip, and the release of the SNES. Also, one sunday strip has Jason attempting to get a copy of ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Brawl'', and he regularly plays ''{{VideoGame/World of War|craft}}[[strike:[[VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft craft]]]]Quest''.
** And let's not forget Jason's LongList of then-recent game releases (complete with TakeThat at the then-still-VaporWare ''VideoGame/DukeNukemForever'') in a later strip.
** Don't forget Jason going into denial about wanting to play Franchise/TombRaider because it featured a female heroine.
** One comic was about ''VideoGame/StarcraftII''. ''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 ComicBookTime 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 VideoGame/{{portal}}s at his sister in real life. The portal gun has the same orange/blue light that shows the last-fired portal in the game. [[ShownTheirWork Goddamn]].

* ''Comicstrip/FoxTrot'' generally stays accurate with modern games, especially the ones Jason plays. This is probably because Bill Amend is OneOfUs and a major gaming geek.

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If you're too young to remember what ''Pac-Man'' was like on the 2600, check [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL2p2ANFlQ4 this]] out. And [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juH2qHYX9aI this]] for good measure. And, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzI1RBdK2_g this]] is ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong'' on the same system. These two games probably account for the vast, vast majority of ArcadeSounds used on TV. Ironically, the 2600 port of ''{{Pac-Man}}'' was so [[PortingDisaster notoriously bad]] that it's commonly accounted as one of the two games (together with ''VideoGame/ETTheExtraTerrestrial'') which brought in TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983.

* Parodied in [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZYQiXKvZDg this]] commercial for SciFiChannel, wherein [[Franchise/TombRaider Lara Croft]] plays a version of ''VideoGame/{{Pong}}'' with stock sound effects from the {{Atari 2600}}'s version of ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong''--whilst on a PlayStation.

* [[http://cheezburger.com/6684135168 This]] ad depicting someone playing one of the Bowser sub-games from ''PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor''... with a PS3 controller.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrgVzTr2v1k Neutrogena has an ad in late 2011]] which features a bottle of shampoo playing a game much like SpaceInvaders against reappearing dandruff, complete with early-80's style sound effects. Then the bottle of Neutrogena scores a OneHitKill and triggers the AWinnerIsYou ending against dandruff.

* 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.

* ''TrainingDay'': A kid plays on a Dreamcast controller while stock 70s Arcade sound effects play in the background.

* The Creator/LindsayLohan movie ''ConfessionsOfATeenageDramaQueen'' has a scene in which Lohan's character plays ''Dance Dance Revolution'', or a ''DDR'' ripoff, against the antagonist (played by Creator/MeganFox). They both actually ''dance in synchronous'', from the waist up and everything, nevermind the way ''DDR'' actually works.
* ''WorldsGreatestDad'' features technology contemporary to the year it was released, 2009, yet the teenaged son announces that he's going to play ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'', a game older than he is. The character is portrayed as anything but a retro-gamer.
* In a scene in ''Film/BigDaddy'', Julian is seen playing ''TwistedMetal III'' on PlayStation with sounds beeping like a generic 80s arcade game, not the actual sounds.

* ''{{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 {{Xbox}}. So they get the victim's sister, who they see making vaguely controller-like fiddly motions in the air for no good reason, to play through ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersiaTheTwoThrones'' until she gets to Level 10, which unlocks the files. Never minding the fact that the game itself doesn't ''have'' numbered levels, the people behind the show just decided to hack up footage from the game and randomly stick "level" screens between them to denote progress. To make matters worse, the player before the girl was brought in was shown dying a lot, even though one of the series' selling points is the ability to rewind time, and he claims the plot of the game is to, as he puts it, "SaveThePrincess, Farah", when Farah actually assists the player for a good portion of the game and doesn't need rescuing. (At least they got the ''name'' right.) [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ghb_ZXg4E-0 View the idiocy here.]] To top it all off, there are plenty of easier, more accessible ways to hide files and easier, more accessible ways to get them back off the console. This, coupled with a lot of erroneous remarks involving game systems being "just hard drives with games on them", as well as a couple of rather nasty implications about gamers being losers, leads to a very grating episode.
* In one episode of ''{{Monk}}'' Sharona's ex-husband comes back to mend fences, and in one scene plays ''{{VideoGame/Kinetica}}'' with Benji. It all looks pretty straight forward until his character dies from falling off the race track, where in the actual game it just resets the player. Benji states that he has "3 lives left." The ex-husband leaving the game also doesn't affect Benji's play. All of these inaccuracies make the game seem more similar to an old-fashioned arcade game.

* In the ''Series/{{CSI}}'' episode "Spark of Life", they manage to perform PacmanFever with a cartoon. They show a small flat-screen TV playing a series of stock cartoon sound effects... with the opening of ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce''.

* ''LawAndOrderUK'' has a teenager using his XBox360 as 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 [[JustifiedTrope 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.

* A ''Series/MadTV'' skit has former US president GeorgeWBush being distracted by a GameBoy 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 GameBoyColor and the use of "Kooper Trooper" was to make fun of Bush's VerbalTic 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.

* Big Bang Theory had one episode involving SuperMario64 actually being played in one scene.

** This is especially bad when he mashes buttons to games such as MarioIsMissing and freaking ''Tetris''.

* In Angry Video Game Nerd's review of Winter Games, he outright mentions this trope. The controls were so frustrating and unresponsive that he says the only way to actually win is to just randomly push buttons and hope something good happens. He then mentions movies where characters are randomly mashing buttons, joking that they're in fact playing "Winter Games"

* {{Zigzagged}} on ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans''. The male characters would frequently play video games in their downtime, which sported the same look as the animation in the show. In one episode, they were clearly playing ''VideoGame/{{F-Zero}}''. On the other hand, one episode had Robin playing a ''VideoGame/{{Galaga}}''-style shooter and totally flipping out because he beat Cyborg's high score.[[note]]Although this isn't out of character for Robin at least, since he ''is'' dangerously super-competitive.[[/note]]

* ''Anime/{{Shigofumi}}'' does a wonderful subversion of this trope. In ep 10, a young girl, obsessed with playing a very accurate -- though genericized, of course -- depiction of ''AnimalCrossing'', bonds with a thirty-something otaku, pondering the meaninglessness of his life after a cancer diagnosis, over the game [[spoiler: which the otaku, in fact, designed and programmed most of]]. The video game is shown to be a form of communication and a means to establish a friendship, rather than the hobby of pathetic shut-ins and socially maladjusted weirdoes.

* A few characters in ''AnoHana'' play a [[BlandNameProduct "Nokemon"]] game that's a clone of one of the first {{Pokemon}} games (which came out many years before this anime). They comment on how ridiculously old the game is, though, and are apparently playing it for the nostalgia.

** Actually, this is likely intentional, as the film itself is a homage to Spielberg movies of the '70s and '80s, especially 1982's Poltergiest. While never stated outright, various props (cassette tapes, old-style housephones with the looping-cord, etc.) imply that it shares the same time period.

* ''Film/TropicThunder'' had Matthew [=McConaughey=] playing Wii Sports.

* Towards the beginning of ''Film/{{Zathura}}'', the younger of the two brothers is shown playing ''{{VideoGame/Jak 3|Wastelander}}'', not only with the relevant music and sound effects, but also showing him controlling it properly (i.e., he was actually playing the game).
** No surprise - ''Zathura'' was produced by Sony company Creator/ColumbiaPictures, making this ProductPlacement as well.

* While there is an anachronistic 8-bit wrestling game in ''Film/TheWrestler'', 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 ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'', and is clearly bored by the 80's fossil Randy keeps on playing. The game itself is fake, but not entirely: the director commissioned two programmers to create a playable NES game for use in the movie just to fully avoid PacManFever.

* In ''Literature/SalmonFishingInTheYemen'', we see the British PM's kids playing ''RatchetAndClankFutureACrackInTime''. The footage is totally accurate, and you hear authentic EnemyChatter from the game... except it's from Dr Nefarious's MechaMooks while in the area you show you're actually fighting Argorians. (Admitedly, Argorian EnemyChatter [[CrowningMomentOfFunny would have probably upstaged any humor in the actual film]])

* In the US version of ''{{Shameless}}'', there is a scene where Ian, Mickey, and Mandy play ''VideoGame/HaloReach'' 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.

** In episode three of the second season, Sheldon shows Penny the [[MassivelyMultiplayerOnlineRolePlayingGame MMORPG]] ''AgeOfConan'', 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 RuleOfFunny exception that, at the end, the characters mouths' moved in sync with what the players spoke over their headsets.

** In another episode, the characters are playing Boxing in ''WiiSports'', complete with look-alike Miis.
** And in yet another episode, Sheldon plays Mario 64 ''on an emulator on his laptop.'' They even used accurate sound effects: when Sheldon pauses the game to talk to someone, they use the actual pause sound from Mario 64. How many non-geeks do you know who know what an emulator is?

** Apparently Sheldon sucks at Mario Kart Wii

* Agents of Cracked - Swaim mentions emulation and Night Trap, and is shown playing ''VideoGame/MetalSlug''.

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* ''CoronationStreet'' varies wildly with this trope. Sometimes it features character endlessly button mashing (or even just hitting the same button over and over as fast as possible) while 1985 "missile" sound effects repeat nonstop from the offscreen TV. On a [=PS2=] controller. However, on a different occasion, David Platt was clearly seen playing ''VideoGane/{{Forza|Motorsport}}'' on his Xbox 360, complete with accurate handling of the controller, and showing the game running on the TV. [[DependingOnTheWriter Depends]] on the writer, it seems.

* ''Manga/LuckyStar'''s video games are often fairly accurate parodies of real games (unless you count ArcadeSounds half the time when the characters play any console games); unsurprising, since one of the main characters is a game {{otaku}}.

* ''Manga/LuckyStar'''s video games are often fairly accurate parodies of real games; unsurprising, since one of the main characters is a game {{otaku}}.