As a child of the 80’s, if I had a pocketful of quarters my video game of choice was the landmark perennial favorite among most arcade dwellers of the time – Pac Man. The only downside I saw from thumbing hundreds of dollars into the coin slot of the game was that if I was ever attacked by a moose the only way I could apply what I learned through Pac Man to defend myself would be to bounce random pieces of fruit at it, pray it started blinking blue then eat it or as a last resort make it rain with $1 bills and hope the moose took its top off.
25 years later though, the videos games our children are wasting countless hours on are actually preparing them for the real life possibility of wild animal attack.
When a Norwegian boy and his sister were attacked by a moose last week, the boy yelled at and taunted the moose away from his sister then pretended to be dead (no word on how he impersonated Michael Richards’ career). After a minute the moose became disinterested and left the boy alone. Where would a child learn such an effective survival skill? "It’s just like you learn in level 30 in World of Warcraft." the boy said after the incident.
There you have it parents, not only will video games make your child smarter but they’ll also give them the necessary skills to fend off a glorified elk in the wild. Hooray, Video games!
There’s been no word yet from the makers of WoW about which applicable survival tips can be gleaned from the first 29 levels of the game. To capitalize on the media attention WoW is getting from this story Nintendo has considered changing the tagline of its popular Wii game console to, “Wii Would Like To Survive a Moose Attack.”
Though no arrests have been made in conjunction with this attack, Bullwinkle J. Moose is considered a moose of interest and is being held for questioning. His lawyer, Rocket J. Squirrel Esq., has said “My client denies these charges and will continue to assert his innocence in this matter.”
