Hope you're comfortable in your sexuality, Game Grumps and Grump-ettes,
'cause we're diving head first into Samus's balls!, "And I like Tacos" - Game Theory
Hello, Internet! Welcome to Game Theory,
the only gaming show not paid off by EA to tell you to play the Dead Space 3 demo.
The only propaganda you're gonna see here is promoting the gamification of education.
Speaking of shameless self-promotion, though, you know that last episode, the "announcement" video?
That had two hidden easter eggs in it, one that no one has found yet,
and you might be excited by what you find.
And here you thought it was three minutes of me rambling all higgledy-piggledy.
So it's an Easter egg hunt, and just in time for Ea...
...a week late for Easter.
Speaking of cramming small things into smaller things,
one of gaming's most enduring mysteries is how Samus can possibly contort herself
into something the size of her Morph Ball without getting crushed or broken in half.
There have been hundreds of theories online about Samus turning into plasma,
about her Chozo DNA, about it just being video game logic,
but here at Game Theory, ain't nobody got time for that!
I have the definitive answer right here, and you might be surprised to find
that the Morph Ball isn't nearly as impressive as Nintendo has led us to believe.
Let's start by taking a trip back to 1986 and the original Metroid to do some math.
Now, Nintendo has listed Nintendo's official height as 6'3'' tall.
Let me point out that the actual Power Suit around her doesn't seem to add too much additional height.
Maybe two inches, tops. So let's assume that Samus in suit is 6'5'', or about 2 meters.
Looking at her first appearance and breaking it down to the pixel level,
Samus is 32 pixels tall, meaning that each pixel is 77'' divided by 32, or 2.4''.
This allows us to figure out the height of the Morph Ball, which is 13 pixels tall.
13 times 2.4'' equals 31.2'', 2'7'' or about 0.8 meters.
And with that, let's stop right there.
With a diameter of 0.8 meters, that's practically 41% of her standing 2 m height.
You know who can fit into a ball that size? Practically anyone!
In fact, get out of your chair and crouch into a ball right now.
Seriously, I'll wait. And I'll laugh at you, because you look so dumb! Ho ho ho! Ohhhh, so dumb.
Hooooo. Oh, that was mean. I apologize.
Congratulations! You just transformed into a Morph Ball without fancy alien bird technology.
The Morph Ball may seem like an impossible power-up,
but doing the math shows just how unimpressive it actually is.
So in the original Metroid, the Morph Ball is kinda lame.
But what about the 3D games?
Well, in Metroid Prime, you get a very clear picture of exactly what happens when Samus transforms,
and the results are... underwhelming.
She assumes a modified squat position that's about 50% of her height.
So... picking up this power-up did... what, exactly?
Samus suddenly gained the power to somersault. Well, whoop-dey-freaking-doo.
I gained that ability in middle school. ...Hey, I was a late bloomer, okay?!
It's actually Super Metroid where the ball-to-body ratio is at its smallest.
Here, Samus is 48 pixels tall, making each pixel 1.6''.
The Morph Ball is now 16 pixels, making it 25.6'' in diameter, 2'1'' or 0.65 m.
Considering that the Morph Ball is perfectly round since, you know, it has to roll easily,
we can calculate its volume. The volume of a sphere equals 4/3πr³.
Yeah, you know you're doing some serious math when you start throwing in some Greek constants, biatch.
We gettin' all 10th grade geometry up in this hizzouse.
Man, I think that's the second episode in a row that I've used "hizzouse".
"...and for that, we need to bust out some neuroscience up in this hizzouse!"
- "What, what?" - "Is he seriously raising the roof for neuroscience?"
"And people call me the crazy one."
It's moments like that when I have to stop and question the choices I'm making with my life.
Plugging in half the height of the Morph Ball as the radius,
we can find that the space inside Samus' ball is a cramped 8,784''³, or 0.14 m³.
Even my girlishly limber figure can't squeeze into a space that tight.
So let's start with the most likely: Samus must be a contortionist, right?
Now, many people don't know this, but contortionists don't tend to be flexible in all directions.
Most are categorized as either "front benders" or "back benders",
depending on the direction their spine is most flexible.
Relatively few are able to bend both forwards and back...
...ohh, look at th... what are they DOING?!
What is... ohh, they're like the offspring of a bendy straw and a limp noodle!
Annnnnyway, this increases the odds that the Morph Ball is plausible,
since Samus would only need to be a front bender to use it,
as literally being able to put her head between her knees and kiss her butt goodbye is the only requirement.
So what are the odds that our sexy starfighter was born with this unusual flexibility?
Actually, it doesn't matter. While genetics may help, practically anyone can get to this level of compressibility
with dedicated training and aggressive stretching,
meaning that one day, you too may be able to sit on your own head!
Game Theory, giving you goals to aspire to. Achievement truly unlocked.
Back to Samus, though. Let's face it, when you're an orphaned child raised by alien bird spawn,
your best nights are probably spent alone in the corner stretching out the ol' hammies.
So what we need to know, then, is how tightly a contortionist can fold themselves up to be.
According to the Guinness Book of Records, the world's best contortionist is named Daniel Browning Smith,
a man able to cram his body into a box that's 13.5 inches by 16 inches by 19.5 inches.
To translate, that's about the size of two narrow briefcases.
It's also a volume of 4,212''³, 0.069 m³, or HALF of Super Metroid's Morph Ball.
Meaning that even with her Chozo DNA and superhuman spacesuit,
Samus can't come close to this guy and his spandex pants.
But not only is it relatively easy for Samus to fit inside her enormous hamster ball,
it's also completely unnecessary.
The whole point of the Morph Ball is to allow Samus access to places
that would be too narrow for her to reach otherwise.
Except that there's one problem...
the thing is freakin' huge!
It's larger than most other body positions she could use!
Doing something like, oh, I don't know, crawling around on her stomach
would allow her to reach many, MANY, more places that wouldn't fit her enormous Zorb Ball of a power-up.
But here is where video game history comes into play.
You see, the Morph Ball is the result of bad programming.
Back in the early days of the NES,
the programmers and designers couldn't handle animating Samus getting on her knees
and crawling on all fours to get through the nooks and crannies of alien planets,
so they chose something that was easier to animate and easier to code: turning Samus into a spinning yellow ball.
And thus, one of gaming's most ridiculous power-ups in gaming history was born.
But now that they can animate all of this, the Morph Ball is a relic of the past.
An ability that logically has no reason to exist, and only does so because of tradition.
Metroid, a game still managing to surprise us nearly three decades after it was first released.
But hey, that's just a theory. A Game Theory! Thanks for watching.
What? There's more after "It's just a theory"?
Well, I ran the numbers and it seems like you guys like these things, so let's keep it up.
If you want another video about people in spacesuits doing crazy things,
check out my Mass Effect 2 theory by clicking right here,
and watch me prove that Commander Shepard is actually a zombie,
a twist almost as good as the indoctrination theory
and a whole lot better than the tricolored disappointment that BioWare thought was passable.
And also has a zombie dog head, so that's pretty wild.
And hey, I'm not the only one doing videos on this channel.
Check out Gaijin Goombah's Okami trilogy.
Part 2 features a special guest appearance by a guy who's kind of a big deal in the Let's Play community:
chuggaaconroy. So that's nifty.
Then there's Ronnie. He, uh... does stuff too, I suppose.
So click on one. What else are you gonna be doing today? Homework?
Heh heh, I guarantee you'll learn more and have more fun by watching these videos.
And that's not a theory. It's... actually more of a hypothesis, really.
And who wants hypotheses?! So who's it gonna be? The choice is yours.
We're like Burger King: have it your way.