Tutorials common to the early days of PC gaming followed an expository model of learning that bordered on information overload, writes G. Christopher Williams at PopMatters. Williams was reminded of this when he played Hearts of Iron 3, a military/diplomacy simulation set in World War II. It gave a decidedly old-school tutorial, barraging him with instructions but at no point allowing any practice of them. Williams gave up in frustration.

Contrast that with the active learning model of many game tutorials, especially for console titles. Tutorial or early levels commonly take a player through the control and combo schemes, identifying them and then asking the player to repeat them in practice. But by itself, the same as exposition without practice, it too is not a perfect form of pedagogy, Williams says.

Active Learning: The Pedagogy of the Game Tutorial [PopMatters, Sept. 16, 2009.] I was reminded of the more traditional expository method of conveying information that game manuals used to provide gamers a few weeks ago when I tried booting up a copy of the World War II simulation, Hearts of Iron 3. Not only is Hearts of Iron 3 a game that is built in a retro style with pared down visuals of maps and charts rather than fancy battlefield graphics, but it depends on a retro style of tutorial. While an in-game tutorial exists for this political and military sim, the tutorial is presented as a series of lengthy texts overlaid over the user interface that explain how to build troops, a national economy, participate in diplomatic efforts, etc.

While my response to Hearts of Iron 3‘s pedantic approach might imply that us old fogeys should shut the hell up and join the rest of the world in the 21st century where games teach the player through the more effective pedagogy of active learning, one might consider that the value of active learning has been challenged as well. For example in a 2006 study, "Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching", Paul A. Kirschner reviewed the shortfalls of a number of efforts to put active learning to work in practical settings. While not all of Kirschner's criticisms of active learning may be applicable to video game tutorials, some of them are interesting in regards to the problems that some games have in providing only "minimal guidance" when actively training players.

[...] Which I suppose is my point, that I am neither opposed to exposition or active learning, nor am I sold on either one as a proper pedagogy for video games. Quite honestly, I want a good and reasonable amount of both in my game tutorials as they each have there use in learning a game. However, don't overwhelm me with a novel length description of play before letting me try out a few basics. Likewise, don't assume that I already know enough or that I have used all of the skills available in a game enough before letting me sink rather than swim into action.

Oh, and for the love of all that is good, allow me the option to skip it altogether if I really, really want to. Everybody knows that school sucks.- G. Christopher Williams

Weekend Reader is Kotaku's look at the critical thinking in, and of video games. It appears Saturdays at noon. Please take the time to read the full article cited before getting involved in the debate here.

Note that the board can only be used in the game's single-player mode. A case of Nintendo fearing the prospect of two people boxing on boards side-by-side?

Perhaps not.

A year ago, a Ubisoft producer who was showing me Shaun White Snowboarding for the Wii told me that the Balance Board's signals are interpreted by the Wii as two Wii remotes. If that's still the case, then a single player using Punch-Out with a Wii controller and board would already be using three slots — not enough slots for the other player to have the same controls set-up.

That will keep your household furniture a little bit more safe.

Punch-Out is out from Nintendo next week.

Of course we have certainly been promised games before that never materialized, but I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for this one. I've played a little bit of the Japanese version and was absolutely enthralled until I couldn't get any further due to my ignorance of the language. As soon as I can finish all this writing today you can bet I'll be diving into the US version and the prospect of a sequel leaves me dancing a mad jig.

Professor Layton Sequel Confirmed For U.S. [Game|Life]

1. Boring
2. Not super clear
3. Nor concise
4. Dull
5. Synonym of dull

But this No More Heroes manual is modeled after a comic book and looks to lack Wiimote sketches altogether. Why not take a risk on the manual? It's not like you are going to disappoint anyone if the idea's a miss. Of course, if it is fantastic, chances are that no one will notice then, either.

Marvelous! No More Heroes has a comic book manual [siliconera]

The bottom line is that we're all going to look a bit douchey while playing Rock Band. But some of us can pretend that our alter egos (which only come out at night, btw) are hard rocking maniacs. You see, we only have those Rock Band drums sitting around because they can hold a boatload of coke (which we're out of because we snort it the instant we get it, btw), and they are the next best thing to our motorcycles (currently in the shop, btw) for fornication. Hit the link for three different, fully authorized ways to properly hold sticks.

UPDATE: We're sorry, apparently we linked an idiotic site. Out apologies. Here's another link, per someone who knows what they're talking about. And so you know, our band director is most ashamed.

Wondering exactly how to drive your monster truck off a tropical cliff and do a flame-belching 1080 through a counter-gravitationally hovering ring? At the recent Europe Nintendo Event, they flashed this image on screen, detailing how to drive an Excite Truck.

Looks about exactly how we imagined it. We're not quite sure if "Turbo (Any Direction)" means that you can, in fact, invoke turbo to strafe Also, before you start writing posts entitled "EXCITE TRUCK RACIST" on your blogs, please be aware that the 'Blakguy' at the bottom right corner is another site's watermark and not, in fact, a horrific racial slur. Florian Eckhardt

Excite Truck Controls [GoNintendo]

I only read them when I'm writing a game review, and that's to make sure I didn't completely miss something. My habit of never reading instructions comes directly from my college day habits of obtaining almost all of my computer games from pirate sites. Half the time you couldn't get the full program let alone instructions, so I just fell out of the habit. Besides if I could figure out how to play Civilization without instructions I sure as hell don't need them for Halo or Frogger 3D.

So why include instructions at all? With some obvious exceptions, I think the need for instructions simply points to design flaws. It's like having to explain a punch line. If you have to, you're doing something wrong.

Cross-town rival and all-around great guy David Thomas's latest blog post touches on this too, though he seems more against the idea of those useless "Notes" pages in the back of the instructions. Brian Crecente

Read the Manual

Remember kiddies, when playing the Whack-A-Mole game, these are things to keep in mind:

• Ever play Pull-Out-A-Mole?
• Sticking your face over the hole, may startle the mole, causing it to jump out.
• Mmm... Beer.
• Make sure you kill all moles and bystanders

The real instructions of course are far more innocuous (Please don't put your hand in the hole. Don't put your face over the hole. Don't play while drunk. Don't swing the hammer wildly. ) Brian Ashcraft

Whack-A-Mole [Wiki]