Mario Is Missing - An Educator's Review

[PghPens]

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).

[WarpRattler]

I think part of the problem with Mario is Missing! is that basically no one is interested in geography, least of all kids. Mario's Time Machine was about history, which isn't much better. Titles like many of the ones you mentioned (Math Blaster, Number Muncher) and, for younger players, Apogee's Math Rescue and Word Rescue, make their topic interesting by having actual gameplay built around the educational stuff. As an example, later levels of Number Muncher required quick timing and mental math ability at the same time, skills which would be very helpful in the future for students and for gamers.

Another example of a really good educational game where good gameplay enhanced learning rather than taking a back seat to it (or not being present at all) is Gizmos & Gadgets, which had you solving puzzles to collect parts to build different types of cars. These cars would be used in races against the game's bad guy, and the outcome would depend solely on whether or not you optimized your vehicle for the type of race it was going to be in.

The various incarnations of The Oregon Trail are pretty much just strategy games that happen to be useful for a teacher covering that part of manifest destiny in a history class, which is part of why they can be enjoyed by people outside of a school setting. SimCity could be considered helpful for education in a similar way, requiring players to manage finances and pay attention to what's going on in the city to succeed. Another example of games being intended for education but being playable outside of that purpose is the original JumpStart K-6 series. These were targeted at a certain grade level, but that labeling was somewhat arbitrary, as the games themselves varied from involving Professor Layton-style puzzle solving (but easier and mostly school-related) to being full-blown point-and-click adventures that happened to have some math involved.

(I'm majoring in English with intent to become a teacher, so...)

[PghPens]

The "secondary game" approach brings Carmen Sandiego to mind. Carmen Sandiego teaches geography but does so using repetition (at least in the older versions where there were only so many cities) and by including the "catch the crook" component where the player must issue a warrant by finding clues about the suspect himself/herself in addition to finding their hideout. It's also much faster paced and while it doesn't have the action component of Number Munchers or a Super Solvers game it does have enough "action" to keep kids interested.

SimCity actually works well as an economics lesson. Gizmos and Gadgets is another one of my favorites for all the reasons you specified.

Are you looking to teach secondary (6-12) English?

[WarpRattler]

High school-level (9-12). Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of games suitable for that grade level, so unless I do typing stuff in my classes, it's highly unlikely that I'll be able to use video games much for education. (If I do teach typing stuff at a high school level and can get permission, hello, Typing of the Dead!)