Dinosaur Predators 

If you were a child who didn’t like dinosaurs, please raise your hand. Then, stop lying. Every kid who ever existed loved dinosaurs.

The folks at Alive Software probably had a keen sense of this when they made Dinosaur Predators, the second installment in their educational strategy game series. A turn-based strategy game driven by encyclopedic data is a tough sell. But the same game with dinosaurs? Sign me up! Read more »

The Lost Mind of Dr. Brain 

Quick, name the best edutainment game.

No, not The Oregon Trail again. Think harder.

The game you just thought about probably taught a single subject really, really well. Classics like Carmen Sandiego, Math Blaster, or even (god forbid) Mario’s Time Machine all focused on a single topic  – geography, math, history, etc. – and drove it into children’s skulls with the forcefulness of a car salesman, hoping they’d absorb even a glimmer about life in ancient Peru.

The Lost Mind of Dr. Brain is a little more ambitious if generalized in scope. It tackles the subject of brain functions, trying to expand players’ minds in comprehension, logic, spatial cognition, and linguistics. Not only does it work, it’s fun, and I had just as good of a time playing it as a twentysomething as I did as a hyperactive kid. Read more »

Wrath of the Gods 

The Muses in Greek mythology glorified the spirit of the arts and history through poetry and song. Not one could have predicted that several thousand years later, a grainy adventure game with stilted, public-access-quality acting would take up their mantle.

You have to hand it to Joel Skidmore and the small team at Luminaria: Wrath of the Gods is a fairly compelling attempt to cram the entirety of the Greek myths into a digestible, entertaining, and educational format. The game desperately needs a facelift and a tuneup, but in terms of raw effort, it’s hard to top. Read more »