I'm going to try and keep this relatively short.

So I'm waiting at a bus station for my bus to come around, and I see this kid pull out his DS Lite and start playing it. After getting a closer look, he was playing one of the re-released NES games for the Game Boy Advance. That was pretty neat. But it brings up a question for me.

Are you the kind of person who would pull out their handheld in public and just start playing it?

I've only done it a few times, and I've got good reasons not to whip out my DSi and start playing Pokemon Platinum. For one, it's a goddamn Pokemon game. It's that thing where if you're caught playing it, people will look at you and ask "aren't you an adult?" Okay, well, nobody would outright do that, but personally, I like conformity.

Another reason I don't do it is because when I game, I'm not aware of what's going on around me. If I'm in public, I would be playing with headphones on so I could hear the music and sounds, and that itself helps distract another one of my senses. The only way I'd be pulled out of a trance like that would be to be physically moved, or to just ragequit.

Also, it's the community. I remember pulling my GBA out in the middle of Science class a few years back and started to play MegaMan Battle Network. The local fatass (With the last name Legros, which translates to "the big" if it's said correctly) came by after doing nothing, asked what I was playing and proceeded to call me MegaMan for the rest of the year. Sure, it was a school-situation, but it still sorta turned me off of playing videogames in public.

What about you? Do you play your handheld systems in public, or keep all of your gaming at home?

-Diaport
(I think this would be tagged "About Destructoid," but I don't know. Let me know if I got it wrong!)