What Video Games Taught Me About Wildlife
By Miodrag Kovačević | November 25, 2011 | Features | 3 comments | Share
As a gamer, I rarely visit the outside world, unless it is a journey to the super market to buy energy drinks and snacks. Sometimes, I encounter stray dogs on my journey and panic sets in. It’s an encounter that could be my last, but the smell of dust coming from my PC cooler seems to have masked my existence to the urban canines whose senses are dulled by the pollution of the great Serbian capitol. However, one day, the unthinkable might happen. I might be surrounded by trees. Not the ones from Skyrim or Just Cause… The real ones, photosynthesizing all around me.
But the flora is, for most part, not a real concern. What will I do when I get attacked by bears, wolves or donkeys? My only hope is to recall everything I’ve learned from years of gaming and hope that knowledge makes my life last longer than that of Game Gear’s batteries.
Everything Is Out to Get You
Learned from: the Elder Scrolls, Pokemon, any JRPG.
Mother Nature cares for her animals. She probably hugs them with her thorny vines, which would explain why everything is so 
cranky. They want you dead. The bears wish to maul you. The wolves demand an offering of human flesh. The swallows will poke your eyes out and feed them to their young. Did you think that a kind animal might engage you in a peaceful encounter of harmony and tranquility? That’s what King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table also thought. And where are they now, hm?
Lesson: Be wary of anything that moves. It will try to end you.
Animals Have No Sense of Self-preservation
Learned from: the Elder Scrolls (Morrowind in particular), Pokemon, any JRPG.
If you happen to be lucky enough to level up while in the wilderness, that might lessen the number of lethal encounters. However, 
it will not lessen the amount of battles you will go through. Can you knock the bunny out in one fell swoop? It doesn’t matter. The next one will throw itself on your sword. So will the next one. And the one after that. As long as there are animals, they will fight you. This is why many species are probably extinct. The dodo is likely dead because it kept jumping on spears of hunters. And really, considering how dumb the bird looked, we all know it wasn’t threatening.
Lesson: Be prepared to fight everything you see, even if you vastly overpower them.
Beware of the Small Ones
Learned from: Final Fantasy (Tonberries)
Is it big, with plenty of fangs, the size of twenty six Minecraft blocks stacked on each other? It’s small time. Do not worry. Its power is probably spread so thinly across the body, you have nothing to worry about.
However, if the opposite is true: if it’s small, non-threatening, slow and maybe even mildly cute? Run. For. Your. Life. If it reaches you, you are dead. There is no amount of armor you can put between yourself and the little Cthulhu spawn. It will pierce it and then reach your meek, frightened heart.
Lesson: if it’s small or looks mildly cute, run. Just run.
Human Settlements Are Safe
Learned from: MMOs, RPGs and JRPGs.
Animals despise larger groups of humans banned together. Even if it’s a single house in the wilderness, it is likely warded 
against the monstrous horde of nature. Or maybe they are all secretly vampires and can’t enter a home without getting invited first. Whatever the case, even if you’ve just outran what amounts to a wildlife army that could take on Russia head-on, you will be safe as long as there’s a house with humans nearby. Consider this additional motivation to escape the wilderness if you ever get lost.
Lesson: if the animal kingdom ever rebels, all we need to do is not leave our homes.
You Can Loot Animals
Learned from: MMOs, RPGs and JRPGs.
Animals have no pockets or gear, but they have stuff. Often highly useful trinkets. A wolf could have a staff on his body. A bear could have a ring of fireballs. A bird could have a satchel. A cat could have gold. It doesn’t matter if it defies the laws of physics. Just search them… somehow. Sadly, none of the games I have played detail how exactly this “looting” happens. Whether I have to open them up, check their pockets or just wait for the divines to drop the object from the sky, I have only heard tales that it is possible.
Lesson: never ignore a fresh carrion.
Featured image courtesy of Paultron.
Big respect for the Secret of Mana pic.
Looooooool
Fuck secret of Mana!