It's Animal Crossing, by Harvey!

Animal Crossing is one of my favorite video games ever. If you've never played it, this obsession will make no sense to you. I've been there. "A game with no purpose? You just have to pay off your mortgage!?" But once you play it, trust me, it's amazing. If you have, you know what I mean. If you haven't: You start off as a character who has just moved out of his/her parents' house, and are off to build a life of your own. You move to a town that you can name, and buy a house, which you can decorate as you like, and have to earn money to pay it off if you want to upgrade to a bigger house. There are other residents of the town; some will like you and some won't. You can do whatever you want: if you want to set a goal to catch every kind of fish, or be as rich as possible, or even make everyone in your town hate you, you can. The best and worst part is that it's in real time. For example, the store closes at 10pm, and if you play after that you can't go in. Or if you want to go to the morning aerobics classes, you actually have to get up, in real life, at 7am. There are also all sorts of events, like a reindeer who comes to give out presents on Christmas Eve. It's an absolutely brilliant game, with a lot of depth.

What's up with the review of Animal Crossing? you are no doubt asking. What's this got to do with the IA? Hold on, I'm getting there. In the game, every character has a 'catchphrase' that they always say. In the new version for the Wii, (that I just got for the holidays- YES!) one character's catchphrase when you first meet them is 'cagey.' So, cagey, they will throw it into their sentences when they talk to you. They also often use it at the end for emphasis, cagey! After you've known them for a while, they will say that someone told them it sounds dumb, or that they are sick of saying it too much. They will then ask you to come up with a new catchphrase for them to say instead, which can be whatever you want. Naturally, to everyone who's asked me, I've responded with "by Harvey." I love how well it fits into what they say! With my sister's help, I had the idea to use the game's screen capture feature to prove it.

In this first one, I (isn't my little character cute with his awesome goggles! I got them at the tailor's for like 200 bells or something. That's next to nothing.) am talking to Gladys about how you can crossbreed flowers to make a new species:



Here Mott is commenting on the awesomeness of the aforementioned goggles:



And finally, in the new version, City Folk, characters sometimes tell you that they think it would be cool if you could come up with a secret greeting that only the two of you know. They'll then say it to you the first time they see you each day. I have to admit I cheated a little- I have the same 'secret greeting' with about three people.