By Robert MacMillan
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Thursday, August 4, 2005; 9:45 AM

Being a columnist is a bit like sitting over the dunking booth. Sooner or later, someone will nail you.

That's what happened Wednesday after I described Michigan State University's videogame design curriculum as "most unusual." I should have visited the rest of the nation's college and university Web sites because, as it turns out, nearly everybody is doing something similar.

"That's a very nice story and everything, but at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, I have been enrolled in a Video Game Design and Development curriculum for the past two years," Jonathan Manafi wrote. "The program has been running at least that long, if not longer. You make it sound like Michigan State is the first to implement a program like this, yet no one gives the credit to a school that was one of the VERY first in the nation to provide this concentration to its students. ... Perhaps you should do a little more research before publishing an article like this."

It's a good thing we publish every business day! Thanks, Jonathan.

But wait, there's more.

Doug Larson directed me to the minor in game studies at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where the Department of Cognitive Science and Arts' "philosophy on gaming relates to designing better games." Makes sense to me. The program has an even loftier goal in mind: "Developing cutting-edge artificial intelligence for games, especially in the form of 'synthetic characters,' which are anticipated to someday pass the Turing Test."

So this is where the replicant revolution begins.

Eric Mankin brought to my attention a number of game-related programs at the University of Southern California. Among them is "Tactical Iraqi," a videogame designed to teach Arabic to troops before they ship out to Iraq.

The games put troops in real-life situations involving the use of Iraqi Arabic, and is designed to teach its users proper verbal and non-verbal cues to avoid offending their interlocutors.

In the press release accompanying the game, Marine Maj. Rodney Choi said he would use the game at the Expeditionary Warfare School at Quantico, noting that it is "a tool that might save lives."

Mankin saved me the trouble of rounding up USC's other video-game-oriented programs by furnishing me with an article he wrote for the school's Trojan Family Magazine.

The Virtual Worlds Gaming and Simulation Laboratory at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland is opening this fall, the school's Laura Massie told me. ("Hope you don't mind the reference to one of your competitors, the Wall Street Journal, in the attached story!" she wrote in her e-mail. What, me worry?)

The lab will bring in students from other disciplines, including electrical engineering, computer science, art, music and English, in order to design a "complete, fully-functioning computer game." I'm thinking "Grand Theft Auto: Shaker Heights."

Finally, Deborah Solomon brought me the local angle for D.C.-area readers: "Right here in Maryland, Montgomery College offers certificate and brand-new degree programs in videogame design and development." And MoCo College isn't the only one. Check out the program at the University of Baltimore .

And, in order to avoid another dive in the drink: I'm sure that there are even more schools out there doing great work in the game design area. Thanks in advance to all of you I'm sure to hear from.

The United Nations usually makes technology headlines for its attempts to put the management of the Internet in the hands of multiple countries, but today I'm bringing it up to show off the "Food Force" game.

Food Force puts you in the position of organizing a World Food Program relief effort when disaster strikes the fictional Indian Ocean island of Sheylan. The game debuted in, of all places, Bologna, Italy, and is perfect for children with visions of conflict resolution models and global paradigm shifts in their heads.

As Blogcritics.org wrote back in May : "A number of the projects call for decision-making by the player. While the game maximizes this ability, the overall game play is linear and deterministic. This, of course, is inherent in the bureaucratic makeup of the WFP in particular, and the U.N. in general. The future farming mission embodies this, as the course of the next 10 years for a village in Sheylan is determined by you in an autocratic fashion."

That's a funny, if cheap, shot. At least somebody in the U.N. is trying something different to get tomorrow's adults thinking about these things. More amusing is the Blogcritics speculation on what could be the U.N.'s next games: "the U.N. Oil-for-Food program simulation or the much-touted first-person shooter, 'Peacekeeper.'"

Wired.com ran a piece today on the Christian Game Developers Conference in Portland, Ore., where developers "showed off new titles focusing on morality and stories from the Old and New Testaments aimed at pre-kindergarten to young adults."

Among them is "Timothy and Titus," developed by Australian firm White Knight Games, in which players spread the Gospel throughout the Mediterranean during the age of Rome.

"Instead of the health and weapons points used in other role-playing games, players collect love, hope and faith points to power their missions. When they meet foes, instead of fragging them as in Halo 2, the disciples earn their halos by praying for them or using the 'finger of God' to convert them," Wired.com reported.

It's an interesting premise, but I'll probably stick to "The Simpsons" for religious instruction, same as I've always done.

The Wall Street Journal reported today that online customer reviews might not always feature the bad with the good:

"Peter Brig wanted to warn others about the problem he had with the computer storage discs he purchased from Newegg.com. But when he tried to post a product review on Newegg's Web site, the company rejected his submission. Twice. ... Frustrated, Mr. Brig voiced his dissatisfaction with Newegg's review process on ResellerRatings.com, where customers provide feedback on online retailers. Within days of his posting, a Newegg representative contacted Mr. Brig by telephone, apologized and offered him a full refund for his purchase. ... While Mr. Brig was glad to receive the refund and continues to shop on Newegg, he says: 'I still don't know if I truly trust their review process.'"

Sites that offer customer reviews have to work hard to make sure they are not freely posting abusive comments, but in some cases legitimate negative reviews were scotched because they were, well, negative.

"Overstock.com Inc. recently overhauled its review policy. The Web retailer had been relying on its merchandising group -- the employees responsible for deciding which products to sell on the site -- to monitor reviews submitted by customers, but found that the group tended to approve only positive reviews. In January, the Salt Lake City-based company changed the monitoring responsibilities to its marketing team. The company now says it posts both positive and negative comments, as long as they are constructive," the Journal reported. "'We learned that customers won't trust the site if there are only positive reviews,' says Tad Martin, senior vice president of merchandising and operations at Overstock. He says the company also pulls products that receive overwhelmingly negative customer feedback."

U.S. Senate candidate Katherine Harris is blaming technology on her perceived image problem. The GOP congresswoman from Florida told syndicated radio host Sean Hannity that several newspapers doctored her images to distort her makeup, the AP reported .

Here's something she told the AP earlier this year: "It was like in a comic strip. They actually had blue eye shadow on front pages of newspapers and I haven't had blue eye shadow since Girl Scouts in seventh grade. Not only did I consider that there was a little bit of bias in the writing, but just the fact that they would even play with my photograph is beyond the pale."

Kenneth F. Irby, visual journalism group leader at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, told the wire service that "the development of digital photography in recent years has made it easier to manipulate photos. As a result, he said, newspapers have tightened their ethics policies prohibiting such practices and have fired people for making even minor changes in news images. That makes it unlikely that newspapers did what Harris is charging, he said."

I have news for Harris: Her photos might be fodder for the late-night talkshow hosts, but it's hardly the reason that Democrats want to sink her Senate plans. As the AP noted, Harris "became a hero to Republicans when she oversaw the disputed 2000 ballot count that gave George W. Bush a crucial 537-vote victory over Al Gore in Florida. She was elected to Congress in 2002 and reelected last year."

On an end note, anyone that sensitive over newspaper photos is going to get roasted alive 100 times before breakfast if she ever gets her Senate seat.

Send links and comments to robertDOTmacmillanATwashingtonpost.com.