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« on: September 26, 2009, 09:49:57 PM »
It's about time we have someone pursuing a degree in education write about this educational title.
Education is one of my three areas of study in college, and since my certification will be in K-6, I figured I'd write a review of this so-called teaching tool for the NES, SNES, and PC. (I'm basing my review on the DOS version).
There have been educational games since the dawn of computing. It started with little math programs that were text-only and eventually evolved into the games we know and love (such as Oregon Trail and Number Munchers). While some of these games actually accomplished a few things (Math Blaster, for example, has a bunch of activities that are great for drill and skill) others do not. Mario Is Missing is a game that does next to nothing for the minds of children.
Many games make up their characters. A few use licensed properties in an attempt to woo children (and parents of children who know what their children like) towards a game that is supposed to promote learning. In fact, the title of this game sounds pretty promising to people who are looking to add something to their Mario library. Unfortunately, what they get is essentially a game that does too little in every area.
As Luigi, the player travels to different cities to get artifacts from (non-hostile) koopas. The player must then find a match for the artifact from a few destinations, read about it, and answer a few questions. Just like that, the artifact is gone and is never heard from again. There is no later recall of the fact and to see that particular artifact again the city must be re-played. I don't even believe this is possible without starting a new file. Add to that the fact that kids just want to see some action (aka beating Bowser and rescuing Mario) and you have no desire to learn these one-shot deals.
The Yoshi component does promote map-reading skills, and comprehension is obviously tested with the answering of questions. While both of these are important educational skills that meet state and national standards, the main focus of the game is learning new facts about historical geography. This is not accomplished well at all due to the lack of practice, application, and effective assessment. Also, the map reads "Former Soviet Republics", which should not have happened in 1992 or for that matter should not be that way in 2009. Yes, the world was going through a transition period after the breakup of the USSR, but having it written like that probably confused plenty of children in the day, especially after the game was a few years old and geography courses focused less on the USSR and more on recognizing the area as Russia and other countries.
The game also does not provide a differentiated learning experience (which is adapting for multiple ability levels). This can be set in many other educational titles but not in Mario Is Missing. A student who has difficulty reading will not be able to complete the game on their own. Likewise, students who are excellent readers will breeze through the paragraphs and either complete the game in record time or will miss important details about the content.
I personally feel this game would have been better as a straight-up reading game where difficulty of material adjusts over time to match student needs (or could be hand-set) and multiple reading skills (including vocabulary, inferencing, cause/effect, sequencing, context cues, figurative language use, etc) were emphasized over geography. Think of Super Solvers Midnight Rescue only with Mario characters. The Yoshi part would have been eliminated entirely and after an area had been cleared Luigi could have found fireballs to defeat the Pokey guarding the warp pipe. The koopas also should have attacked to make gameplay more enjoyable and interesting--the robots do that in Midnight Rescue and nobody complained about game-like elements there!
I find many Toolworks/Mindscape productions to be weak overall and think that if a company such as The Learning Company, Mecc, or Broderbund had gotten their hands on the Mario franchise that an effective game could have been made. There may have even been a companion math game, just as Midnight Rescue had the excellent OutNumbered alongside it (which does both drill and problem solving, explores just about every area in math including reading data, has a game component, and automatically differentiates the learning experience yet provides a manual adjustment option).
I'm not sure if we have any other folks in education out there, but if there are, please comment! The same goes for students and those who have played this game before. (This also provides proof that there are indeed teachers who aren't against video games).
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