Expectancy

Just a quick note which I suddenly thought of about expectancy of games. As playing through the examples of the 'serious' games, I realise I expect a certain kind of results, experiences from playing the games. In McVideogame, since this game is more or less a typical flash game, I find that I expect little from the gameplay and depth. But yet I'm kinda satisfied with the amount of choices you can make and how it would affect the overall gameplay. But for games like food-force, with a large file size and good audio and graphics, I expected much more. Yet there was great disappointment as seen in my previous post.

Same goes for racing academy, which was a total disappointment. The game was all about choosing the right engine and tire to race. The race itself was bland and uninspiring. And I learn absolutely nothing about real car racing physics. I could have gotten a better lesson from the Grand Turismo series!

SodaRacing was abit of a novelty, but being a non-physics person it doesn't appeal to me and it's more or less a simulation rather than a game.

Overall I find myself playing games expecting for a certain result, and when it failed to deliver, it fail to either educate me or entertain me. The verdict? It really takes lots of creativity and fine balance to create a game that entertain and educates.

So far, I find the only game that fulfilled my expectancy was the Carmen Sandiego series. With a healthy dose of geography and history, the game is highly educational in this aspect while not forgetting itself as a game. At that time of play, one would feel like being a time travelling detective. And I recall myself having to go read the atlas after playing the game! This is how educational games should be... not as a standalone educational software, but a tool that is part of a total learning package. Gooooo activity theory! :P