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Level upLately, I've been reading a lot more about game mechanics in media sites. They can be addictive, even with little else compelling to offer: I get very little out of FourSquare since almost none of my friends have accounts, and of even those few none actively use it.

But I still have compulsively checked in 84 times over 32 nights, earning badges like "Explorer," "Bender" and "Local." I'm not even that much of a collector personality, but I imagine this age will take much advantage of those poor souls.

But fly-by-night Web 2.0 services shouldn't be the only ones letting the games begin: As the Guardian has shown, game elements can be useful in encouraging your readers to help effectively dig through mountains of public documents.

Simon Willison, creator of the Guardian's MP expense investigation experiment, told Nieman Journalism Lab that keeping research fun and competitive let the paper offload sorting through 170,000 documents in 80 hours by a team of 20,000 volunteers.

The Guardian's tools were primarily a one-off occurrence, but badges in particular can help direct desirable user/reader behavior for the long haul. For example, if you have a

Gail Robinson, editor in chief of the Gotham Gazette, and Amanda Hickman are two of my new journalism heroes. With a Knight Foundation grant, they've been creating a series of news games, which they're in the process of open sourcing. Switch is kind of a basic game that has players pick cards at random until they can successfully match them, Memory-style.

Balance!, however, is a bit more interesting: It lets players try to balance NYC's ominous budget through the downturn, and compare their results with Mayor Bloomberg's. Users can then submit their budgets, providing a quick, graphical way to understand the sacrifices being made, and outlining some of the basic challenges with cutting each area.

The Flash game is open source and available on Git Hub, and Amanda's promised that other journalism games will also be posted there in the future.

June 5th: I've been scouring Twitter and Google Alerts for the latest on more LEGO Rock Band songs, so I'll add them as I find them. Jump to the Lego set list.

I don't have much more to report on LEGO Rock Band's songs last time, but I'll take it. IGN's preview had a glimpse of the trademark LEGO humor we'll see:

This isn't simply making a band and jumping into a world tour -- although you will make band members. Here, you'll be going about… being a band, I guess, and challenges will pop up via cutscenes. One will start with some LEGO dudes trying to demolish a building, and when they fail, you'll have to rock hard enough to topple the walls. In another scene, you'll be performing on a helicopter while being chased by a giant robot.

But more importantly, it gave us another song, raising the known total (once including some gleaned from LEGO Rock Band fact sheet) to 8 known tracks. Without further ado, here is the complete known track list:

• Pink: "So What"
• Good Charlotte: "Boys and Girls"
• Europe: "The Final Countdown"
• Carl Douglas: "Kung Fu Fighting"
• Blur: "Song 2"
• The Jackson 5: "I Want you Back"*
• Vampire Weekend: "A-Punk"**
• Foo Fighters: "Breakout"**

The game is also confirmed to allow downloadable content (DLC), although it's not yet confirmed whether or not that will include giving your brick avatars access to previous Rock Band tracks.

* denotes discovered in IGN's article.
** denotes discovered through GoNintendo's LEGO Rock Band fact sheet.

Article updated 9:32 a.m. June 4 to reflect original sources.

Update: A few more songs from the Lego Rock Band set list are out.

Am I giddily excited? Yes, because Lego Star Wars (minus the tedious flying missions) was one of my favorite DS games, and Guitar Hero: World Tour is probably the Wii game that's garnered the most playtime in my apartment.

Besides, doesn't that picture just want to make you jam out?

According to Shack News, the set list includes:

• Pink: "So What"
• Good Charlotte: "Boys and Girls"
• Europe: "The Final Countdown"
• Carl Douglas: "Kung Fu Fighting"
• Blur: "Song 2"

Even just "The Final Countdown" in Brick-vision is worth the price of admission, particularly since it's compatible with the Wii Guitar Hero controllers.

Final Countdown music video, for your pump-up purposes, after the jump.