Educational games

Games are even when we are talking about educational games in many variations. With very different learning objectives and different approaches.

Let's take a look at 3 games with more or less the same subject: war.

1. September 12th.
   
   
2. America's Army.
   
   
3. PeaceMaker. 

The next game is developed by game researchers. Play it and find out why they made it (with what learning objectives).

You need the Shockwave player to play the game.

Game as recruiting and training tool

America's Army is a tactical multiplayer first-person shooter owned by the United States Government and released as a global public relations initiative to help with U.S. Army recruitment.

Since 2002 it is available on the market for free (see details to download the game) and it is quite popular around the world. It is not only a shooter but you will also have to learn something in order to level up. As a player, you even need to join medical classes within the game. You need to collaborate with other players.

The army not only use this game as a recruitment tool but also as a training tool for their own soldiers.

PeaceMaker

PeaceMaker is a game inspired by real events in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As a player you are a leader and you have to bring peace to the region before your term in office ends.

You can play PeaceMaker from two points of view: you can play both the role of the Israeli Prime Minister or the Palestinian President.

The game has a simple but engaging gameplay and is using real news footage and images. It looks good and it gives you a clear understanding of the complexity of the situation. A demo can be downloaded or you can buy the extended version for 20 euros. It is available in three languages: Arabic, English and Hebrew.

If you want to see more, watch the game-play movie trailer (1 minute).