You know that serious games are coming into their own when an edutainment title riffs off Japanese top-down shooters. 'Speare, a game that teaches literacy and the works of the Bard, is clearly designed by a teacher who loves him some Radiant Silvergun.
Sure, the gameplay isn't one-tenth as compelling as even the weakest of the real things, but when you get to play it in school, that's something else. The concept is interesting -- enemies drop health kits, which you have to shoot until they display either a homonym or a synonym of one of the words in the onscreen phrase. As you go along, you can scan information modules that have trivia about Shakespeare, and if you remember them all you can earn bonus points for ship upgrades. It's a surprisingly full-featured game.
The game's the thing [CBC News via Evil Avatar]
