Closer to Finish Draft (Mostly a basis for my analysis parargaphs)

I remember my first console: Playstation 2. I remember my first favorite game: Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus. I remember the first game that I ever played online with friends: Call of Duty: World at War. I also remember the first Xbox controller I broke from throwing it on the ground in rage. I was quickly lectured by my very angry father but I can wholeheartedly say that I have learned from my situation and never broken a controller since. Besides learning the value of a $60 controller, from all of my gaming experience I have learned so much from playing video games contrary to my father’s belief.

Games have taught me cognitive skills ever since I could hold a controller. I’ve learned about problem-solving, spatial awareness, and motivation more from playing games like Sly Cooper for an hour than playing baseball for a decade. I still learn new things from games now. It may seem like I’m just playing a game but after reflecting on the gameplay I had just experienced, games are much deeper than I perceive. Games like Assassin’s Creed have taught me about history and culture, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice has taught me about mental illness, and games like Minecraft have taught me about creativity. With the new advancements in the video game world, games should be as complex as their operating systems and most of the time, they are.

“Using sources from class, talk about what makes a game then transition into my game analyses.”

The game franchise that has since blown up continually teaches players about history and culture in a way that any high school history teacher cannot. Assassin’s Creed follows the Assassin Brotherhood as it evolves through different eras and locations. The first installment followed the third Crusade in Jerusalem, the second followed the Renaissance in Italy, the third followed the colonization of America, and so on and so on. The best thing about this franchise is the way it follows history and also creates their own history. This teaches the player about the history revolving around the setting of the game while also creating a quasi-fictional world and story to draw the player in. Kurt Squire quotes a fellow writer Loewen in his book, Video Games and Learning: Teaching and Participatory Culture in the Digital Age, “Loewen begins his book “Lies My Teacher Told Me with ‘High school students hate history. When they list their favorite subjects, history invariably comes in last….Bor-r-ring is the adjective they commonly apply to it’(p.12)” (111). History lessons need a reboot and I can entirely relate with these surveyed children.

History has always helped put into a good mid-school nap. But once I came across the wonders of Assassin’s Creed II, I fell into a historical hole regarding Leonardo Da Vinci. Your source of technological and weapon advancements in the game revolves around Leonardo Da Vinci. Ask any person about Good ol’ Leo and they’ll immediately respond with something about his paintings. Leo’s character in AC2 doesn’t even reference his paintings because, what many people do not know about him is that he was also a master inventor. Leo actually sketched what is believed to be the first helicopter, he invented the parachute, and he invented the giant crossbow. All of this learning was inspired from my first mission where I meet Leo and he crafts my hidden assassin blade, something a boring, hour-long history lecture couldn’t have done for me.

Kurt Squire also writes about using Civilization 3 as a teaching outlet for kids. He found the children learned about the resources or certain advances of the respective regions in Civ3 without knowing it and then Squire and the teachers capitalized on those lessons by furthering their new-found knowledge. One kid said, “Location is important. Playing in America was easier”. To which Squire explained the player acknowledged the importance of scientific discovery  and how America’s role in scientific discoveries helped their play in the game. Other players liked playing in Egypt because of their surplus of gold where the teachers then taught the players about the importance of the Nile River and the Egyptian and their reliance on gold. When reflecting on his tests, Squire explains, “We tried many teaching approaches, but found the most success when teaching and learning activities were in direct response to game play challenges” (138). So when these teachers combined a lesson with the game, it helped solidify all of the information those children learned through playing this video game.