6.) SimCity

Developer: Maxis Nintendo EAD, Babaroga. Publisher: Brderbund, Maxis, Nintendo, Electronic Arts and Superior Software/Acornsoft. Platforms: Far too many to list.

Sure, there's conflict in SimCity. Earthquakes, taxes, crimes, pollution, and dinosaur attacks. But it's naive to think that setting some residential area in the middle of nowhere, or even next to a nuclear power plant, would sprout a substantial population. Hell, I doubt planting some trees next to a house would eliminate the pollution or cover the stench of a nearby paper mill. In fact, if anything, it would just destroy the parkland, mutating animals and coloring clear water a shade of green.

What's even more naive is thinking that putting an amusement park in a section of land where there are no accessible roads would bring in revenue. Typically, generating cash from an establishment is based on people paying for its services, and just imagining that people would be so excited to get to an amusement park that they'd be willing to walk through a stranger's backyard is hard to fathom.

Also, towns from outside of your screen don't appear to have any affect on your economy, leaving you only to worry about your citizens who complains about "housing costs" even though you pretty much can't control the housing costs and plane crashes, whose human devastation has no affect on the disposition of your citizens. Your biggest concern is whether or not it landed on a skyscraper, which would be awful, or the slums, which can just bulldoze and make again. Screw the poor.

5.) Nintendogs

Developer:Nintendo EAD. Publisher: Nintendo. Platforms: Nintendo DS.

Teach a dog to catch, fetch, run, and jump. Nintendogs taught children that caring for a puppy entailed turning off a Nintendo Wii for eight hours every night and not having to worry about it massively pissing all over the floor. Nintendogs is everything you want from a dog and none of the bad, which is great, until you purchase your child a puppy, and it ends up running away when your daughter, Mary, allegedly tries to pause it.

Nintendogs also lacks the ability to put the dog to sleep. Their immortality being nothing but a falsehood perpetuated by the developers to secure a sense of undying affection. Sounds kick-ass, until you daughter, Mary, is wondering why Snookers isn't coming home after he attacked a mailman.

4.) Mind Your Language

Developer: Spiral-House. Publisher:V2 Play. Platforms: Nintendo DS.

Ideally, it'd work perfectly. Ideally, it'd teach you how to speak a number of foreign languages, including Japanese and French. Ideally, you'd play this for thirty minutes a day, and instead of memorizing flip cards, you play a video game. The problem, however, lies in that there's a difference between playing a video game and reading a Nintendo DS screen. And once you find out that the Nintendo DS screen isn't a whole lot different than reading a book, just harder to focus on, you'll be giving up. Unless it somehow teaches you Japanese by killing police in some odd hybrid of Grand Theft Auto and a text book, it'll probably be left using this one as a coaster.

3.) Miracle Piano Teaching System

Developer: The Software Toolworks. Publisher:The Software Toolworks. Platforms: NES, SNES, Mac, Commodore Amiga, Sega Genesis and PC.

Software Toolworks' Miracle Piano Teaching System consisted of a keyboard, cables to connect the keyboard to the console, power supply, and soft peddels. When the system was turned on, players would be allowed to play Robo Man, a game in which pressing the corresponding keys would not only compose a song, but create a bridge for the on-screen robot to pass over on. It would also allow you to play a duck-hunting game, where firing of a gun at ducks arranged a song.

Most of the teaching consist of playing games where you react to images on the screen, such as killing animals to teach a child to play "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." The problem lies when you're no longer responding to an image on a screen and suddenly you have to play without simultaneously hunting. Miracle Piano Teaching System ideal result would be to embed the basics of piano playing in order to set the groundwork of a fulfilling, enriching hobby. Its actual result was probably three bored kids, the only ones whose parents could afford $500 on the machine.

Software Toolworks conceived of The Miracle Piano Teaching System as a way to inspire the gift of music. But chances are if a child wants to play Super Mario Bros. he/she doesn't want to learn how to play the piano to do it.

2.) Captain Novolin

Developer: Sculptured Software. Publisher: Raya Systems. Platforms: Super Nintendo.

Captain Novolin was meant to instruct children on the horrors of diabetes and its prevention through the wonders of a side-scrolling platformer. However, playing Captain Novolin reveals something else completely: it's about a guy in his underwear fighting aliens who have disguised themselves as donuts. I don't know, at this point, whether it's supposed to be anti-donut or anti-alien. But one thing is for certain, it didn't so much teach me how to check my blood glucose level, as it did just inform to check it. That's like telling me to fly a plane without telling me how to fly a plane. Or to ride a monkey without actually knowing how to jab my fingers in its skull for grip without actually killing it.

Apparently monitoring my blood sugar levels has something to do with not having a box of sweets run me over. I'm sure teaching children about diabetes is a wonderful idea, but the only thing I learned is that when a donut is charging at you, you can beat it by jumping on top of it.

1.) Peace Maker

Publisher: Impact Games. Platforms: Mac, PC.

Peace Maker is meant to provide a look at both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It not only attempts to put the player into the situation, but to teach the player that nonviolent approaches to conflicts can ultimately be more rewarding. It instructs the leaders of tomorrow to understand differing viewpoints.

Of course, if video games were capable of this, it'd also be capable of teaching a generation to blow fire from its hand, to fly with a raccoon tail, and to teach children how to play the piano. It's a novel attempt, and nothing to be ashamed about, but I wouldn't expect the world to change, or a resolve of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because of it.

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