For this month’s round table Corvus is talking about what we’ve learned from games. Obviously being a warrior/ space marine/ ladies man/ necromancer/ thief aren’t exactly things you can apply to real life easily… well maybe ladies man but real women aren’t as easy to read as virtual women. For this entry a long rant doesn’t really make sense(more so then normal anyway), so I’m going to discuss what games have inspired me or pique my interest in real life in bite sized short stories.
Back when I was still in elementary school, I loved playing the educational software games that were available. I have 2 games from The Learning Company ,and enjoyed logic puzzles which is why I also have The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis and The Island of Dr. Quandary.
Going back the first time a game ever influence me to do something would be Harvest Moon for the Snes. After playing the game I wanted to try growing something for real, and got tomato seeds and planted them in the wilderness otherwise known as the side of my house. My memory of that time is somewhat distorted thanks to reconstructive surgeries but if I remember right either they died or those damn squirrels had them for lunch. Either way a farmer’s life was not for me.
As gamers we’re always looking for a way to apply video games to schoolwork and back in elementary school I had a chance to do that. I remember having to pick an animal to write a small report about, and since I just finished playing Sonic and Knuckles you know what animal I picked. That’s right, Knuckles I mean he’s much cooler then Sonic right? Anyway did you guys know that an encidna (this is misspelled but spell check can’t seem to find the right spelling.) is a spiny anteater? I didn’t and it made a great report, I couldn’t mention though that they become glowing and super powered if they grab 50 golden rings and 7 colored emeralds.
Say what you will about American Megee’s recent games I still enjoyed Alice, a twisted look at the Lewis Carroll tales. After finishing the game I took out both stories from the library and read them to see if I could figure out how he got Alice from these stories. Unfortunately I still have no idea how he pieced the game together from the stories.Growing up I’ve always enjoyed Egyptian and Medieval architecture, and the two games that helped influenced me were Pharaoh and Stronghold (not counting the last couple of crappy sequels ).
My first experience with Sim City came in junior high, the science club were going to use sim city 2000 to build cities to show the effects of pollution or something. The important detail is that I scored a free copy of Sim city 2000 that I didn’t have to give back as I had to leave for my 2nd leg surgery, score one for me. The Sim City series has helped me with managing various factors, balancing funds, and organizing space
As I commented to Corvus on my look at Mythology, Shadow Man inspired me to do a paper on African mythology and the idea of voodoo , I wouldn’t say though that my love of Mythology came from video games, I got that from my tenth grade English course.
While this has nothing to do with education, from playing Rock Band/Guitar Hero I found out that I’m a Black Sabbath fan, I didn’t know that about myself but apparently I like the songs featured in the game.
Lastly just some general aspects I’ve picked up from years of gaming: Excellent hand-eye coordination, management skills,patience, determining risk/reward , an eye to detail and puzzle solving . I do know then when the zombie apocalypse gets here, I’ll be ready as I managed to get the zombie genocide achievement in Dead Rising, a good example of having patience as well.
Josh
