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Force 21 - out now in the shops
Force21 - Out now in the shops
Issue 42 - August 26, 1999
 
Feature
Game of Life page 3 of 3

Going to School
The skills needed to survive a day at school can be very handy when transferred to a gaming environment. The stealth needed to avoid bullies and teachers or sneak up on victims (depending on your personal approach to other kids) can be used in games such as Quake and Thief - The Dark Project. Strategies to avoid doing homework employ the same sort of logic as puzzlers like Discworld and Broken Sword. Schoolyard rumbles are good for beat 'em ups and they at least teach the rules of sport, even if they don't encourage you to actually play them to win any more, which is handy for FIFA and Brian Lara Cricket. Queue jumping skills are also handy when caught in the pack in racing games.

If you go to a really modern school you may even get to practice using firearms, mind-altering substances, coercion, subversion and gang warfare, so you should be right at home playing Syndicate Wars.
Game enhancing points: 90%

Karting
Most towns have some form of karting track nearby. At one time, karting was all you needed to improve your driving game skills because games were just as simple. Nowadays you'll need to only play kart-sims or older arcade racers to gain any real benefit. A good wheeze in itself, but the advent of Gran Turismo heralded the death-knell for karting as anything more than a retro game improvement for the original Mario Kart.
Game enhancing points: 50%

Going to the Shops
Exchanging money for goods and services at first seems both tedious and expensive. Far from just being an unfortunately necessary way to provide food and shelter in order to keep on playing games, it can also provide you with invaluable gaming skills. In RPGs we're constantly expected to go into shops. An understanding of the interaction between shopkeeper and customer is essential when attempting to acquire new weapons and armour. A good working knowledge of terms like 'buy' and 'sell' is an essential thing in these games.

Also, depending on your approach to shopping, you may learn that vital skill for all RPGers, that of walking into a building, picking up what you fancy and walking out with it without anyone noticing or objecting.
Game enhancing points: 85%

As you can see, the real world can be more than just a smelly, noisy and tedious place to spend your life. If accessed carefully, you can even gain some experiences that can be beneficial to you as a gamer. Go ahead, open the front door. You might even like it out there.