Hi all,
I would like everyone to post the "edutainment" type game that they think is the best. I am looking to buy some of these type of games but, I don't know which ones are good and which ones I should avoid.

Thank you,
friedmonky

Biscopia and Physicius

Is Physicius hard to find?

You can find Physicus at Babbages, or....

http://babbages.com

I think it ends up being called "GameStop" online.

I think Bioscopia is harder to find.

I just got it from CDaccess. They have Bioscopia too. Does anyone know where I can buy Chemicus?

Chemicus? What's that?

I don't think the English version of Chemicus has been released just yet.

Friedmonkey, Chemicus is along the same lines as Bioscopia and Physicus, only Chemistry. It's made by the same publisher, Tivola.

I got Bioscopia and Physicus from amazon.com.

Try this link for info on all these games, and the release date of Chemicus.
http://www.tivola.com

I also got the 'Peanuts' game (Where's the Blanket, Charlie Brown), 'Snow White and the Seven Hansels' (hilarious), 'Robinson Crusoe', & 'Masters of the Elements', as well as Bioscopia in the last 2 or 3 months.
Of course, you must realize they are *cough, cough* for my Grandson's Christmas.

I've read Crusader and Vikings are good edutainment games (I have both - not played yet). And I'm maybe one of oh say five people that like The Crystal Skull (but it was the first edutainment type game I ever played so I'll always have a soft spot in my gamers heart for it).

If you want a good idea of what edutainment games are out there - go over to JustAdventure and look at reviews written by Tom Houston. This type of game is his favorite and he's written reviews on a bunch of them.

I loaded up Pilgrim and IT looks like an edutainment game to ME. I promptly UNinstalled it. If anyone knows whether my first impressions were wrong....let me know. Looks to me like TOO much encyclopedia reading, etc. This might appeal to me if I didn't already have too much homework from classes at school, but geez......I just couldn't really call THAT a "game" right now.

Pilgrim is a good game - but it does have edutainment components. It also gets much better as you get deeper into the game. But it may not be for everyone.

I liked The Crystal Skull and just got a boxed copy from PGI.

I also liked Vikings and Crusader - but thought Vikings had a slight edge. Genesys is another game - that I thought was very good. There are two reviews at our review forum. Egypt 2 has components that make it educational - but it's more of a pure entertainment game.

I did recently (today) finish an edutainment game that was so much fun. Wrath of the Gods. It has every mythilogical figure you could want, but in a funny twisted history sort of way. Older game with FMV - looks very similar in quality and style to Return To Zork. Definitely has aged well. You can get it directly from the co-creator Joel Skidmore at this site or over the phone. Wrath of the Gods It is a little pricy at 39.00 - but is a real classic - fun little game and one that had vanished for a while. If you call to order with your CC - chat for a bit - he's a real nice guy. He als was the one who created the first bud bowl commercial animations and created Mythweb, Mesoweb and Cultures.

Laura

Hi.

I've played Pilgrim and Vikings - and liked both

And certainly with these two games, you don't have to bother with ALL of the "edutainment" if you don't want to <img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="cool.gif" />

I didn't

A lot depends on what you want to be educated about. 2 so called adventure games- SPQR and QIN have vast internal encyclopedias about the culture and history of Rome and China which are important in the solving of the puzzles you encounter in the games. These games also have beautiful graphics and large environments but no character interaction. I would classify them as edutainment games. Though they are older games, they weren't too popular and are very reasonably priced on ebay.

Paris 1313 was another that was quite enjoyable. I loved Crystal Skull, still one of my top fifteen, but I thought of it more as a humorous adventure than edutainment (but you can certainly make it more that way if you choose to read the provided history).

I liked Versailles (as I'd just visited the location) and Traitors Gate. The 'learning' aspects of some games, like Egypt, can get on my nerves, so I prefer those that weave the facts into the gameplay, rather than stunting it. GK III did that VERY well, so much so that I feel like I have visited the location, and read up on it's history. Great stuff.

Jonathan

Easy call for me. Two winners:

Connections -- based on the wonderful TV series

and

Crusader

The only time you have to use the encyclopedia in Pilgrim is on one puzzle. And if you already know about the 10 Commandments and the 10 Plagues of Egypt, etc. you don't even need to use it there.

For quite a while Pilgrim was my favorite edutainment game with Versailles 1685 my second favorite. Treasure Hunter was also very good (though I've only played the French version and my French is not fluent so I probably missed things). And I'm looking forward to Chemicus, which should be released soon (the website says September 2002).