Top 10 Real Life Lessons We’ve Learned From Video Games
Spending 50% of our day playing video games must be for a reason. Beyond the pure enjoyment we get from playing the greatest games of all time, there are the endless amount of lessons we learned from the games. Who could have thought that you could gain real life lessons from an 8-bit game. It happened though when we played games as diverse as Mario Brothers to Master Blaster. Looking back, games like these changed in more ways than just starting a video game website. They gave us lessons on how to live, and how to go about the world. In this list, we will go through these real life lessons that we’ve learned from video games. Whoever said you can learn life lessons from school and books was wrong, these next ten reasons will prove it.
10. Food can heal most serious injuries instantly.
Playing games like Gauntlet and Castlevania teaches us that a big piece of roasted chicken can heal all of our wounds, and isn’t this the truth? When we’re down and out in the real world, we go for the more taste-able foods available. We go for ice cream and chocolates. But the heroes of Castlevania and Gauntlet went right for the main course of a Thanksgiving dinner. How they ate a massive chicken in quick enough time to fend off bony skeletons and bloodlust Vikings is beyond us. Hyperbole aside though, we understand why food can give you energy. You need your nutrients and even need your happiness by having your mind taken away from what your doing into satisfying your tongue and digestive system. Video Games taught us this lesson in spades.
9. Much like you can’t go back on a screen, you can’t go back in life.
In our favorite side scrollers, once you make a choice, you’re stuck with it. In the worst case like Ghosts n’ Goblins, if you miss the key element to beat the game, you pretty much can’t beat the game. What has this taught us? That you make your own destiny and can’t change the past when its over. If you let a bully beat you up like in Double Dragon, you can’t go back and take it to him like you really wanted to without getting hit once. If you miss a Mushroom or Star in Mario 1, you can’t go back to the block and re-hit them to have them come out. You better know what you’re doing in the present because you can’t turn back time unless you’re in the world of Chrono Trigger. Seize the moment. This is the most important lesson we have learned from video games.
8. Just because you’re fighting someone with a friend on your side doesn’t mean that you won’t accidentally knock your friend out.
In real life there is no option in for 2 Player A and 2 Player B. You only have 2 Player A. When you go to battle with a friend, just know that you could hit him by accident when trying to knock down the bastard who’s been making fun of you for the past month, and if you accidentally hit your friend, don’t be surprised if he gets pissed at you and starts throwing fists at you. Then you’re in the situation where you are fighting your friend while the person or people you we’re originally supposed to be fighting are beating on both your asses while your beating on yourselves. There’s no punches that just go invisibly through your friend into your foe in real life. Stick with 2 Play A mode when it comes to learning a real life lesson from a video game.
7. Eat your vegetables and you’ll grow big and strong.
Vegetables are often promoted for health reasons. The education that we we’re provided in middle school never motivated us to eat vegetables though. Seeing a walking piece of broccoli smiling talking to other vegetables hardly stood as a motivating factor for eating them. Play any of the Mario’s though and you would eat your vegetables like they were a full chocolate cake given to you for free. Everyone wanted to be Mario. Everyone wanted to be Mario saving the princess and maybe getting some action from her after she was saved. This could only happen if Mario appeared strong and big and Mario could only appear like this if he ate the mushroom that would oddly come out of cinderblocks. So this taught us a valuable lesson, eat vegetables and we will get big an huge and get as many women as we want.
6. Always chase stars no matter where they lead you.
Even if your dreams can lead you into a ditch or losing your life, still follow them. Yet again we learn this valuable lesson from Mario when trying to become invisible. We see the much coveted golden star and chase after it even if it means falling in a ditch. It’s better to die trying than not try at all. Just think, if you can catch that star through all your effort and ignorance of the enormous pitfalls that may be in your way, you could be on your way to living an invincible life where your dreams have been fulfilled and are the crème of everyone else’s perception. Follow the star even if you have to start back at the beginning of the level, or in our case, life itself (presupposing eternal-reoccurrence of course).
5. If you’re stuck in life and don’t know what to do, simply attempt to use every single item in your possession.
As the title of this reason states, use everything in your possession when stuck in life, no matter how difficult the obstacle may seem. If none of them work, go back the way you came. You’ve clearly missed something. Collect as much items as you can that you missed trying to face the obstacle and go back to it. Again, use every single one at the obstacle. Who knows what will work? Maybe a mushroom you picked up will create a large bridge for you to cross over. Maybe the letter you found from your father was a metaphor finally understood when facing an seemingly insuperable foe. Whatever it is, any item may work in the most difficult situations.
4. If you eat a flower you’ll just end up spitting fire.
While flowers might have made Mario a superpower in the Mario series, it certainly wouldn’t be the same for a human being. Mario of course could spit fire and knock anyone out of his way except for hard shelled creatures. Us Mere non-plumper humans on the other hand suffer a different fate from eating random flowers. We tend to spit up something completely different; in our case the flower it’s self and some dry-heaving afterwards to make sure all the ostensible flower chemicals are out of our system. So while it may be misleading that because Mario spits fire when eating a flower, it is not if we can spit fire unless we consider puke to be fire. Either way, eat a flower, and something is coming out of your mouth.
3. If you get banished from your house or town, do something great, like saving the world, just to spite those bastards
In many of the classic RPGs the main characters would be banished from their home towns because of the magical powers that they had. The townsfolk thinking that all magic was evil would banish the young fellow from the town forever, until they had saved the world from chaos. If you get kicked out of your house or town, go out into the world and become a millionaire like Warren Buffet, or a well-known philanthropist featured on the front cover of every news media front page. Who will be laughing last then? Will it be the simple inhibited townsfolk, or the glorious celebrity that will be remembered for thousands of years?
2. With a little manual labor you’ll find gold coins in the most unlikely places.
Many of the life lessons we learn on this list are from the Mario saga and for good reason. It’s one of the greatest games of all time and reeks of humanity at every level. One thing we learned from Mario was that if you put in the time and energy, you might just find yourself some gold. It’s much simpler for Mario though, who has the skull of a jackhammer. He can just smash his head into bricks and outcomes goodies all for his own taking. For us mere mortals though, the case is more difficult. We have to take actual jackhammers and radar detectors to find gold in hidden places, then we have to dig those places using every ounce of energy like an oilman looking to find oil. Whatever the case, Mario was a plumber by day (manual labor) and was able to find gold at every other brick. If we put in a little effort and sweat, we might just be able to find gold like Mario, maybe not hidden in free floating blocks though.
1. If you are trying to get with a girl you like, just know that she is with a beast.
How many of us in our high school years fell for that beautiful but attainable girl just to see that she was with some big ass dude with a 90’s fade haircut? For us nerdy video gamers, this oaf represented Bowser or Gannon. She didn’t really want to be with them but their brute strength captured them and keeps them under control. It’s your duty though as the benevolent and altruistic hero to save her from the oaf with an IQ of 75. Sure they might be big and might be strong, but you have the imagination and intellectual ability of Einstein. In the end, she knows what she wants; the smaller hooded hero with the golden heart.
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thoughts?]
What are your top 10?
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