It's no big secret that Nintendo's own Brain Age franchise has become a global sales phenomenon and it is therefore not surprising that the publisher has tried to duplicate the success of the handheld games on its Wii console. Now, spotting the potential for variations on a winning formula, third-party has hatched the series for both DS and Wii and these games are focused on improving your vocabulary. They are simple affairs designed for anybody and really meant to be played in short bursts every day. Hop in, take part in a handful of word-based challenges, broaden your vocabulary, and shut down for the day.
My Word Coach does a good job of trying to moderate the intensity of learning words by periodically introducing two recreational games that aren't tracked. Plus, after 20-30 minutes of training, the game suggests you quit for that day.
Good idea, and an undertaking that we highly recommend for our own Nintendo Team associate editor Mark Bozon, who wrestles with three-syllable-plus words frequently. The thing is, like the brain games before it, makes for a much better handheld experience than it does a console one, especially when you consider that the Wii build of the game retails for approximately $20 more than the DS version.If you've played Brain Age before, you will already have an educated understanding of the concept powering My Word Coach, for it is very similar.
The title, whether it's played on DS or Wii, is just as much a tool for teaching as it is a game, and this alone makes it an ideal candidate for parents hoping to steer clear of software with guns and gore. You use the Wii remote or stylus and take part in six-plus single-player daily word challenges, the majority of them fun, but not nearly as altogether-engaging or quite as polished as some of the minis in Nintendo's brain titles.There's Missing Letter, in which you are shown an incomplete word and you must draw in the correct letter with the Wii remote or stylus.
Utilizing the Wii remote to write in the missing letters feels far less intuitive than simply scribbling them in with the stylus, but it works. The Wii incarnation features a pioneering mode whereby you can actually wirelessly link the DS and use it to quickly input letters and this functionality works amazingly well; you won't even need the DS cart to do it. However, this option is not immediately available in the Wii game - for some unfortunate reason, you have to unlock it first.
Worse, though, if you want to play a second game of Missing Letter, perhaps to better your ranking, you will have to go thro.
DS
My Word Coach
by Jonathan Metts - December 22, 2007, 8:53 am PST
Total comments: 8
Ubisoft's new brain training game is designed to build your vocabulary, but does it really work?
'Kirsch', 'assiduous', 'fishwife', 'silage', and 'exigent' are just a few of the words I now understand for the first time, and it's all thanks to My Word Coach. This DS game is clearly an attempt to jump on the brain training craze initiated by Nintendo's own Brain Age series. The difference is that while Brain Age has you completing various exercises with only vague promises of the healthy benefits, My Word Coach focuses on a concrete goal —learning new words— with easily verifiable results. I've played Brain Age for weeks straight, and I still can't say for sure whether it made me smarter or able to think faster, but I can demonstrably show that My Word Coach has expanded my vocabulary in just a few days. In that sense, Ubisoft's edutainment experiment is successful.
The interface is simple because quick play and creating a new file are cleverly combined into one mode. If you've never played the game before, it gives you a few minutes to try the word-based mini-games before asking you whether you want to create your own profile to track daily progress. If you do, your progress up to that point will be counted towards your first day of training. This is a great idea that simplifies the menu choices for new players and avoids bogging them down with a lot of profile creation tools until after they've had a chance to play the game.
Instead of a Brain Age or Eye Age, this game uses Expression Potential as the criterion of value to describe your progress. Your Expression Potential is a percentage that is initially determined by a strange test in which you are shown a long series of words and asked simply whether you recognize each one. It would be easy to lie and just say 'yes' to all of them, but some of the words are intentionally misspelled or are completely made up, so the game forces at least partial honesty on the process. After you receive the starting value for your Expression Potential, it can be increased 1% per day by completing a barrage of vocabulary exercises that make up the bulk of the game.
There are several exercises with varying methods of introducing new words and reinforcing ones you may have seen but still don't fully understand. Some of these mini-games focus more on spelling, while others ask you to match words with their definitions. There's even a Tetris-style falling blocks game in which you tap on letter blocks to spell out new words. These tasks range from thirty seconds to a couple of minutes each, and they all end with a chance to review the words and their meanings at your leisure. The game also keeps a unified glossary of every word you've ever seen in the exercises, so you can always go back and look up something you can't quite remember. The definitions come from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, so you can feel confident about the game's accuracy. Every day, you'll be shown how many words you must correctly identify across all the different mini-games to increment your Expression Potential.
That's where my main criticism comes in. The daily quota of words grows large very quickly, on the order of 150 words, and that means you are expected to play for about thirty minutes before getting credit for your work. Thirty minutes is quite a long session compared to other brain training games, and it will probably have to be completed in two or three bursts if you're fairly busy. I'm all for these games allowing longer play sessions, but it should be optional. My Word Coach requires these lengthy sessions just to make progress and satisfy the basic training requirements. It also can't back up these huge word quotas with a sufficient number and variety of mini-games. Passing 150 words means that you will have to play every mini-game twice or even three times, and some of these exercises are heavily redundant in the first place. The result is that My Word Coach, while initially fresh and fun, starts to feel like work after only a few days of routine playing.
There is little else to say about My Word Coach; it's a simple game with a simple purpose. It does succeed at what it claims to do, and if that's your only concern, I can recommend it as an effective product. It is not, however, a particularly fun game in the long run, mainly due to the limited number of mini-games and the mountainous requirements for daily progress. This is a classic case of a good idea with lackluster execution, making My Word Coach the kind of game that I'd like to see followed up with an expanded and improved sequel.
Score
Graphics
Unimpressive, but also irrelevant, the visuals are slightly trendy and bland. The static character portraits of your 'coaches' convey little personality and invoke no motivation. At least Dr. Kawashima's floating head is funny and weird.
Sound
This game has the kind of music you'd expect to hear in a TV commercial for cereal or a family sedan. These short but catchy tunes are refreshingly different for a video game and work perfectly for this kind of 'non-game'.
Control
The touch screen controls are mostly responsive and straightforward. One minor exception is the handwriting recognition, which works overall but has a lot of trouble with certain letters, like 'O' and 'D'. It also can’t recognize lower-case or cursive letters. It's sufficiently bad that the game includes a 'game' to help you practice writing the letters in a recognizable way. However, handwriting input is only used in one of the mini-games, so it's not a big deal.
Gameplay
The game is comprised of half a dozen mini-games of varying complexity, but none of them are particularly addictive or interesting, not even the one that looks like alphabet-Tetris. At least they have multiple difficulty levels that eventually become quite challenging.
Lastability
How long you're willing to play the game depends largely on your intent. If you need to have fun to keep going, you'll probably get tired of the daily grind after a few days. If you seriously need vocabulary help and are willing to work for it, this game has tons of words to teach you and some effective (though not very fun) ways of doing so.
Final
My Word Coach isn't an unpleasant experience, but it feels like the sort of game your third grade teacher might devise to help you learn multiplication tables. It might make learning a little easier, and you'd probably prefer it over the traditional methods, but you wouldn't play it in your free time.
Review Page 1
SummaryCons
Talkback
wanderingDecember 22, 2007
If you're looking for a game to improve your vocabulary, I recommend Free Rice. It's free and, when you play, rice is donated to hungry people.
EnnerDecember 22, 2007
KaironCarmine Red, Associate EditorDecember 22, 2007
Hmm... interesting. I'm really thinking about getting this game, it's one of the few that slipped off my list this year. But truth be told, I really should start playing my 'My French Coach' first before I buy this one....
Quote Awesome tip. Thanks.
Infernal MonkeyDecember 22, 2007
I'll wait for the mature version. 'My Word, Crotch!' The exclamation mark is essential. There'll be several images of crotches, and words will appear on them, so you need to rub the touch screen. Then you blow into the microphone to reach the end.
IceColdDecember 22, 2007
Hmm, do the Free Rice words get any harder (I've got 300 grains so far)?
IceColdDecember 22, 2007
QuoteAhahahaha... I just laughed suddenly out loud.
wanderingDecember 22, 2007
Quote If you get three words right in a row, you go up a level, and the words get harder. If you get one word wrong, you go down a level. There are 50 levels.
scot00December 23, 2007
'You have now donated 500 grains of rice.'
well there is a bowl for someone..Well im off to eat a steak. -S
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