10 best unintentionally educational games

Video games are often berated for the lack of educational content found in them. They’re often considered a waste of time. But, if you look closely, even games that aren’t slapped with the edutainment label or feature educational material can be teaching valuable skills to the people playing them.

Gamertell’s put together a brief list of some video games that weren’t created with the developers aiming to educate the masses, but can end up helping players build some valuable skills. With some, the educational value is pretty obvious, but with others you probably could spend hours playing without even realizing you’ve learned something from it.

1. Bookworm Adventures & Bookworm Adventures Volume 2 (PC): You have to create words from letter tiles in your possession to defeat opponents. As you get further into the game, more difficult letters tend to pop up. It boosts you vocabulary, and helps better your spelling skills, without you even knowing it.
2. Professor Layton and the Mysterious Village & Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box (DS): Both Professor Layton games get players thinking critically. They help boost math and reasoning skills, and also encourage creativity. Unless, of course, you visit a blog like Professor Layton and the Curious Village Walkthrough.
3. Scribblenauts (DS): Here’s another vocabulary booster. When you know the game is capable of recognizing, and creating, objects for over 20,000 words, it makes you want to plug in as many as you can to see if the game will recognize it and what kind of items the words will spawn.
4. Pokemon (DS): An unusual series you probably didn’t expect to see here. However, Pokemon is a great way to get kids reading without them realizing it, and also is a good way to help develop patience and reasoning skills. After all, players have to know the weaknesses and strengths of each kind of pokemon.
5. Wii Sports (Wii): Its a great way of developing good hand-eye coordination.
6. Line Rider (PC, DS, Wii): While many people probably just tinker around with Line Rider for fun, or to see the little sledder crash, it also can teach some physics lessons along the way.
7. Final Fantasy (NES, SNES, GBA, PC, PS1, PS2, DS, Wii, PS3, Xbox 360): Like Pokemon, it gets players reading. Plus, the language typically isn’t dumbed down in the games, so players could be building their vocabulary as well. Critical thinking and reasoning skills can also come into play when players need to figure out how to defeat tricky bosses or overcome the occasional challenging mission.
8. Half-Minute Hero (PSP): It’s a surprisingly good way to teach players about proper time management. While you can usually pay an in-game character to extend the 30 second deadline in each mission, you also have to figure in how to raise money to extend the deadline or reach that character in time.
9. Space Channel 5 & Space Channel 5 Part 2 (Dreamcast, PS2): It’s a great way to learn to accurately follow directions and boost memory skills. After all, you have to repeat the motions back exactly the way you heard them if you want to succeed.
10. Patapon & Patapon 2 (PSP): Both games help players learn to stick to and follow a rhythmic pattern and memorize patterns. If you don’t memorize the correct patterns and follow the beat, your Patapon warriors won’t do anything.

If you can think of any other games that could be unintentionally educational, let us know in the comments!

Read [The New York Times] Also Read [Gamertell]