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Education Entertainment Games

National Geographic Getting Into Video Games 35

Posted by Soulskill from the turning-yellow-borders-into-fun-for-the-family dept.
penguin_dance writes "The AP is reporting that National Geographic is getting into video games. National Geographic Games, a subset of the parent company, will 'work with game publishers to turn its material into games for PCs, consoles and handheld devices.' The first title is out for the PC and iPhone. It's a hidden-objects game called Herod's Lost Tomb, and is built around their program on King Herod and an article in the magazine. They also plan to publish and distribute games for the console market, including PS3 and Wii, and the handheld market as well. 'The games will be drawn from a broad range of content and themes across National Geographic's properties.' National Geographic: Africa will be out next month, from Sony. Other upcoming titles include Rain Forests and Greencity. Also available this month will be National Geographic: Panda for the Nintendo DS."
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National Geographic Getting Into Video Games More

National Geographic Getting Into Video Games

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  • I've never seen an issue of National Geographic that was less than 15 years old. If they use Spore-like DRM and Wal-Mart runs the activation servers, no one will ever get to play it.

    Joey

    • Re:I hope they don't use DRM (Score:4, Insightful)

      by philspear ( 1142299 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2008 @09:29PM (#25811745)

      I can't remember the last time I saw something about videogames posted to slashdot in which DRM issues didn't become the focus. Here we have a game that is not released yet, and the first post is "Will it have DRM? Because that sucks. Spore and walmart suck because of DRM."

      Why always fixate on DRM? Do people here actually play games, or is trying to defeat DRM everyone's preferred entertainment?

      • First off, I was going for humor, not insight. One day I will inadvertently get a post modded "funny", but apparently not today.

        Second, I never said anything about Spore as a game. I have heard nothing but praise about the content of the game. My exact words were "Spore-like DRM"; Spore was used as an adjective describing the DRM. Wal-Mart got their DRM notoriety because they were a prime example of the inherent issue with DRM. Again, I had no intention of conveying Wal-Mart as a company nor anything outsi

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by corsec67 ( 627446 )

        Car analogy:

        Imagine there was a gas station selling a special "HP+" gas that made the car more fun to drive, but had a chance of ruining the engine, requiring a rebuild before the car would work again.

        You are saying "why worry about how often it ruins the engine, it gives a +100HP boost!"

        The GP is saying "will this gas break my engine like some of the other HP+ fuels out there?"

    • Sorry, I'm sure the games will be full of Digitally Rendered Mammaries.

  • Rated? (Score:4, Funny)

    by philspear ( 1142299 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2008 @09:07PM (#25811579)

    National Geographic games: rated Adults Only for scenes of intense animal violence and occasional photos of tribal women in traditonal garb showing their boobies.

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by Ethanol-fueled ( 1125189 ) *

      occasional photos of tribal women in traditonal garb showing their boobies.

      Not if they keep the camera above the belly button!

    • In this context, AO rating would be Antropologists Only(definitely no undergrads, grads and postdocs only if accompanied by thesis advisor or lab head).

      • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Why not rate it 'P' for 'Pompous'?

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Commander Doofus ( 776923 )

      occasional photos of tribal women in traditonal garb showing their boobies.

      Herod's Lost Tomb
      Copyright 2008 National Geographic Games. All rights reserved.

      West of house
      You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
      There is a tribal woman here.

      > Examine woman.
      The woman is clothed.

      > Examine boobies.
      I see no boobies here.

    • occasional photos of tribal women in traditonal garb showing their boobies.

      Please, I'm sure the game will be tastefully done and rated T for teens, as appropriate. To see boobies you need to apply the Hot Coffee [wikipedia.org] mod.

  • I heard Majestic Studios is looking for some work, AND they have an amazing graphics department. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo_of_the_Lost)
  • Well, at first I was like "WTH? This is gonna suck..." but after thinking about it and seeing a game based on Herod, I thought "Why not?". A lot of younger people are not familiar with many of the biggest figures of antiquity, a game could help tremendously improve that knowledge, even for people who DO know who Herod is, they can always learn more. I have a friend named Ramcees(not written Ramses) and really most of the time people react to his name, they think about the CONDOMS, not even the Pharaohs! Tha

  • Herod's Lost Tomb has been out on Game Socks and Big Fish Games since around last Thursday or so - for Windows and Mac - but unfortunately doesn't seem to be setting the world on fire. The bar is set pretty high when it comes to puzzle / hidden object games these days. And Herod's Lost Tomb is an untypically large download for a casual game (150 MB), which may deter some players.

  • stick to what you know (Score:3, Interesting)

    by lysergic.acid ( 845423 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2008 @11:22PM (#25812771) Homepage

    having looked at the screen shots for Herod's Lost Tomb, and having played History Channel's Great Battles of Rome, i have to say i'm not too impressed with these TV-based educational games. educational games are simply a bad idea in the first place. aside from Oregon Trail, i can't think of any other educational game that delivers on its promises of making learning fun.

    perhaps it would be different if National Geographic established their own internal development studio and actually invests in it by hiring good in-house developers. however, contracting outside developers to create IP-based games will inevitably result in bland and poorly developed shovelware--just like majority of licensed games.

    good games have to come from developers who are passionate about the title they're working on. this is much more likely to happen if the game is an original creation of the studio developing it since the developers are given creative input and are free to try out their own ideas. but with IP-based licensed games, developers are simply contracted to implement other people's ideas and are given very little creative control.

    at least with something like a comic-book character or famous franchise like Star Wars or Gundam it's still possible for the developers to get excited about their work. but how is any developer supposed to get excited about creating a game based off of a NatGeo TV special? it's such a blatant money grab. the games will no doubt be produced as budget titles aimed at little kids in kindergarten or 1st grade.

    • stick to what you know-Bashing reality. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Ostracus ( 1354233 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2008 @11:27PM (#25812819) Journal

      "having looked at the screen shots for Herod's Lost Tomb, and having played History Channel's Great Battles of Rome, i have to say i'm not too impressed with these TV-based educational games. educational games are simply a bad idea in the first place. aside from Oregon Trail, i can't think of any other educational game that delivers on its promises of making learning fun."

      What? You never played Rome:Total War? There's even a reality mod for the thing.

      • i've never heard of this game, but it looks pretty interesting based on what i gleaned from Wikipedia. however, i have to question how educational this game is. is it just a complex war sim/strategy game that's set in Ancient Rome, or does it have actual educational value to it (like follow actual historic events or relate cultural/technological information about the era)?

        also, Rome: Total War seems to be an original title developed independently by a "real" game developer who then lent it to BBC2 and Histo

  • There's already a bunch of discovery channel or whatever (some documentary channel at least, not sure they even show it here) games and they all suck. Multiplatform to all consoles, high price (60€ for a freaking Wii game, Nintendo has been going below that for quite some time now! If you complain about Nintnedo eating your sales maybe you should at least make sure you don't price higher than them!) and apparently very low quality.

    In fact picking "Africa" and "Panda" sounds like attempts to cash in on

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by crabbz ( 986605 )

      In fact picking "Africa" and "Panda" sounds like attempts to cash in on that PS3 Africa game and the recent Kung-Fu Panda movie.

      Actually, according to this article [developmag.com], it sounds like the Africa game IS the PS3 Afrika title.

  • Just Imagine... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Mastadex ( 576985 )

    ...a FPS game based on the National Geographic articles that depict the mating habits of gazelles. Edumacational!

    The ESRB people are going to have a field day.

  • Couldn't they possibly pick a better format than those borderline-idiotic "search the screen for tiny objects" games? It's like they watched people play adventure games and decided that since so many people spent so much time "hunting the pixel", that that was the bit players enjoyed.

  • I mean, gosh, I love NatGeo, have for many years, but I immediately think, “for kids”—which is funny, because these days I think of games as being for young adults/adults. They will do well in a niche market.
  • Anything to keep it interesting.

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