"You have been captured by the militia..."

For today's lesson, we did game-based learning at NIE's Classroom of the Future. One of the games I played was called 'Darfur is Dying'. In this Flash-based computer game, players took on a role of a Darfur child who had to bring back water to his village. The challenge was not to get caught by the militias through running and hiding. It's basically a Pacman game. Pacman runs around trying not to get eaten by the Ghosts. Darfur kid darts around trying not to get kidnapped and abused. Some of my friends could be heard shouting and screaming while playing it as though they really got run over by the militia's evil evil jeep. I think that is where game-based learning is most powerful. It allows a person to be drawn into a world which he or she may never step into if not for the power of games. A good book or a movie also does the same thing but a game requires that you interact. A two-ways street where you participate and be a part of that world, even for just a few minutes. This I feel makes learning much more personal and intimate. If you wanted your students to learn what life is like in a war-stricken country, and you had to choose between a reading material, a video and a game, which would you pick?