Equal rights for parents!

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" - George Orwell's Animal Farm

"All players are equal, but some players are more equal than others" - Nintendo's Animal Crossing

My son and I were bought a Nintendo DS each for Christmas. Of course I was using him as an excuse for getting one for myself, on the pretext that it was "so we could play together", but I'm hardly the first, am I? Our dads would justify their buying Scalextric because it would allow them to 'bond' with their sons, then disappear up into the loft whenever there were jobs to be done. For our grandparents it was probably either Hornby trains or Mamod steam engines. Go back a few more years and no doubt parents were using their kids as the excuse for buying that extra piglet on market day. "But dearest wife, young master Ploppy would be most pleased if we were to purchase a young plump pig, which would serve as his faithful companion and friend." A couple of weeks later and dad is tucking into a tender pork baguette as he watches 'Celebrity Hangings' on the village green...

For those that don't know, the DS looks very much like the dual screen LCD Donkey Kong 'Game and Watch' of the early eighties. While the first DS (Dual Screen) looked a bit clunky, the DS Lite is much smarter and as likely to find its way into a jacket pocket as a school satchel. While Tom and I could've got different colours to avoid future confusion, we both thought that black was the coolest looking, so have one of those each and rely on the serial numbers to tell the difference.

So why one each? Well, the DS has a Wi-Fi feature as standard which allows multi-player gaming. I figured that we could play each other and he could let his mates borrow mine when they're around to play if they don't have their own. So far it's worked out well, apart from him thrashing me at Super Mario. We share our meagre collection of games, but 'mine' are Brain Trainer and a web browser which hooks into the wireless BT HomeHub. I don't let Tom use this as it has no parental controls whatsoever, but he doesn't seem that bothered about it anyway.

The game that we play the most regularly has to be Animal Crossing. The good thing is that it is (a) not a mindless shoot'em up and (b) is slightly less abhorrent than Nintendogs - which requires you to look after a virtual puppy. Not too sure how true to life this caring regime is, for example, does it require a virtual shovel to pick up after it? Can you have your Labrador puppy virtually 'put down' when you want to upgrade to a Pharaoh Hound? Would your virtual Pit Bull Terrier attack other players without warning?

So, back to Animal Crossing. You are a member of a village of your own naming, and you spend your time doing good deeds and running errands for your fellow villagers, while you earn money (or "bells") to pay your mortgage and buy things to make your life more comfortable. Think of it as a pocket Teen Second Life for younger kids (and parents). While the limitation of the game is that we can only play together if we have a game card each, we can still share the same house in the same village but have to take turns to play.

It's weird how art imitates life, well sort of, because I spend all my time trying to keep the money coming in. I have to pick cherries and shells to pay off the mortgage, water the plants and make my money grow by investing it. Turnips are the best thing at the moment, but we have expanded into growing imported peaches, as there is a better return.

Tom on the other hand squanders his bells on things we don't need such as totem poles, a hamster (when he ignores his real one) and flowers that I end up watering for him. Plus he leaves the living room in a mess when he goes to bed, although fortunately his virtual hamster cage doesn't smell of wee. Still the good thing is that we now have separate rooms in the house, so he can leave it in as much of a mess as he likes.

Jane is in the game too, but ever since her character came to 'live' in Animal Crossing she has rather wisely stayed in bed fast asleep. So maybe it isn't that lifelike after all, otherwise Tom and I would have run out of clean socks weeks ago, and the virtual hamster would be dead, and in a virtual shoebox in a sad little virtual grave next to the peach trees...