I Know Mortal Kombat: Difference between revisions
→Real Life
m (update links) |
|||
| (13 intermediate revisions by 8 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''"I can do this, Joe! I've seen [[Patton]] over a hundred times!"''
|'''Linkara''', ''[[Kickassia]]''}}
This is a situation in which a character acquired a needed skill, not by ever actually learning that skill, but by playing a video game or watching a movie which ''simulated'' that skill.
Line 10 ⟶ 11:
[[Moral Guardians]] often take this trope ''way'' too seriously, begetting the concept of [[Murder Simulators]]. However if it did work, you could learn medicine from Dr. Mario and cure people with nothing more than a high powered microscope and a bag of Skittles.
Now as far as the controls, basic sense of tactics and (hopefully) physics are concerned, actual vehicle simulators ''can'' supplement real and semi-real (more hardware-based) training and experience. After all, that's where simulators came from to begin with. Also note the difference between video games designed to be fun, and simulator machines designed to accurately emulate a cockpit and be used in training. [[Captain Obvious|And of course]], even if vehicle in question doesn't subject the pilot to G-forces that could cause a blackout, the [[Reality Is Unrealistic|difference]] is likely to make [[Falling Into the Cockpit]] unsafe, if for no other reason than specific reflexes are still required to use the real controls fluently. This can also be the extreme version of [[The Tetris Effect]].
See also [[Ascended Fanboy]], [[Taught by Television]], [[Saw It in a Movie Once]], and [[Falling Into the Cockpit]]. When someone who knows what they're doing for real fails at a video game version, then it's [[I Don't Know Mortal Kombat]]. When someone tries to use fighting game moves in real life (and fails horribly), it can lead to [[What the Fu Are You Doing?]].
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[Bokurano]]'': Although not explicitly mentioned, unathletic gamer Yōsuke Kirie delivers the most awesome mecha-ass kicking we ever see, surpassing any other pilot's skill by several orders of magnitude.
* ''[[Code Geass]]'': In one of the supplemental, sound episodes, Lelouch and Suzaku are attempting to leave Kururugi Jinja without Lelouch's guards. Suzaku's claims he can drive the car if Lelouch takes care of everything else. It is not until they are in the car that Lelouch discovers that Suzaku's "driving experience" comes from video games. Nevertheless, they succeed.
Line 29 ⟶ 30:
* ''[[Overman King Gainer]]'': Gainer Sanga takes this to its logical extreme. Already an [[Ascended Fanboy]] whose prowess at online games translates directly into proficiency at piloting the eponymous [[Humongous Mecha]], one episode has him engaged in an online tournament ''and'' a real-life battle at the same time, having modified King Gainer to allow him to fight both battles simultaneously. When the dust clears and everybody realizes his impossible achievement, he is awarded the title of "King of the Dual Field".
* ''[[Patlabor]]'': Inverted and subverted in an episode: Noa is an ace at piloting giant robots, but she totally bombs playing a robot-themed video game.
** A similar joke happens in the beginning of the ''[[Fatal Fury]]'' movie, where we see that Terry Bogard isn't good at ''playing'' [[Fighting Game
** In a similar gag that comprised one of about three worthwhile scenes in the ''[[Martian Successor Nadesico]]'' [[The Movie|Movie]], ace mecha pilot Ryoko gets her ass kicked at a video game by her former wingwoman Hikaru, who had been retired for about three years, writing [[Magical Girl]] manga. To be fair, it was a 2D [[Fighting Game]], just a mecha-themed one.
* ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' subverts this. Early in the original series, the heroes come across a Pokémon Academy where the students simulate battles on machines with displays suspiciously reminiscent of the video games the anime is derived from. The student the heroes were speaking to ends up voicing his belief that a battle with Misty would be a waste of time, as his Grass-type Pokémon always defeat Water-types in the simulations. Misty ends up battling with him anyway, and instantly beats him with absolutely no effort.
Line 45 ⟶ 46:
* Kirito from ''[[Sword Art Online]]'' spent 2 years trapped in a virtual reality game. After he escaped, he developed actual sword skills and enhanced reflexes, was almost able to beat his sister in a kendo sparring match, and beat a knife-wielding mad man bare handed.
* Genjuro from ''[[Senki Zesshou Symphogear]]'' can do absolutely ''[[Charles Atlas Superpower|insane]]'' things and while his training Hibiki is subjected to involves legitimate training techniques, it also features watchnig action movies and fighting games and trying to copy them and his own style is a mix of [[Bruce Lee]]'s, [[Street Fighter|Akuma's]] and [[Avatar: The Last Airbender|Toph's]] movesets he learned this way.
* In ''[[The Brave of Gold Goldran]]'' episode 8, Tkuya invokes this trope by saying that he will shoot down robots using his arcade skills. It works.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* ''[[Amulet]]'': Navin convinces Emily to let him to pilot the Albatross due to his experience in playing flight simulation-type games. He turns out to be a pretty good pilot in general.
* ''[[Carmen Sandiego]]'': In the comics, detectives are recruited using the computer game.
* ''[[Deadpool]]'': Subverted in issue #27. He's already a competent martial artist. The obvious [[Shout-Out]] is just for laughs. "You smug little--Speaking of games. You ever play [[Street Fighter|Street]] [[media:
* ''[[Doonesbury]]'': In one strip Jeff Redfern is undergoing CIA training in Afghanistan and accidentally launches a missile. However, it actually ends up demolishing an Al-Qaeda ammo dump. Jeff's superior wonders how this is possible, exclaiming "It's all those damn video games, isn't it?!"▼
* ''Taskmaster''. This is actually his power. Due to what he calls "photographic reflexes", he can perfectly emulate any humanly possible physical action he's seen someone else perform. Taskmaster has even been known to watch kung-fu movies on fast-forward and temporarily use the styles he saw at the same increased speed. Unfortunately, {{spoiler|it also erases an equal portion of memory from his brain to make space for the new technique, i.e., his name or his wife.}}
== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[Back to The Future
* ''[[Battlefield Earth]]'' has a group of tribal primitives learning to fly Harrier Jump Jets by spending a few hours in a simulator.
* ''[[D.A.R.Y.L.
* ''[[Bulletproof Monk]]'': Kar learns how to fight at 'The Golden Palace'. This turns out to be an old cinema where he lives and shows Kung Fu movies. We actually see him imitating the actors on screen. Despite this, he's actually pretty competent.
* ''[[Chocolate]]'': The entire premise is that the main character's autism allows her to perfectly imitate movements that she watches other people perform. She becoes a martial arts master after watching a whole lot of kung fu films.
Line 66 ⟶ 65:
* ''The Flight of the Phoenix'', a 1965 movie, has a variant of this trope. After a plane crashes in the desert, one of the survivors says that he is an airplane designer and can design a functional plane they can construct from the wreckage. It turns out, however, that the airplanes he designs are model airplanes flown by hobbyists; he's never designed one large enough to carry a person before.
* ''[[Galaxy Quest]]'': Tommy Webber is able to learn how to fly a starship by watching old episodes of himself flying a fictional starship. He states that as a child actor he had worked out a consistent system for how to manipulate the prop controls based on what the fictional ship was supposed to be doing. He quickly gets the hang of doing it for real.
* ''[[Ichi the Killer]]'': Ichi is crazed shut-in who murders people using the skills he learned from playing [[Fighting Game
* ''The Last Mimzy'': has the boy able to drive a truck because of gaming experience (ignoring alien influence).
* ''[[The Last Starfighter]]'' was based around this idea; aliens plant a spaceflight simulator disguised as an arcade game on Earth, and recruit the high-score winner to help them fight invaders.
Line 84 ⟶ 83:
* ''[[Snakes on a Plane]]'': Troy flies the plane based on his experience with a Playstation flight sim. [[Chekhov's Skill|Actually set up]], because he's been playing on a PSP all flight.
* ''Taxi'', a French action comedy (written by Luc Besson) comically subverts this: one of the two protagonists is a young policeman who is very good at playing driving video games, but always keeps failing the actual driving exams.
* ''[[Time Cop]]'' also has a non-video game example. Max Walker ([[Jean
* ''[[Toys]]'', a [[Robin Williams]] movie, in which this trope is a central plot point. General Zevo realizes that children who play arcade games have remarkable hand-eye coordination and reflexes. To that end, he repurposes his brother's toy company into a military contractor, building unmanned planes and mini-tanks that can be controlled by children at a video console. Children who ''still think they're playing videogames''.
* ''[[Tron]]'': Flynn is an expert at all the games he programmed and played when he gets teleported into the computer world. Justified by the fact that he's basically a god when he's in the computer world.
Line 121 ⟶ 120:
* ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'': This is pretty much Monica's power: she can do anything she's seen on TV or in real life.
* ''[[Life On Mars]]'': When asked if he can fire a gun with accuracy, Sam Tyler responds, "You should see my Playstation scores."
* ''[[Mind of Mencia]]'': [[
* ''[[NCIS]]'': Justified in S7 Ep09, "Child's Play", which focuses on child prodigies using video games, one of which is ''[[Call of Duty]] [[Modern Warfare]] 2'', in which they compare the situations in the game to real life military situations and analyze them.
* ''[[The Office]]'': In a non-video game example, in the ''Sting'' episode of the US version, Michael thinks he can ride a bike because of his [[Everything's Better with Spinning|Spinning class]] experiences. The effect of lack of any balancing requirements in [[wikipedia:Indoor cycling#Classes|Spinning classes]] becomes [[Offscreen Crash|very obvious]] when Michael tries to ride a regular (as opposed to stationary) bike.
* ''[[Penn
* ''The Pretender's'' main protagonist has been known to do this several times. In fact, nearly every profession he learns is from something only slightly related.
* ''[[Psych]]'': In the episode ''Romeo and Juliet and Juliet'', Shawn attempts to invoke this trope by telling his opponent, someone with years of experience in martial arts, that he's "made it through all seven levels of ''Shaq Fu'' on Nintendo!" It doesn't work.
Line 140 ⟶ 139:
* ''[[Weird Science]]'' had an episode with Wyatt and Lisa pretending to be brain surgeons who perform an operation on Gary and Wyatt's principal. Afterwards, Wyatt says that he didn't know Lisa knew how to perform brain surgery, and Lisa says she didn't, but that she saw it performed on last night's ''[[ER]].''
* WCG Ultimate Gamer. Inversion. I don't think anyone, gamer or non-gamer, is under any illusions that the skills necessary to play [[Guitar Hero]] and those necessary to play an actual guitar are even related. Still, a reality show that forces gamers to actually play real instruments had some people complaining, "What's that got to do with playing [[Guitar Hero]]?"
* ''[[Who Wants to Be a Superhero?]]'': Feedback has this as his superpower, he's able to obtain the skills of any game he plays...well the character anyway.
* On an episode of ''[[Leverage]]'', Hardison (who is impersonating an air traffic controller) manages to guide a passenger jet into a landing using a flight simulator (and not the kind used to train pilots, either).
* [[
▲* ''[[Doonesbury]]'': In one strip Jeff Redfern is undergoing CIA training in Afghanistan and accidentally launches a missile. However, it actually ends up demolishing an Al-Qaeda ammo dump. Jeff's superior wonders how this is possible, exclaiming "It's all those damn video games, isn't it?!"
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* ''[[Car Wars]]'': A common piece of advice to new players was to never attack a station wagon. Said cars normally had several kids with years of video game experience manning the guns.▼
* ''[[Super Awesome Action Heroes]]'', an action movie-based RPG. The Haxor class gets a bonus to their guns stat, thanks to all those First-Person Shooters they play.▼
* In ''[[Trinity Universe (game)|Adventure!]]'', the Heroic Knack "Instant Expert" is actually not [[Instant Expert|that trope]], but this one instead. It allows a character to duplicate any physical task he or she has seen done...but only once per game session.▼
Line 159 ⟶ 168:
* ''[[Wing Commander (video game)|Wing Commander]]'' has a simulator in the mess. On which the player can try a consequence-less training mission working much the same way as "real" ones, except the specific craft.
* Parodied in ''[[Leisure Suit Larry]] 5'', where Larry steps up to the task of piloting a plane based on his experience with ''selling'' flying games. He (and the player) proceeds to blindly fumble around with the controls until he purely by chance turns on the autopilot.
▲== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
▲* ''[[Car Wars]]'': A common piece of advice to new players was to never attack a station wagon. Said cars normally had several kids with years of video game experience manning the guns.
▲* ''[[Super Awesome Action Heroes]]'', an action movie-based RPG. The Haxor class gets a bonus to their guns stat, thanks to all those First-Person Shooters they play.
▲* In ''[[Trinity Universe (game)|Adventure!]]'', the Heroic Knack "Instant Expert" is actually not [[Instant Expert|that trope]], but this one instead. It allows a character to duplicate any physical task he or she has seen done...but only once per game session.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* ''[[Antihero for Hire]]'': Shadehawk claims his martial arts prowess comes from watching lots of kung-fu movies. Baron Diamond responds by saying he prefers game shows, and tells Dechs he's won a car...by throwing it at him.
* In ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20130505133047/http://theconspiracy.smackjeeves.com/ The Conspiracy]'' the conspiracy involves video games designed to trigger this trope.
{{quote|Lycan: [http://theconspiracy.smackjeeves.com/comics/284247/4-7-the-dojo/ You played games with a hand to hand combat system?]
Todd: Well, a couple, but you mean that..
Line 187 ⟶ 190:
* ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'''s main characters Elliot, Nanase, and Justin learned "Anime Style Martial Arts" from a guy who allegedly understood the secrets of [[Supernatural Martial Arts]] (already being a black belt) by [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2002-04-09 watching 168 hours non-stop] [[Kamehame Hadoken]] and suchlike being used in anime. Not that it got nothing in common with a classical story of enlightenment after fasting and sleep deprivation, of course.
* ''[[Miscellaneous Error]]'' features Jack applying his [[Frogger]] skills to [http://miscerror.thecomicseries.com/comics/6 crossing the street].
* ''[[The B-Movie Comic]]'' in "[https://bmoviecomic.com/arcade-lore-chap-6-act-4-strip-23/ Arcade lore]:
{{quote|It’s also Snuka’s mental control over the creature, in combination with the many hours he misspent in gaming arcades in his youth. They gave him great hand-eye coordination and a competitive spirit – and the flight physics present in a typical arcade flying game are perfect training for controlling a completely inplausible fantasy creature in flight (and not much else). }}
== Web Original ==
Line 193 ⟶ 197:
* realultimatepower.net's Robert Hamburger "has a black belt in Street Fighter 2 and a second degree black belt in Mortal Kombat 1-3."
* ''[[The Spoony Experiment]]'': "I am Lord of ''[[Tekken]]'' and I will air-juggle his ass!
* ''[[Zero Punctuation]]'': References in the ''[[Manhunt]]'' review, pointing out that "Pressing buttons to fire a gun in, say, Soldier of Fortune is about as far-removed from the workings of actual guns as my ass is from the dark side of Europa, but then you have games like Manhunt, which not only have the player viciously maim human beings with a variety of household objects, but also provides detailed and up-close demonstrations of how to achieve the most horrific results, and arguing the harmlessness of it all lacks credibility somewhat." https://web.archive.org/web/20131213003755/http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/6-Manhunt.
* XIN claims at one point that he gets his moves from fighting games. It is unclear whether he is serious, however.
* The quote comes from ''[[Kickassia]]'', where [[Atop the Fourth Wall|Linkara]] claims he is qualified to lead a rebellion against [[The Nostalgia Critic]] because he's seen the movie ''[[Patton]]'' a hundred times. {{spoiler|Once he's given a chance, it ''works''. Then he and everyone else try to take Kickassia for themselves.}}
Line 203 ⟶ 207:
* ''[[Class of the Titans]]'': Hephaestus modeled a jet engine and set the controls precisely as a video game he and Odie played.
** "Flies exactly the same as the game, except it's real. Game over means game over."
* ''[[Clerks the Animated Series]]'' spoofs [[The Last Starfighter]] example listed above in film. Randall spends countless hours playing a game called ''Pharaoh'' in hopes that the above situation will occur to
* ''[[Danny Phantom]]'': In the movie "Reality Trip", Danny pilots the Space Shuttle to a safe landing using his experience playing a Shuttle flight simulator game. Slightly more plausible than it sounds, he wants to grow up to be an astronaut so he might have actually been learning from simulators.
* ''[[Doug]]'': In one episode Judy fails her driving test and then practices for the re-test on a car-race arcade game.
Line 216 ⟶ 220:
* ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'': Jimmy manages to fly a plane somewhat compatently because he was good at a video game of it. Of course, the things he did in that episode still mark him as [[Too Dumb to Live]].
* ''[[Johnny Test]]'': In an episode where the military tries this tactic to recruit soldiers to fight a new rebellion started by angry arctic penguins, they end up recruiting Johnny, who is great at the game and was "amazing" in training facility according to Mr. White.
* ''[[Megas XLR]]'': It's stated that the reason Coop is such a good mech pilot is because he plays so many video games. This is slightly more plausible than the others, as he apparently remapped Megas's controls to match his video game
** This is subverted/averted in an episode, where Coop is forced to use a [[Dance Dance Revolution]] pad to control Megas. Unfortunately, Coop isn't exactly your regular DDR player, so the fight is a bit... awkward. There's also the fact that Coop is horribly out of shape and is exhausted after only about a minute.
** The show actually came about by the creators talking about this trope.
Line 223 ⟶ 227:
** There is also an episode where Bart takes karate lessons but gets bored and just ends up going to the arcade. He learns the "Touch of Death" from a game there, which ends up working on his sister and convincing his family he's actually going to his lessons. It backfires later though.
*** He doesn't ''learn'' the "Touch of Death"; he just claims he did to scare Lisa.
* ''[[
* ''[[South Park]]'': The episode "Best Friends Forever" also spoofed''[[The Last Starfighter]]'' with Angels replacing the aliens and a PSP game replacing the arcade game.
* ''[[Family Guy]]'': The episode "Big Man on Hippocampus", Peter loses his memory. Lois tries to teach him how to drive by telling him to play GTA for 8 hours. The following scene shows Peter assaulting a prostitute and jacking a car.
Line 253 ⟶ 257:
** Supposedly, the Army has the Force XXI Corp, trained using cutting-edge simulators. It's mentioned in MGS2, which is usually pretty good about military research.
** Look at the soldier to the far left of [[wikipedia:File:Future Force Warrior 2007.jpg|this picture]] depicting the gear for the Future Force Warrior project. See what he's holding?
*** To be fair to the project, Xbox 360 controllers (and any modern gamepad really) are little more than joysticks in a different configuration. It also helps that, though not advertised as such, both 360 and [[
**** Plus it makes using the equipment easier. Most people are familiar with a video-game controller and could easily pick up how to use it. Plus it's easily replaceable and relatively sturdy for the price.
* Allegedly, some of the September 11th hijackers learned to handle large aircraft by playing Microsoft Flight Simulator. Given that the nature of their attacks skipped the really difficult parts like landing, this might be feasible.
Line 271 ⟶ 275:
* The US Army actually looks for potential recruits with considerable experience with FPS shooters, since expert gamers use the same tactics used by experienced soldiers.
** Hence the ''[[America's Army]]'' series, which eschews many FPS tropes in favor of realism. Note that without hacking the base game, the player must create an online account that records their game performance.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110221123932/http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/02/13/2011-02-13_my_deadly_battle_with_madman_victim.html This guy] took down his knife-armed attacker with a leg sweep he learned from watching mixed martial arts on television.
* A lot of surgeons (especially the type who do remote surgeries) report improved hand-eye coordination after playing [[Tetris]].
* While this trope can go both ways (See [[Reality Is Unrealistic]]), this has had a widespread effect and is reflected in more modern media. More people understand the basic operation of a gun and how to handle them; more people know basic facts about how to handle a discovered crime scene (i.e., don't touch anything, and don't ruin any evidence, etc); more people know basics about how to fly a plane; the list goes on.
* There are also plenty of training video games for military, police, etc. that AREN'T about killing or flying or anything like that, but are to practice foreign language skills, negotiation techniques, logistics management and the like.
* [https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/149haw9/ua_soldier_shows_his_skill_using_a_grenade/ This Ukrainian soldier] attests to having learned how to use a grenade launcher from ''[[S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (series)|S.T.A.L.K.E.R.]]''. He then kindly asked GSC Game World founder Sergiy Grygorovych a copy of the game, which they [https://imgur.com/a/vW3tv8H kindly obliged] as a gesture of thanks to their services to the country.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Action Adventure Tropes]]
[[Category:Skills and Training Tropes]]
[[Category:Truth in Television]]
| |||