SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - 10 Best Games with Real Educational Value?

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Letum

Most of what I have learnt through games I have learnt because the game inspired me to learn, not because the game taught me.

However, most historical games teach you a lot of academic information. (I can name every radar set used on VIIC uboats in 1939-1945), but this kind of stuff isn't normally going to come in handy.

They also teach specific information/skills. (I know how to make a good convoy attack in a 1940s German submarine) but this kind of stuff isn't normally going to come in handy either.

What they don't often teach is the important stuff:
Key Skills (Math, English)
Culture (It's not like reading shakespeare)
Broad history (you might learn that Hitler used U-boats against America, but you wont learn about how the war started, what impact it had etc, etc.)
Work Related skills/trades (unless you are going to become a submarine captain)

test

Agreed, I definitely see these games as vehicles to spark interest. How many of us would have read Iron Coffins if it weren't for SH3?

In fact, I like that title better... Top 10 Games that Inspire Learning

Quote:

Originally Posted by aaronblood

The RR Tycoon series is the only game I've come across that includes financing, stock/bond issuance, margin calls, hostile buyouts, supply & demand ,debt management... It's really a pretty cool intro to business and economics.

Too bad Sid Meier had to go and redo it in a dumbed down fashion and trash that aspect of the game. I had such high hopes...

Is there a chance that a Railroad Tycoon 4 will be released?
I do mean a REAL Railroad Tycoon game, not that SM Railroads kind of stuff.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thniper

Is there a chance that a Railroad Tycoon 4 will be released?
I do mean a REAL Railroad Tycoon game, not that SM Railroads kind of stuff.

If they don't, somebody else will...

My wishlist for RR Tycoon 4 is:

Take everything you had in RR Tycoon 3 and just add:
1) the track building system from SM Railroads (the only thing they got close to right in that game)
2) the ability for the player to manually control the track switching
3) and if they want, go ahead and let the user crash trains into each other!

...aside from the above, RR Tycoon 3 was nearly the perfect all-round train game!

SM Railroads didn't even have cabooses? What were they thinkin? :nope:

Quote:

Originally Posted by aaronblood

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thniper

Is there a chance that a Railroad Tycoon 4 will be released?
I do mean a REAL Railroad Tycoon game, not that SM Railroads kind of stuff.

Yep! You're completely right.
The only thing I don't like about RT 3 is, that the tunneling and bridge-building function doesn't work well.
And, if you successfully placed your tracks sloping up a hill, suddenly a new building popped up near your new track confusing the slope again. :damn:

You don't know jack.
Most of the Sim series of games

Sid Meier's railroad game wasn't bad, it just was a completely different game than Tycoon. SMR was made to be fun -- even the introductory video made this pretty clear.

The one thing I really didn't like about SMR was the interface. It was really clunky to work with because you couldn't zoom out much, you were stuck with a severe isometric view, you couldn't lay double tracks automatically, I had a lot of difficultly being able to judge how much it was going to cost.

It's been awhile since I played it and I didn't play a lot of it because of the interface. It was a pretty game and it ran well, the I was having entirely too much trouble just trying to manage the build interface. Once I got the lines up and working properly, actually managing the train cargo was pretty easy. The cargo interface was smooth and pretty intuitive, and there were a few things I liked about it over the Tycoon series. It's not exactly a "baby simulator" in comparison to the Tycoon series, but I could believe people having an easier time learning to play SMR than Tycoon 3.

Oh, let's see.

Seven Cities of Gold is a pretty decent game for geography and supply managment in the 1500's. There's a lot of balance between exploration and income, and as far as I can remember, the rivers and mountain ranges were pretty darn close to actual conditions.

I mean, technically, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego stuff. For the very-young crowd these days.

Any game with zombies in it. It's important for children to know what to do in the event of a zombie outbreak.

I kind of feel the Infocom text series have a lot of utility. Learning to map and mark your route, some of the puzzles are *very* logical in nature, and others take some kind of deduction skill to solve. Plus they take quite a bit of expermentation and require abstract thinking due to the text interface. They really do have a lot of merit to them.