Test Your US Geography Knowledge with Statetris

by Justin Glow on

I ran across this game over at our sister blog Download Squad — it’s called Statetris (States + Tetris = Statetris). It’s just like Tetris, only the colorful blocks that fall from the sky have been replaced with states. This is actually a bit harder than it looks, especially when the East Coast states like New Hampshire and Vermont and Rhode Island start to fall. Plus, the states don’t always fall facing the correct way. Sometimes you have to hit your keyboard’s up arrow to spin it around and make it fit, just like in real Tetris.

Good luck.

World Map Quiz Game

by Adrienne Wilson on

For those who like testing their geography skills on a regular basis, try this World Map quiz from GameDesign.jp. The goal is to place as many of the 20 countries given during each quiz countries on the very blank map within an allotted time. I’ll confess my score was horrible. (Here is where I try to justify why a travel blogger of all people did so badly on the quiz.) I’m blaming it on my eye sight for one. I knew the general area for all the places given during my own quiz, but couldn’t pick them fast enough. Some of them looked so tiny and I was afraid using the zoom in feature would suck up some of my time. For instance Croatia was one I missed along with Austria an numerous others. On the flipside I was able to place Rwanda, Chile, Dominican Republic, Estonia and Japan in the time allowed.

Thanks World Hum for bringing my attention to this and yes, I’m already addicted.

Travel with TalkMan for PSP

by Adrienne Wilson on

Here’s a cool little bit from the folks at Cool Hunting looking out for all their soccer pals globally who ran off to the World Cup games with few language skills other than their mother tongue. According to their quick write-up Sony PSP has recently released portable translation software where you’re led through the learning process by a blue cartoon bird named Max. Along with the software comes a microphone so that you can throw out some English and get the translation back in return.

This is pretty neat if you already own a Sony PSP and maybe even a reason to go out and get one now. I did a promotion with the equipment just last year and found that the regular video games (not to mention the many other features) would come in handy on a long flight abroad. As far as the TalkMan software is concerned, you can nab them in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish and Japanese in stores now.