Learn while you Game

[ElPolloDiabl]

Are there any games about that teach you things? Games like Police Quest or Civilization where you would learn a lot when you played.

[Lando]

Mavis Beacon teaches typing.

[save2600]

All the Maxis Sim games will teach you lots while "gaming". Theme Park as well. I'd venture to guess that any text adventure teaches you plenty (grammar, sentence structure, improves memory, stimulates imagination, etc.) and wish they were more popular with kids these days since their writing skills, speech and grammar are in the shit today.

Umm... also, gotta give props to the Edutainment titles out there for smaller children. Katies Farm and that sort of thing. Just gave away 5 titles for the Amiga in fact, to a buddy nearby that plans on having kids someday and is a big Commodore & Amiga fan  

[AJCopland]

Yep, my girlfriend is learning japanese using this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Japanese_Coach

[Cammy]

I learned a lot about the Amiga's Original Chipset capabilities by playing Lionheart, Mr. Nutz and Brian the Lion. And I learned a lot about ants by playing SimAnt.

[orb85750]

Where in the X is X series (of course)

[ChaosLord]

Total Chaos AGA subconciously teaches the player to be very good at doing multipart addition and subtraction in one's head.

The player always strives to kill the most enemy monsters in the quickest way possible.  This requires lots of additions or subtractions or divisions to take everything into account.

The more people want to win, the more math they start doing in their head without even noticing it.  They just want to WIN.  So they analyze more and more combinations of attacks and defenses to prosecute the perfect turn.

Good game for kids vs. grampa

[ElPolloDiabl]

I was a whizz in a school test where you compare numbers. The ability had come from playing Civilization where you are continually checking happy-unhappy ratios in your cites.

I do miss the Sierra text adventure. I don't agree it helped grammar, more likely spelling and vocabulary. Making them point and click took away the some of the fun you could have.

[motorollin]

I learned everything I know about ninjas from the Nth dimension by playing Zool.

--
moto

[runequester]

You can get a bit of an appreciation for squad level tactics by playing XCOM

Historyline 1914-18 has a lot of useful info on the first world war, if rather heavily abridged.

[tasmanian guy]

Good topic Cammy.
 
For me personally:
 
Harpoon - naval ships, aircraft, strategic tactics.
Falcon AT - flight simulation physics
Knights of the Sky - How flying was in World War 1
Wings - same as above
Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing - no  reason to explain that one.
Ports of Call - how to run (or not run) a shipping company
 
All of the above had some educational value, I do miss big manuals too (I loved the Falcon 4 manual about 600 pages).