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English Training: Have Fun Improving Your Skills
Available on:Nintendo DS
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16-12-06 Review for Nintendo DS
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12-16-06 DS Review: English Training
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Review
English Training: Have Fun Improving Your Skills (Nintendo DS)
concept
7
graphics
6.5
gameplay
8
sound
7.5
74%
The Nintendo DS has a lot of "learning games" registered in its palmares already like Brain Academy and Brain Training. Apparently, this concept was good for both old and young gamers so you could expect this series of Touch! Generation games to expand further. The newest interactive teacher you can find on the market is English Training.
The name speaks for itself, you can improve your English with this game. It isn't very extensive though, as the development only goes for speaking and writing. Don't start translations as you'll have to go back to a dictionary for that.
The biggest concept is "Listing to English + Write English = Learn English", but how do they do this? There are many different minigames (both in single and multiplayer) like a spelling marathon. Here you get several words you need to write correctly as fast as possible to get your athlete first over the line. There's also a crossword puzzle where you need to fill in as many squares as possible and score points by doing so. The minigames aren't the main thing in the game though, there's more to add some competition in the multiplayer portion (small positive detail: the game uses the download play so you don't need two copies to play against someone else)
The real core is the learning of the language through normal spelling tests without marathon runners or crossword puzzles. You get to see a sentence in the top screen and in the beginning it's completely covered with black squares (one per letter). Then this gets read out loud by the DS and you need to write it down on the bottom screen with your stylus. You can do this letter by letter but also complete words can be read.
There are also different levels here going from "Intro" to 10 with the latter as most difficult (and believe me, it isn't simple). When you put the game in your DS for the first time you'll be asked to make a profile and start an entrance exam. With this, it gets determined at which level you are at themoment so it's possible you immediately go to level five since your writing is good enough for that already.
Every level consists out of three tests you need to do and when finishing them well you get to the next one. When completing all levels, you get a bonus, mostly a new form of congratulations (which you get to see when you're doing good) but these can also be new minigames.
Another fun feature is the possibility to plan your tests. In the game there's a calendar present where you can decide which level you want to practise on which day. You can also see when you played on what level and check out how good or bad you ended your test.
Overall this game is quite enjoyable, but if you're looking for action I suggest to stay away from it. You'll never start sweating from fear when you're in the midst of a test and look for the correct spelling of a word. Let's say it isn't quite the title for the hardcore gamers amongst us.














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