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Google Maps Meets Carmen Sandiego

Posted by Zonk on from the they-go-from-nashville-to-norway-down-there-to-zimbabwe dept.

Craig Miller writes "What better way to end the weekend than by playing a game of Brewster Jennings Protects America? This new game is a Google Maps mashup with the classic 'Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego' style of game. Run around the world trying to stop a terrorist from carrying an attack. Pretty amusing game and it shows what you can do with the Google Maps API and a little imagination." Despite the jingoistic title and concept it's a lot of fun, and quite challenging on hard.

8 of 241 comments (clear)

  1. World Dominance for Google by Open API by Transcendor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yet another example of perfect marketing by Google:
    1.make a more-than-average type of product, and establish it on the market.
    2.Make everyone use it.
    2.1Do that by quality
    2.2 by offering the best possible solution for someone who just wants to USE it
    2.3 by being the one who lets other people use it (by offering an API)
    TADA
    3. World Dominance
    I don't hate Google, but isn't it a bit a strange thing that "fair use" methods like "letting others use your product for both's advantage" leads to some kind of strange quasi-monopolism?
    is that something the Open-Source-Community has to worry about?


    Don't let the facts bite you. Get bitten here instead.

  2. Jingoistic? by Toasty981 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Jingoistic? So the desire to protect America is extremely nationalistic?

    Either that, or Zonk has no idea what the word means.

    1. Re:Jingoistic? by JahToasted · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I'm curious - what do you think was going on with Iraq for the last 15+ years? And what do you think Syria and Iran has been doing during that same time?

      Well the US support the Shah of Iran who was a corrupt dictator. The people of Iran revolted. So the US started supporting Saddam Hussein, another corrupt dictator, fight a brutal war against Iran. The US sold chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein and told him where to drop them. Since he wasn't really going anywhere in his bloody war against Iran Saddam made peace with Iran. So the US stopped supporting Saddam. Then Saddam invaded Kuwait, which the US used to get a foothold in Saudi Arabia. The US wisely didn't invade Iraq in the first Gulf War because the pentagon knew the casualties would be too high.

      Later, with absolutely no mandate from the UN or NATO, very few allies (with the exception of the UK), and no occupation plan, the US invaded Iraq.

      US plays dirty and it comes back to bite them in the ass. This seems to keep happening over and over again. You'd think you guys would learn a lesson...

  3. They did a poor job at teaching history. by CyricZ · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Such games never really taught history. Yes, they taught you dates and names, but nothing serious. They never were able to delve into the complex socio-political situations that caused or arose from historic events. They never taught how to discern tainted or biased historic information from legitimate reports.

    --
    Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
    1. Re:They did a poor job at teaching history. by utexaspunk · · Score: 2, Interesting

      IIRC, it was mostly a geography game, and we played it when we were in 4-5th grade. Getting 4th and 5th graders to know the locations of various countries, cities, and landmarks on a map is all they were striving for, and that they succeeded at that goal is quite an accomplishment in itself. It also succeeds at teaching kids how to use reference materials. The games came with almanacs and desk encyclopedias so that the player could look up the answers. I think that is quite often the case that knowing how to find an answer is a more important skill than knowing anything else. As information continues to become more and more readily accessible, what's the big deal if it's not all stored locally in the user's brain?

  4. Why in the hell by dknj · · Score: 2, Interesting

    would you submit your site to slashdot when you already know you can't handle a slashdotting? Seriously, he submitted the article then writes on his site "here comes the slashdotting, come back later".

    Just my $0.02

  5. For Cheaters by scienceguy55 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    To get a rediculous amount of time left, type the following into yor address bar
    javascript:void(min=99999999);
    . To submit as the high score, type:
    javascript:void(hi_score(true));
    .
  6. Re:Jingoism by minus_273 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "Jingoism might be things like shooting illegal immigrants trying to run across the border from Mexico, such as the Minutemen are accused of doing. Notice the difference."

    WTF I know slashdot has a leftist slant, but can you provide any links? how many illegals have been shot? any facts to back up that accusation?

    --
    The war with islam is a war on the beast
    The war on terror is a war for peace