My Word Coach: Video Game Review

My Word Coach from Ubisoft helps you improve your vocabulary. The video game is available for Nintendo DS, DS Lite, and Wii. Whether you buy it for Wii or DS, the game will make full use of the remote or touch screen. There are many words to learn and this is a fun way to help your brain, your writing, and your speech. The letter recognition is very good most of the time. The training exercises are fun and educational for the young and old. The two best games are Split Decision and Word Shuffle because they incorporate the definition with the word. Pasta Letters and Safe Cracker incorporate the definitions, but they are a little harder because you must spell the word. At the end of each game it will list the definitions. My Word Coach also includes a Progress Review, Top Scores, and Glossary. You earn points with all games except:

Competition gives you a spoken word and you try to spell it.

Cube Panic is the same as Block Letters (below), but words keep coming until you loose.

Speed Letters improves how the letters you write on the touch pad are recognized by the game.

Multi-Card Play is where you challenge others at the training games.

As you play, levels open for each training game that are labeled easy, medium, and hard. These games you earn points with and therefore, your Expression Potential goes up. Expression Potential is how well you can express yourself through your vocabulary. The levels of Expression Potential are labeled as Smart Toddler, Secondary School Graduate, University Graduate, Lawyer, and so on. The highest Expression Potential is Poet and Literary Writer. The single person training games that earn points and can improve your Expression Potential are:

Missing Letter is where you fill in the missing letter in a word.

Split Decision gives a word and has you decide between two definitions or via versa.

Word Shuffle gives a bunch of words and definitions and you must match correctly.

Pasta Letters uses the touch pad for you to drag letters to spell a word for the given definition.

Block Letters gives words and you blast the blocks with the correct letters as they fall.

Safe Cracker gives you a definition and you must beat the computer by spelling the correct word with dial.

There are coach characters to choose from and some of the words you get are determined by the coach. The coaches are:

Alastair Archibald, the main coach who claims he'll "make your vocabulary impeccable."

Veronica Munroe, who uses professional methods to improve your vocabulary.

Lucius King, the coach that will help you express yourself.

Penny, the poet girl.

The definitions of words don't tell you whether it is a noun, verb, adjective, etc. Sometimes the definitions are wordy. A context is put into the definition which can be confusing. It would be much better if along with the definition of a word, it gave an example sentence instead of putting context within the definition. There are no pronunciation directions for the words except in Competition, where you hear the word and try to spell it. Although there are four coaches to choose from, it would also improve the game if the player could design another character that was his or herself. With this, the player could customize more closely what their goals are with the game. For example, customization could include the actual education completed by the player along with information like if the player wishes to be a poet, doctor, veterinarian, meteorologist, etc. Despite these flaws, the game is worth buying and playing.