I Know Mortal Kombat: Difference between revisions

* ''[[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:Deadpool shoruken singlepanel.jpg|Fighter?]]"

* ''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.}}

 

* ''[[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."

* ''[[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.

* ''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.

* 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).

* [[MythBusters]]: Played with. During an aeronautics centered episode Adam and Jamie went to the NASA flight simulator facility to try to land a passenger jet without any prior experience (real-life or virtual.) They failed miserably. Then they repeated their attempts but this time they were guided via radio by an experienced pilot and air traffic controller- they both succeeded to land the simulated jets manually. The pilot then proceeded to turn a couple knobs on the autopilot and explained that is all it takes for the plane to pretty much land itself. In case both the pilot and copilot are incapacitated (something which never happened in the history of aviation) air control would just get a stewardess on the radio and tell her which numbers to punch into the autopilot for the plane to land safely at the nearest airport. Nobody sane would hand over the lives of every passenger on an airplane to computers without human supervision on a regular basis, but that doesn't mean they aren't capable of pretty much everything a pilot would normally do.

 

 

* ''[[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.

 

 

* 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!

* 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.}}

* 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.

* 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.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Action Adventure Tropes]]

[[Category:Skills and Training Tropes]]

[[Category:Truth in Television]]