Educational games?! Why would I want to play any of that kind of jazz?

Oh hey, see I’ve managed to post up at least one entry this month despite being piled under all of these assignments.

Some of you may or may not know, but I’m at university doing an Education course to become a teacher, so to that end we get sent out to schools to observe how things are done in the first year and get more practical experience in the years following. This year, I have discovered that many schools in Australia use, what looks to be an educational version of Second Life called “Quest Atlantis“…

Now, being one of Australia’s future teachers, you’d think I’d be more interested in that kind of jazz, but I’m not. I have absolutely no interest in talking about Quest Atlantis, however a thought did come to me while thinking about today’s educational games. There was this one game I remember playing long ago that I knew was an educational game but for some odd reason, I couldn’t stop playing it. It’s only recently after I thought about it for a little while do I remember the title of this game…

Operation Neptune

I used to play this game every chance I got, however I never owned it, this was a game that my cousin’s used to have on their ye olden PC back in the mid-90s. It’s a game that puts you in control of a submarine and feels very much like every other DOS based arcade game of the generation, though with math problems thrown in regularly. Instead of going into a long-winded explanation of the game, here’s a video of the introduction and first parts of the game.

I gotta say, watching it in action again, it still seems as badass as I remember it being. Though I remember in later stages you got to the really deep-sea areas where everything was dark and gloomy and you’d have to go up again anglerfish and electric eels which would one hit kill you. This wasn’t just some tame math game that wanted you to do math, it challenged you in many other ways too which made it fun to play. I almost feel like trying to find this game on the net and playing it again just to see how far I can get… or to actually finish it this time.

When thinking about this game and the way it got me hooked, I wonder what the state of educational games is like in today’s generation… are there any real gems out there like Operation Neptune or have they all become as lame as what Quest Atlantis looked like? It’s kind of a strange thought to be had though, especially after all of these blog entries treating video games as simply another form of entertainment.