Scribblenauts

For main course today: a study of which animals defeat which in the Nintendo DS game "Scribblenauts", and whether this is at all an accurate reflection of reality.

So for those of you unfamiliar with this exciting game, Scribblenauts features challenges in which you type in any noun, to obtain items, which solve puzzles. For example, if the puzzle involves an unhappy classroom teacher, you might obtain an apple, by simply typing in the word "apple". If the apple makes the teacher happy, you win that particular puzzle. Most puzzles are of a higher level of complexity however, for example, retrieving a sunken bus from the bottom of a lake, or transporting a beached whale back into the ocean.

(As a spoiler: for this last puzzle involving the beached whale, I climbed atop the whale, armed myself with a "jet pack", held on to a "lemon", and simply flew the whale back into the ocean, holding said whale between my thighs.)

However, the true fun in this game involves not working through challenges in the conventional manner, rather, much enjoyment can be had in the menu screen before the game even starts! I'll show you what I mean.

Type in "bear", then type in "hyena". The bear and hyena will fight, the bear will triumph, the hyena will collapse and disappear in a puff of smoke, and if you're not quick to get rid of the bear, the bear will kill you too.

Type in "bear", then type in "bear" again. Whichever bear appears first vanquishes the other bear.

Type in "bear" then type in "shark". Bears and sharks are equally matched, with the results of 4 fights ending in 2-all. Despite the fact that the battle takes place on land. This should clue you in to the fact that Scribblenauts doesn't always accurately reflect real-life situations. (If the whole holding-a-whale-between-your-thighs thing didn't already give away the game.)

Other results (thanks to my sexy research assistant David who used his DS to simulate these matches):

• Lion v Leopard = Leopard wins
• Lion v Bear = Bear wins
• Tiger v Leopard = Tiger wins
• Bear v Medusa = a very long, drawn-out battle, involving the Medusa repeatedly turning the bear into stone, before the bear managed to delivered the killing blow between attacks. Bear wins.
• Medusa v Mermaid = Medusa wins. Mermaids are generally non-combative creatures. However, if this were a competition on how to appear most attractive to a man, I'm sure Mermaid would have won, hands down.
• Mermaid v Shark = Shark wins, but needed a little persuading to start fighting in the first place. Perhaps the shark and mermaid just wanted to be friends.

This is one of two ways Scribblenauts is entertaining even before the game begins!

The other way, of course, is to do what you'd do in any other good video game: arm yourself with the most lethal weapon you can think of, and fire away!