Game Theory: Why Star Fox has NO LEGS, The REAL Reason!

[Music] [Applause] [Music] what is with all these songs about Oh [Music] hello Internet welcome to game theory the show that finds it odd that a game about dogfighting stars a fox and a bird and a frog so Star Fox that's the name we haven't heard around here in holy hamburgers three years man that's some og game theory right there look how choppy the intro is in my hair Wow guys we have come a long way now as you hardcore loyal theorists may remember from that episode we determined that the Star Fox team might be less a group of G diffusers and more a group of G losers I mean they can't even call their moves the right name but the reason I bring it up is this quote if this show at any budget I demonstrate the difference by hopping in a plane with an expert pilot probably including some comedic routine where I was made sick by the g-forces created instead you get some Mythbusters footage and a couple of still images now here we are three years later and with some funding from YouTube that dream of testing Star Fox in real life finally became a reality a reality check to be exact remember that SWAT team video we did about a month ago where we tested what it would be like to be in a real-life hostage rescue situation well if you missed it here's the link and this was the same idea only testing Star Fox's dogfighting rooms hopping into a real-life stunt plane and piloting it myself which was just insane and then experiencing the physics of extreme flight in person I'll also include a link at the end I am super proud of this video so I hope that you check it out I think you'll like it you know what else I'm proud of not throwing up cuz at the beginning of the day I definitely thought it was going to even even in the plane a little bit I was gonna toss some cookies but hey I made it out cameraman nah not so lucky anyway while I was flipping around analyzing the physics of aileron rolls and u-turns one thing that blew my mind was the various forces my body was undergoing besides making me scream like a girl doing those high-speed maneuvers had blood sloshing back for through my body rushing towards and away from my head over and over with every small adjustment of the control stick it sounds pretty gross now that I think about it but it also reminded me of one disturbing detail from the Star Fox franchise the characters metal legs seriously check out this issue of Nintendo Power from 1993 or this trophy from super smash brothers melee or the actual game box for starfox on the Super Nintendo metal legs every time falco slippy even dusty ol peppy all without their original legs well I guess in Pepe's case you would at least get a couple of lucky rabbit's feet out of the deal and with Falco you get like a chicken wing or something slippy you can eat frogs legs but now things have taken a dark turn and I've gotten way off track let's get to the point the point is this why why would Team starfox require all the pilots to amputate their legs is it a self-image thing a seriously misguided tribute to Jax from Mortal Kombat the ultimate foxy cosplay nope the internet seems to think it has something to do with performing high-speed aerial combat maneuvers but is that really the case what legless animals actually make the best aerial dogfight errs or Fox fighters I suppose well let's see if this theory has any legs to stand on in real life the true danger of dogfighting outside of you know another plane shooting at you is acceleration which produces extreme g-forces on the body the human or let's say anthropomorphic bird body is used to operating in a normal 1 g environment that's the equivalent of Earth's gravity and we've evolved to handle that pretty well but does anyone who's ever ridden a roller coaster can attest when you accelerate up or down side to side your body starts to experience variations of g-forces in fact there are three types of g-force as a pilot typically experiences GX Gy and GZ there is no fourth gene there is no g4 in more ways than one GX the force on the body from chest to back for instance when a plane quickly accelerates during takeoff you're pushed back into your seat that's an increase in GX forces gy forces go from shoulder to shoulder across your body when a plane rolls from side to side like in Star Fox is incorrectly named a barrel roll that's when they're going to feel the most in gy forces but it's G Z forces that are the most dangerous these are the ones that go from your head to your foot when a pilot pulls a plane out of a dive or loop positive G Z forces pull him down into a seat making him feel heavier and a lot shorter speaking from personal experience I got a lot of this in the plane when we were doing loops and it's these G Z forces that are a focus for today because they're the ones that put a pilot into the most danger you see contrary to the way Star Fox plays a lot of dogfighting happens not just in the forward and backward directions but in the vertical space as planes dive and swoop around each other to prevent other planes from targeting them all while trying to get behind the enemy and target him and that means huge changes in the G Z forces acting on the body the whole body which includes everything inside of it particularly the blood those high g-forces shove all the blood down to the legs and feet and it makes it hard for that blood to make its way back up to the pilots main to resources his eyes and his brain if the blood pools in their feet for too long the pilot will experience either temporary blindness or even loss of consciousness which as you can imagine is a bit dangerous when you're trying to fly a plane humans have created ways to combat this danger by creating G suits which are in essence tight-fitting pairs of pants that fit inside of a flight suit but these aren't your average hipster skinny jeans my friends these come equipped with balloons that inflate or deflate to regulate the amount of blood flowing away from the brain thing is though it doesn't look like fox mccloud and his team wear anything like this when they fly at best they're wearing a glorified spandex outfit a la Star Trek and at worse they're wearing what they're wearing in this promotional art for the regional SNES game who this artwork makes the team look a whole lot scarier than a staff animatronic oh I just can't get that game out of my hand look what you guys have done to me but what if there was another solution preventing blood from pooling in your legs and feet by getting rid of your legs and feet could it be that Star Fox's team amputates their own legs to combat the effects of GZ forces when they fly I mean logically it makes sense right because the legs make up so much of your body and because the arteries and veins in them are so long taking your legs out of the equation would literally have the distance the blood needs to travel to get back to your heart and that would seem to make it easier to keep that blood pumping up to old mr. brain so he can focus on the other mr. brain flying in front of him I don't know and Ross is a weird boss man but it's not just logic there are historical examples to meet douglas bader alexei marcia and colin hoppy Hodgkinson these three men were world war ii ace pilots in total between the three of them they flew over 100 missions earned over 20 awards shot down over 15 planes and walked out a total of 0 legs that's right all of them flew after having their legs amputated in fact Bader was so hardcore that when he was caught trying to escape a German prisoner of war camp and the guards took away his prosthetic legs he had someone airdrop him new legs so he can try and escape again ah makes call of duty missions look pretty pathetic by comparison right and on the official website of the Douglas Bader Foundation which was established in his name following his death in 1982 to help people cope with their limb loss it says that quote because he has no legs Bader could sustain greater g-forces without losing consciousness so it would seem like this theory is supported by everything except science kind of an important one right you see the body's ability to withstand g-forces relates back to blood pressure blood pressure is the force of the blood pushing against the walls of the body's arteries I'm sure you've gotten tested either with the cuff in the doctor's office or those machines and drugstores that squeeze your arm those things are like so much fun like the drugstore equivalent of a video game look at me press the button anyway it's a good measure for the amount of effort it takes to get blood through the body and as g-force increases the pressure necessary to pump blood from the heart to the brain multiplies at 1g you need one amount at two g's you need twice that amount at three G's triple and so on with the help of g-suits fighter pilots can handle up to eight or nine G's of force so that's what Fox is hoping is severed limbs will help them achieve the problem is though blood pressure is dictated by a few factors including the total amount of blood in your circulatory system and the resistance created by your veins and arteries when Star Fox loses a leg or two he's also losing all the blood in those legs so it's not like they're suddenly more blood in his system which means that's not increasing his overall blood pressure and while you might think that removing all the veins and arteries that came in the legs might make it easier for blood to flow through the body it doesn't the body is an incredible machine that could sense drastic changes in its systems and adjust its behavior accordingly we hear about it all the time people who lose their sight have their other senses cranked up to compensate in this case if a bunch of blood and veins go missing the body just knows to lessen the amount of blood produced to get blood pressure back to a normal level a few days after the amputations star fox is circulatory system would have rebalanced itself and his blood pressure would have returned back to normal and consider this even though there might be fewer veins and arteries the actual distance from star fox's heart to his head doesn't change you see blood leaves the heart and enters the lungs where it gains from there it goes back to the heart then gets sent through the body with one path going directly to the brain and the distance of that pathway isn't made any shorter by cutting off the legs which means that both the blood pressure and the distance the blood has to travel stay the same resulting in a legless starfox having little to no advantage when it comes to handling extreme g-forces myth busted wait sorry wrong show so it seems like the benefits of flying legless are actually non-existent so then why the metal legs well instead of looking at what the starfox crew is doing in the air let's instead look at a place where we would actually expect legs to do something useful on the ground it's not often that we get to see them outside their spaceships but there are a few pieces of cannon that we can call on here I direct your attention for a moment back to good ol starfox 64 we're in the multiplayer mode after earning a metal on venom and expert mode fox falco slippy and even battle peppy hair run around on foot all well toting around a personal rocket launcher at speeds one could only dream of running going toe to toe with jets and tanks yeah there was an on foot multiplayer in starfox 64 while we know from my tank episode that these things aren't the fastest vehicles out there we're looking at speeds of around 20 to 25 miles per hour which would definitely be considered superhuman or super Fox super bird whatever it's really fast but can robotic legs actually make you faster oh yeah actually case in point world-class runner oscar pistorius and olympian out of south africa who also happens to have no legs he was born without fibula which are the pair of bones that make up the lower half of your legs and so he had his legs amputated at 11 months to compensate for his condition he uses a pair of springy prosthetic legs they allow him to run using approximately the same body motions and mechanics as he would if he were a fully leg drun ER or as some have accused him better than a fully leg to runner you see as he was trying to qualify for the 2008 Beijing Olympics questions were raised as to whether pistorius's flex foot cheetah prosthetic leg adjust pool that's a tough one to say flex foot cheetah prosthetic leg attachments were giving him an unfair advantage a study was carried out in Germany and the scientists concluded that because the prosthetics were lighter than actual legs and absorbed much more impact from his foot Falls história swooz actually 25% more energy efficient than natural runners while the studies are still ongoing and seriously however it turns out it's an incredible athletic story even though he might not be an incredible guy if we apply the same principle to star fox we've just helped shed some light onto our Bionic animal conundrum but there's something even more basic at work here the ability to simply stand on two legs human feet have evolved enlarged heels in a wide ball of the foot in order to bear the amount of weight that comes with standing on two legs remember when standing on two legs the foot has to act as a balancing platform able to support the entire weight of the body slippy Fox Pepe none of these animals would be able to stand and walk on their two feet with their normal animal legs and that's kind of important since they need their other two legs to operate a plane steering mechanism hence the amputation so what this all seems to indicate then is that star Fox's mechanical legs actually have nothing to do with flying at all it has to do with the time they spend on the ground that's why you're so fast in Super Smash Brothers then again maybe the legs were just the result of some artists trying to figure out how to draw animal legs in a way that didn't look awkward nann that couldn't be it but hey that's just a theory a game theory thanks for watching and hey if you want to watch my episode of game theory reality check where I hop into a stunt plane to test out the moves of starfox with an actual fighter pilot click here to check it out and while you're at it if you missed it check out my first game theory on the star fox games it's one that's been buried in the archives for a while so if you want to revisit game theory from three years ago click here check it out sure it's an oldie but it's a goodie I mean even inspired one of our merch designs so it was a pretty influential episode so I'd ask you with the following go revisit some retro game theory go check out some super new super fancy reality check game theory and just enjoy a whole lot of Star Fox goodness now if you'll excuse me I need to go mentally prepare myself for four seriously I need as much time as possible to just get around the fact that there's a fourth one [Music] you

Channel: The Game Theorists

Views: 5,644,249

Rating: 4.908535 out of 5

Keywords: Star Fox (Video Game Series), Star Fox 64 (Video Game), Star Fox (Video Game), Star Fox: Assault (Video Game), Star Fox Adventures (Video Game), star fox wii u, Shooter Game (Media Genre), Star Fox 64

Id: F6Np3_ZLOH8

Length: 15min 19sec (919 seconds)

Published: Sun May 17 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/Zthordorus]

Alright so I see where he is coming from with this, but there is one character that kinda invalidates the entire last part of that video. Krystal, notice how she doesn't have robotic legs? Yet in Star Fox Assault she can do everything all the other characters can. Same in Star Fox Adventure(s?) she does the same stuff that Fox does (except dodging).

[u/InvaderDJ]

Eh, not sure on some part of his analysis. Biggest part being they're anthropomorphic animals with space ships. Who is even to say that the legs are just normal prosthetics? They could have pumps to pump blood back from the legs to the heart to help with G Forces. And he doesn't take into account that ships that can go into space and tanks with rocket boosters on them are likely going way faster and experience more G Forces than regular vehicles.

[u/[deleted]]

WHAT IS UP WITH ALL THE FEZES?

[u/nbikkasa]

I don't think MatPat's conclusion is correct(respectfully).

He focused on arterial perfusion but should have also considered venous pooling.

The legs veins are very large, and do not actively pump blood back to the heart, the muscles around them do that, in concert with venous valves that provide one way flow. In high +G maneuvers the leg veins over-fill with blood due to increased G force and that blood has an impeded return to the heart. A pilots leg muscle do work on the rudder, but it is not large muscle movement.

Therefore there will be less venous return in high G maneuvers, less blood for the heart to pump, and less perfusion of the brain. Thus a blackout.

Remove the legs, remove the pool, and reduce the risk of blackout.

Source: Doctor and Pilot and Gamer

[u/furluge]

Wow, the copyright issues you have been having with photos. I find it ridiculous. The very fact that you are doing a video with narration should be transformative enough. Otherwise ever single historical documentary would be a copyright morass with all the historical photos and videos being used.

[u/actualkarlis]

This is the first time I disagree to one of his videos, here is what I posted in the comment section on youtube: "Ok, I don't pay too much attention in my biology class, but from what I've learnt about the circulatory system I would like to argue that amputating your legs would actually give you an advantage to withstand fluctuating g forces. Because the distance the blood has to travel to the bottom of the body and back to the heart is smaller, the energy the heart has to use also becomes smaller, if this is true then in a situation where blood flow to the brain is counteracted by an external force the heart can then use the surplus of energy to direct more oxygenated blood to the brain faster and more easily." Anyone agree? Or am I alone on this?

[u/[deleted]]

I really really wanted to like this episode, it was the barrel roll episode that got me into game theory 3 years ago, but I just can't watch this video without feeling queasy and closing the tab.

[u/tim_0205]

Dug the quick fluffy the squirrel camo, haven't thought of illwillpress in a long time.

[u/[deleted]]

Hey isn't that one of the guys from Tested? The guy cosplaying as Spock?