Wikipedia Race

At school, I was told of the greatest game I have heard of in a long time. It is aptly named: Wikipedia Race. This game si the greatest for playing with firends. If you ever feel like proving to somebody that you are betetr than them, play them in this game, and the better person will be decided.

"So, how does one play this 'Wikipedia race'?" you ask. Well, I say, it is quite simple. There are two versions of Wikipedia race. I will explain both below.

WIKIPEDIA RACE 1.1 (Original version)

You need at least two computers for this one, and two people, and both computers need to be linked to the internet at approximately the same speed. Ok, so, to start, all players need to visit the site:

http://www.wikipedia.org/

An, unless you are otherwise inclined, select English as the lanuage, and you're in to the arena! Now, one player can search through any Wikipedia page, and select one that he/she likes. A second player, now, must also select a page. Basically, from here, all players visit the page of the first person's selection. Then it is a race to get to the page that the second person ahd selected.

But there are a few limitations to your searching ability: You cannot use anything to search except for your mouse, and the links on the specific page that you are currently viewing. There is no using of Ctrl + F or any other cheating method. Hence, you must find a link you think is appropriote, and click on it. You also cannot use anything from the Internet Explorer toolbars, e.g., there is no 'Back' allowed, or 'Forward' or 'Favourites' etc. Basically, whoever gets to the target page first wins.

WIKIPEDIA RACE 2.7 (Jono's ultra mega version for those playing at home)

Basically, you do the same as above, but instead of play with anotehr person, you can simply record the time it takes you to do a certain two pages that you havn't done before, and challene somebody else to try and match your time. Once you have tried linking two pages, you are never allowed to try and link eiterh of those two pages again, because you become too familiar with them.

You can also play against eachother over MSN. But they key part of this version is being honest. No cheating. Below are some examples of pages I have sucsessfully linked on Wikipedia. Note: you have to find the pages first, to make sure they exist. All the following combinations are possible, and each took me between 1 and 5 minutes. I would lvoe to hear how anybody went trying some of these, or versing eachother!

• "Michael Schumacher" to "Bottled Water"
• "Marvel Comics" to "Desktop Computer"
• "Samurai" to "Dux"
• "Randy Newman" to "Concrete"

Have fun Wikipediaralising!