Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 295, Playing Video Games.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 295.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Visit our website at eslpodcom and take a look at our ESL podcast store, which has some additional premium courses that you may be interested in.
This episode is called Playing Video Games.
Let's get started.
Check out this new game I just got.
Let me see.
Oh, it's a fighting game.
I'm not into those.
I like role-playing or simulation games a lot better.
This isn't just a fighting game.
You have to use strategy for each mission.
Check out these amazing graphics.
I can't play that at my house.
I have a different console.
Yes you can.
It's multi-platform.
Look at the box.
It says that you can use a joystick as your navigation system or a keyboard and mouse.
You know, right now I'm really into retro games.
You mean last year's games?
No, I mean really old school games, like the ones my parents used to play.
You mean like Pac-Man and Pong?
Yeah, exactly.
They're classic and a lot less violent.
Yeah, but they're so boring you fall asleep playing them.
You can't call yourself a gamer if you play those kinds of games.
Give me 3D action and some blood and gore.
You can have it.
I'll pass.
Our dialogue between Akeem and Marsha begins by Akeem saying, check out this new game I just got.
Akeem is talking about a video game, something like Xbox or PlayStation Portable.
I have to tell you that I don't play video games and I've never played with Xbox or any of the other video games that are popular now.
I last played a video game, I think, in 1981 when I was just leaving high school.
But many people do play video games.
Akeem says, check out or look at this new game I got.
Marsha says, let me see.
Oh, it's a fighting game, meaning it's a game that is a competition between two or more people who are fighting each other a rather violent game, perhaps.
Marsha says, I'm not into those.
To be into means to like.
So she's saying, I don't like fighting games.
I like role-playing or simulation games better.
Role-playing P-L-A-Y-I-N-G is when you imagine that you are another person and you act as if you were another person.
You use another person's identity, you could say.
That's a general definition for role-playing.
Simulation, S-I-M-U-L-A-T-I-O-N, is a game where players try to recreate the real world.
It's a game where you act as if you were in a real, you could say, parallel life.
That's a simulation.
Akeem says this isn't just a fighting game.
You have to use strategy for each mission.
Strategy is a careful or detailed plan for doing something.
For example, you talk about strategy in a war, where you're going to put your soldiers, how you're going to use them.
Strategy is any sort of plan to do something.
It is often associated with a war or fighting in some ways, but doesn't have to be.
A mission is an important, usually interesting or adventurous job that you have to do.
You may know the movie Mission Impossible.
With my brother, Tom Cruise.
Mission Impossible is about a man on a special secret government mission, a job, something he has to do.
We often use that word mission in talking about secret government things that have to be done, often related to spying or war.
Here, it just means what the person in your game has to do, what their task is, what their job is.
Hakim says, check out these amazing graphics.
The graphics refer to the animation of, or the designs and the drawings that are used in a computer game, or perhaps a movie, or even a book.
Someone who designs things that are related to pictures is called a graphic designer.
Marsha says, I can't play that at my house.
I have a different console.
A console is a small machine that you use to play video games like an Xbox or PlayStation Portable.
The word council and the word mission have additional meanings in English.
Take a look at our learning guide for some extra explanations of those words.
Akeem says, yes, you can.
Yes, you can use it at your house.
It's multi-platform.
Multi-platform it can also be pronounced multi-platform is when you can use a game on more than one kind of system or more than one kind of equipment.
Look at the box, Akeem says.
It says that you can use a joystick as your navigation system or a keyboard and mouse.
A joystick J-O-Y-S-T-I-C-K, one word is a small piece of equipment that has usually different buttons and a little stick that you can move something up or down with.
Usually there are joysticks with buttons, a lot of video games, and that's where you usually see the word joystick.
A navigation system is something you use to move around in the video game.
Marsha says, You know, right now, I'm really into retro games.
Retro, R-E-T-R-O, to older styles or fashions, usually from 10 years or 20 years or 30 years ago.
When I was growing up in the 1970s as a child...
There were many movies and TV shows about the 1950s movies like Grease and television shows like Happy Days and they were about America in the 1950s.
That was considered retro.
It was from a previous time.
Now, of course, you have retro meaning the 1980s or the 1990s.
Akeem says, you mean last year's games?
And Marsha says, no, I mean really old school games.
The expression old school is sometimes used in popular music to talk about Traditional, not modern, music.
Maybe even old-fashioned.
Something that isn't popular right now.
That would be old school.
It's an informal term.
Something that you might hear a teenager say.
Marcia says that she likes the games her parents used to play.
Akeem says you mean like Pac-Man and Pong?
Pac-Man P-A-C, hyphen M-A-N and Pong P-O-N-G were two video games popular in the 1970s two of the earliest video games.
When I was growing up, we had a Pong video game at home.
And it basically was a ping pong game.
Pac-Man was very popular also when I was in high school.
Marsha says, yeah, exactly.
They're classic and a lot less violent.
A lot less fighting.
Akeem says, yeah, but they're so boring.
You fall asleep playing them.
He says you can't call yourself a gamer if you play those kinds of games.
A gamer is someone who plays a lot of video games and knows a lot about video games.
I for example am definitely not a gamer.
I don't know anything.
In fact, before preparing this episode, I didn't even know what some of these words were.
Akeem says, give me 3D action and some blood and gore.
The expression here, give me, means this is what I like.
3D or three-dimensional action. and some blood and gore.
That's a common expression, blood and gore, G-O-R-E.
It means blood that is part of some sort of violent behavior, some sort of fight.
The movie Braveheart is full of blood and gore.
This is different from Al Gore, the former vice president of the United States, of course.
He was in a different movie.
Marcia says, you can have it.
You can enjoy those kinds of games, but I'll pass.
To pass here means to say no to something, to decide not to do something.
If you say to me, Jeff, would you like to play video games with me this afternoon?
I would probably say, no thank you, I'll pass.
I don't know anything about video games.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Check out this new game I just got.
Let me see.
Oh, it's a fighting game.
I'm not into those.
I like role-playing or simulation games a lot better.
This isn't just a fighting game.
You have to use strategy for each mission.
Check out these amazing graphics.
I can't play that at my house.
I have a different console.
Yes, you can.
It's multi-platform.
Look at the box.
It says you can use a joystick as your navigation system or a keyboard and mouse.
You know, right now I'm really into retro games.
You mean last year's games?
No, I mean really old school games.
Like the ones my parents used to play.
You mean like Pac-Man and Pong?
Yeah, exactly.
They're classic and a lot less violent.
Yeah, but they're so boring you fall asleep playing them.
You can't call yourself a gamer if you play those kinds of games.
Give me 3D action and some blood and gore.
You can have it.
I'll pass.
The script for this episode was written by Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks for listening.
We'll see you next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
This podcast is copyright 2007.
