… not to mention the fact that all power plants (except for wind power and hydroelectric plants) explode after 50 years. I am so not buying any property that’s right next to an old power plant!
Ah, and one more.
UT2K4 Demo-For some people, “defense” is just what keeps de dog in. However, nothing stalls an offensive like a well-placed counterattack. Also, a heavy tank can go Dukes of Hazzard and suffer nothing more than a loss of 50% or so of its armor.
Not a computer game as such, or even a real game as such, but Prisoner’s Dilemma and Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma have taught me the advantage of doing a good thing when no one can see, that other people do too, though a lot of the time they don’t. But that if other people CAN see, you damn well better look altruistic, or everyone gets screwed.
So glad someone mentioned PIRATES! To this day, I know the entire Carribean map…
St. Eustacious, St. Kitts, Trinidad, Nevis, Gibraltar, Curacao… best commodor-64 game ever… thank you Sid Meier!
Zork - Don’t wander off in the dark or you’ll get eaten by a Grue
Adventure - Evil smelling mud and royal honey bees are very useful when confronting a sleeping dragon
D.
I have learned an incredible amount from games, not just from the games themselves, but the interest they spark to research the elements further. The most interesting to me were:
Age of Empires (Kings, et al got me interested in the history of warfare and siege equipment. And trebuchets! Add ** Rise of Nations** to that list.
Civ III for a good Spenglerian scale world view of culture/civilzation as well as Connections-style links of technology/philosophy.
Rainbow Six series (Notably Rogue Spear) for modern weapons and tactics.
** Medieval Total War** for manuever warfare and tactical formations.
Call of Duty and Medal of Honor for a “feel” of what it “might” have been like. More so than Saving Private Ryan did.
Combat Mission series for tactics of modern weaponry
Age of Mythology resparked my interest in mythology, particularly Norse and Eygptian.
Sim City is a treasure trove of information about city infrastructure and urban planning
Railroad Tycoon for the history of Railroad expansion and it’s impact on the US.
and best of all:
Grim Fandango for teaching me about Las Dias de los Muertos, which has to be the coolest holiday ever if you include the “dead” to mean all our ancestors back to the first replicator.
Nethack: It’s a better idea to eat just about anything than to starve to death. Don’t eat your pet, however, or else everybody in the world will hate you until you die. Eating something that might kill you is sometimes an acceptable gamble.
GTA:VC: If it’s your ass that’s on the line, don’t trust anybody else.
You Don’t Know Jack: Countless trivia bits and bobs. A lot of the time I would deliberately give the wrong answer just to see how the game would react.
Countless Sierra Adventure Games: How to improvise. Also the natural superiority of having a command-line interface available instead of strictly depending on a mouse. A lot of the best games were from the brief period when the mouse was usable, but there was still the parser.
Return to Castle Wolfenstein: If you are going onto the battlefield, bring plenty of food – because eating a meal, cold or hot, will instantly heal bullet wounds.
Diablo II- Proved to me that there is no problem that can’t be solved with a really big effing Axe.
Unless the mayor has disasters turned off. In fact, I’m not living in a city the mayor of which has disasters turned on.
Myst - When you have the choice of saving one of two peole, but they’re both utterly despicable and undeserving of any help, the best course of action is the one thing they both tell you not to do.
NASCAR Racing - Race cars are really, really complicated.
Avenging Spirit - Sometimes you’re just plain screwed from the very beginning, and the best you can do is try to make the world a little better for those who have a chance.
King of Fighters - If you’re going to fight, fight for money. Don’t fight to prevent the catastrophe or uphold your honor or any of that junk, becuase you’ll never succeed, plus you don’t get any money.
Gran Turismo - Race cars are really, really, REEEEALLY complicated.
NFL Blitz - Having “no rules” means jack squat when the only illegal stuff you can actually do doesn’t help you in the slightest.
Derby Owner’s Club World Edition - Developing a world-class thoroughbred is 80% dumb luck and 20% exhausting years of work.
Beatmania IIDX - Yes, there really are that many subgenres. Yes, they’re all different.
Pirates! - It sucked to be a pirate captain. The overwhelming majority of them faced nothing but endless hardship, impossible challenges, unspeakable dangers, one crushing defeat after another, povery, misery, humiliation, failure, and hopelessness. The idea that piracy was a path to easy riches was nothing but a colossal scam. The crew had it pretty bad too, but at least they usually died quickly.