For the most part, My Word Coach doesn't presume to cast itself as a "game" in the conventional sense, and its assorted challenges are pretty straightforward. The goal of each daily session is to increase one's so-named Expression Potential -- a somewhat intentionally-vague rating of a player's current verbal perspicacity, as reflected in his/her overall scores. As players increase their Expression Potential rating, new challenges are introduced -- either in terms of new mini-games and practice drills, or in greater levels of difficulty for already-unlocked activities.
The one that might most fairly be called a "game" in the traditional sense is Block Letters (this is also a challenge wherein players temporarily hold the DS on its spinal axis, in order to provide a more suitable aspect-ratio). The "left" (normally, upper) screen presents a chalkboard filled with target words, while the "right" (normally, lower) screen is slowly filled with dropping letter-blocks resembling Scrabble tiles; the goal is to spell out, in any order desired, the words written on the right-hand display -- thus eliminating the tiles in question before they pile up and end the game (in the vein of Tetris). A "bomb" control can be activated to eliminate individual tiles, if the continual stack-up of letters is threatening to spill over the cut-off line. The tiles don't always fall in the profusion and selection of letters required to spell out the words in the order they're written down, so a certain amount of risk-taking -- and frantic, last-second letter-bombing -- are required.
One of the simpler -- and more elegant and responsive -- challenges is the Missing Letter mini-game, in which players are shown a word with, you guessed it, one missing letter. The goal is to quickly write the missing letter on the lower touch-sensitive screen before the timer runs out. Sure, players are obliged to write out the missing letter in more easily-recognized capital letters -- but even so, the character recognition scheme here works amazingly well, certainly much more reliably and fluidly than it does on the Wii-console version (which also comes at a higher price tag than the DS incarnation). When the player unlocks the higher-difficulty version of this challenge, the words are presented with an incorrect letter, rather than one that's missing altogether. It doesn't sound like much of a difference, but it requires the player to fire up a whole different set of neurons.
Other mini-games challenge players to drag-and-drop individual complete words to their proper full definitions, or to quickly make a judgment between two definitions for the same word -- one correct, one incorrect. Still other less-ambitious challenges will have you scooping floating pasta letters (in a soup bowl, of course) into correct words, or using the DS stylus to turn a wheel and "safe-crack" the correct letters of different words.
My Word Coach for DS boasts some 16,000 words and definitions (from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary), and as a matter of course features a review-screen of any new words and definitions at the end of any given challenge. For good or ill, the mini-games offer bonus points for those challenges that are solved under a certain target-time... and corresponding point penalties for slower solutions. While it's certainly a good thing to promote quick recognition of and facility with vocabulary words, these time-limit constrictions can also be a little distressing and even annoying, as they can put the emphasis as much on hand-eye coordination as on any true vocabulary-expansion -- a pity, since, with just a little bit of leeway, My Word Coach is an arguably useful tool even for those working on English as their second language (speaking of which: While outside the scope of this review, it should be noted that Ubisoft also offers My Spanish Coach and My French Coach titles, and it's great to see a major game publisher taking these kinds of steps. However, with the cross-section of gamer interests being what it is, where's My Japanese Coach? Bring it on, Ubisoft!).
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