Marvel the Game
Prologue:
Clint had stumbled upon the game by accident. He had been in GameStop* looking for some upgrade to his current NerveGear game 'Lords of Twostone'**, in which he was still fairly new, even if he'd had his NerveGear for years now and knew it's functions to the last detail.
The fourty five year old man had literlly fallen over the box in the store he was visiting, and had been forced to buy it, after ruining the exterior, by the cute, but very scary lady behind the cashcounter.
It was only when he got home, after having bought the, what he thought, extremely expensive game, did he take a look at the crumbled box.
"Marvel," he read aloud. It was a pretty non-descript name and box, which didn't give him any feel for what was inside the exterior.
He however didn't get to open the box that day, as a friend of his that was coming over, chose that moment to make herself announced.
"Hey, Natalia!" He yelled.
…
He had been talking with Natalia for about half an hour, totally forgetting his latest purchase, until said thirty one year old woman made him aware of the discarded, still unopened box.
"I see you have bought the new hot-shot NerveGear game?" She asked, nudging the box with her foot. "It looks kind of damaged though."
"So it's a game then?" He asked, clearly uninterested.
"You are kidding, right?" Natalia said with a blunt tone and a raised eyebrow. "This is the latest hit in the gamerworld! Sadly they're are very expensive, happily I have a very well-paying job."
Clint mused over her words; so she had a version of this game too? And it was some kind of big thing, that he just hadn't heard about? Well, the last thought wasn't so farfetched, Clint never really followed the news and always kept to playing three games maximum.
"First of all; no kidding, I haven't heard of the name before today." He defended himself. "Second of all; what exactly is the theme of this thing?"
"Why don't you open it and find out?" Natalia was giving him one of her patented 'Duh!'-looks.
Clint nudged the box, before picking it up and carefully opening the lid, removing the top layer of bubblewrap and peeking inside.
"What is it then? I only bought the game, and now I'm getting kind of excited by the idea of a whole box full of goodies and merchandise." Natalia stepped forward to look over his shoulder, before diving in and retrieving a mug with a chipped edge. It was very plain and white, with only the word Marvel written on it in red font.
"Well, that's a bust," she muttered, before watching him removing the rest of the contents; a cheatcode arc which would probably come in handy, some kind of book, probably the manual, stickers, some small USBs and finally the game itself.
"Seems like you are already a pro," she grinned and winked at him, but he kind of knew her so well, that he could feel the jealousy and therefore threw the cheatcode arc at her. Se grasped it with surprised fumbling fingers. The only time she wasn't a graceful creature, was at times like these, when she was at a crossroad.
Natalia was silent for a few seconds before nodding her graitude and now it was Clint's time to grin.
"The game is having their official launch this saturday at 8 AM, I will be over with my NerveGear and version of the game by then," she explained before launching into a story from work.
The contents of the box was already packed away in the corner of his gameshelf, forgotten until needed.
Before she left, Natalia said threateningly;"And I expect you to know the basics of the game by then."
...
Clint went to bed, but not before making a reminder-note for himself to check out the game before saturday, and he didn't fall asleep before remembering that he never really found out the gametheme.
...
By saturday Clint knew everything about Marvel, which was probably most complex game, that he had ever heard about, for crying out loud.
First of all, the game constructed your character based on your looks and no modifying existed. Second of all, every bought game were different to each other and unique i their own way, which didn't mean this was a singleplayer game, no, it was definitely multiplayer, but with every game came different stats, background stories, weapons, clothes, strengts, weaknesses and much more for your individual character, which made everyone one of a kind. And when there was the game, an openworld, superhero-themed sandbox, with a vast amount of NPCs. You could be anyone; some hot-shot superhero, the most sadistic asshole bad guy or just blend in with the NPCs and make your everydaylife in the online world.
A new added function was pain. Of course, it wasn't legal to make people feel a lot of pain without reason, so the painfunction was very low, about 1,83% of the pain you cold handle before passing out in real life.
Another cool feature were that it was centered around Earth, and because it was openworld game, you could go anywhere on Earth.
Clint was simply hooked and he could totally understand Natalias earlier words of;"...hotshot NerveGear game…"
The game was so much like real life, with the added element of the superpowered.
'Ding, dong!' sounded the doorbell; it was ten minutes before launch and Clint had already prepared the NerveGear with the nescessary game and his bed along with one for Natalia. He had also eaten a big meal for breakfast, so he wouldn't run on low energy.
"Hey, Clint. Ready to launch?" Natalia had her NerveGear in a bag slung over her left shoulder and looked very excited for a change. Normally it was just her patented 'I'm with an idiot'-face that permanently rested over her features.
"Yes, I have everything ready, we just need to hook up." He smiled at her.
The NerveGear had been very complex when it was first released, but over the years it had been made smaller and perfected. Now it was like a tight beanie with a lot of electronic features and LED lights, so that people wouldn't think you had drifted into a coma or something like that. If it happened, the lights would turn yellow.
They wished each other luck before going into under the spell of sleep.
Notes: First chapter, yay!
* GameStop being this gamerstore in my homecountry, I don't know whereelse it exists, but for the sake of the plot, it's an american store too.
** Lords of Twostone being a completely fictional game I created only the title of. Feel free to imagine whatever kind of game you want it to be.