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Thread: Favorite Edutainment Games and What Makes Them Special

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    Smile Favorite Edutainment Games and What Makes Them Special

    Simple as that: what are your favorite educational entertainment titles, and what makes them so special to you?

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    Kirby (Level 13) Tanooki's Avatar
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    I guess the Oregon Trail. I remember first playing it in school. It plays like a game but teaches you of the routes people took to get to Oregon, the hardships, the history of the landmarks.

    I know it's not really 'educational' but at least I consider them as such and I'd rather vote for both Sim City and the original Civilization. SC taught how to handle a basic budget, basic economics, city development, planning, and how to handle a crisis situation too. Civilization taught the benefits of war and peace, development, expansion, budgets, resource allocation and distribution all under the hood of a big fat history lesson because each Civilzation had the basics of them displayed but it also gave a little history lesson summary of every tech from numbers and letters to space parts and nuclear power.

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    I always liked Meteor Multiplication on the TI99. It's like Asteroids, but instead of aiming at the meteors, you have to quickly type in the answer to the mutliplication problem presented.

    Oregon Trail was fun, too. Until I found out what dysentery was.

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    Cherry (Level 1) wizardofwor1975's Avatar
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    Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

    Games like the Oregon Trail and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego taught kids history, geography, problem solving, and critical thinking skills all under the guise of being a computer game.

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    Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? This game was like a fun Geography lesson.

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    Number Munchers and Word Munchers, both were some of my first video games back when we first got a single Mac for each classroom in 1st grade.

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    Sam and Max Hit the Road because I learned about John Muir.

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    Quote Originally Posted by wizardofwor1975 View Post
    Games like the Oregon Trail and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego taught kids history, geography, problem solving, and critical thinking skills all under the guise of being a computer game.
    Oregon Trail taught me how to kill a large quantity of wild animals and leave most of the meat in the woods to rot.

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    Quote Originally Posted by bb_hood View Post
    Oregon Trail taught me how to kill a large quantity of wild animals and leave most of the meat in the woods to rot.
    Glad to hear Oregon Trail helped you hone your video game marksmanship. BTW, thanks again on your NES TMNT walkthrough. I finally beat it with your help.

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    Quote Originally Posted by wizardofwor1975 View Post
    BTW, thanks again on your NES TMNT walkthrough. I finally beat it with your help.
    Welcome!

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    Quote Originally Posted by Gameguy View Post
    Sam and Max Hit the Road because I learned about John Muir.
    I had to reply to +1 this. I found it really funny when the giant letters appeared which spelt out E-D-U-T-A-I-N-M-EN-T on the screen during that part.

    Quote Originally Posted by bb_hood View Post
    Oregon Trail taught me how to kill a large quantity of wild animals and leave most of the meat in the woods to rot.
    See how accurate the game was? It realistically portrayed how you too could behave like the commercial bulk fur trappers of the day.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Nz17 View Post
    See how accurate the game was? It realistically portrayed how you too could behave like the commercial bulk fur trappers of the day.
    It was silly because you could kill many animals hunting and the game would say like "you killed 1,000 lbs of food but you could only carry 80 lbs back to the wagon". Like, thats sooo wasteful. Just back up the friggin truck and load in that meat.

    Also with Oregon Trail I would always get far in the game then lose everything trying to cross some river. Hmmm, 5$ to use the ferry? No thanks, Ill just wade across instead and save the money. Then you end up losing all your oxen, your wife and both kids..

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    Quote Originally Posted by bb_hood View Post
    It was silly because you could kill many animals hunting and the game would say like "you killed 1,000 lbs of food but you could only carry 80 lbs back to the wagon". Like, thats sooo wasteful. Just back up the friggin truck and load in that meat.
    I understand, but those covered wagons had wooden wheels and axles, so they could only support so much weight - far less than metal components could - not to mention whatever the pulling capacity of your ox(en) might be is limited. After all, the game was considering the weight of the wagon itself, plus your weight, plus the weight of your family members, plus the weight of all of the rest of your possessions and supplies.

    Quote Originally Posted by bb_hood View Post
    Also with Oregon Trail I would always get far in the game then lose everything trying to cross some river. Hmmm, 5$ to use the ferry? No thanks, Ill just wade across instead and save the money. Then you end up losing all your oxen, your wife and both kids..
    Yeah, I know what you mean. Whenever I was playing the game, I would try to stretch my resources and end up losing big time by choosing to ford the river. Then again, many times I didn't have the money to ford the river - I'd be rich in other supplies, but not have enough money left. Other times, I didn't want to wait however many days it would take the ferry to return or cross the river as my supplies were dwindling and we'd go without food if we waited, or someone was sick or feverish, so we couldn't afford to wait until we reached the next town with a doctor.

    But think of it this way: with your oxen, wife, and children dead and gone, you have so much more room in your wagon for all that wild game's meat! Go get killing those rabbits, squirrels, and bison!

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    I was a big fan of Carmen Sandiego when I first got it on the Tandy Coco 3. I would play it over and over again. A lot of fun and I now know the capital of Iceland (and how to properly pronounce it)

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    Can't say I've ever found any educational game fun. Closest thing would be those Brain Age games on the DS. Or Typing Of The Dead on Dreamcast. That shit actually improved my typing skills for awhile(never owned a PC in my life).

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    Ehh Oregon Trail I think is fairly hard to hate because it doesn't even feel educational unless you actually bother to read the historical notes at each stop. You have commerce, travel, hunting, random death and disease, floods, animal illness/death and more. It's so random it does keep itself interesting and you can take multiple paths.

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    This may seem odd and off pace from the rest of the posts but I think Typing of the Dead on the Sega Dreamcast. Not only did I learn to type playing that game, I learned to type pretty darn fast! So even though not an educational game I did develop a valuable skill from playing it.

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    Yago, Typing of the Dead is excellent. It is so much fun, and a great motivator to learn to type faster! Too bad the Western world never got SEGA's Typing Space Harrier, which is another excellent entry in SEGA's Typing series. However, we did get Typing of the Dead: Overkill. Personally, I don't like the game upon which it is based, but if you don't mind the content in House of the Dead: Overkill, Typing of the Dead: Overkill is another game worth your consideration. (And yes, it also has words appearing which are funny based on what's happening on screen.)

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    I like all of the above games in their own way. But I have to throw this one out there.
    Zoombini's Logical Journey.

    There's a soft spot in my heart for that cheesy old edutainment game.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Atarileaf View Post
    I was a big fan of Carmen Sandiego when I first got it on the Tandy Coco 3. I would play it over and over again. A lot of fun and I now know the capital of Iceland (and how to properly pronounce it)
    Quoting myself here but I thought it was relevant as I scored a sealed copy of the original Carmen Sandiego for the Coco 3 on ebay a couple of days ago for $12.99 plus shipping. Awesome deal really.

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