Educational software is nothing new — the Apple II's success was practically founded on it, courtesy games such as The Oregon Trail. Even more entertainment-oriented programs have their beneficial side effects: an RPG indirectly teaches math (hit points), resource management (inventory), and reading (plot), for example. But whereas games are good at teaching skills, they're rarely as adept at teaching facts, such as history. Which came first, the dropping of the atomic bomb or the assassination of President Kennedy? Why did the United States wage the Vietnam War? What are the differences between Iran and Iraq?

A couple of parodies have recently surfaced that repurpose popular game franchises to teach the history of international politics. Although the Pokémon battle system has been spoofed many times before, this is the first I've seen it used not to mock a particular figure or event but to depict the history of a country's government — in this case, Australia's:

As an American, I understood the format but not the content of these battles. So I forwarded it to three Australian friends, one of whom informed me that "It's a potted history/parody of Australian politicians and political events since about the 1960s." Another posted it to his Facebook wall with the note, "I learnt something about our political history from this. The perfect presentation format for Gen Y."

The second video is a musical piece set to the soundtrack of Tetris and detailing the 20th century history of Russia. I've found it to be quite the earworm, to the point where I can even sing along with some of the lyrics. The first Tetris-inspired stanza of "The Complete History of the Soviet Union" makes it sound like another video game parody, but keep listening and it quickly transitions to a more historical focus.

If you find the video's maniacal protagonist distracting, you can ignore the video and buy the audio single off iTunes.

Tetris is renowned for its geometry and psychology; it's neat to see it being used in the humanities as well. But this history lesson isn't the first time Tetris has been used as the inspiration for a dramatic film. Tetris: The Movie anyone?

(Hat tip to Bob's House of Video Games and Epic Win FTW

Video games have been brought to life by many means, from Japanese game shows to college marching bands. Those are all pretty cool in their use of synchronization and stop-gap motion, but they're not terribly complex. What if you added some wheels and props? Chances are you'd get some incredibly cool neon downhill Tetris:

Ah, April Fool's… a day of delicious pranks, falsified rumors, and opportunities for corporate entities to demonstrate a sense of humor. Last year, Microsoft got in on the fun with phony Xbox peripherals. In blogging about that joke, I neglected to spotlight an even more impressive one.

Video games are proving an increasingly popular source for Hollywood scripts, with adaptations coming from Hitman, Max Payne, Street Fighter, and Prince of Persia. But what about the games we actually want to see turned into films? Last year, production company Rainfall Films together with IGN created this mock trailer for a movie based on the Legend of Zelda series:

The production quality is so high that many people were fooled. Only a few clues tipped off suspicious viewers, such as Link's lack of dialogue (true to the source material, admittedly!) and Ganon's cheap costume. Except for those, this trailer suggests (at least to me) that a faithful and high-quality movie of this series is possible.

This mockup goes well with another trailer. It's expected that franchises will evolve over time; this teaser demonstrates the Zelda series so by taking a giant step forward… into the future:

What other games would do well as movies and/or in futuristic settings? Maybe… Tetris?

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