Nintendo Wii Fanboy

Ubisoft has dropped the price of the Wii version of My Word Coach to $29.99, which is the same price as the DS version. So now potential My Word Pupils can base their choice in coachery format on considerations other than the pecuniary.

We suggest going for the Wii version if you're confident in your word ability (word smarts). By displaying your dominance of the English language on your TV, where others can potentially see, you send an unmistakable message: I know a pretty good number of words. Also I throw strange parties. On the other hand, displaying your flailing attempts to perform well in this game shows an interest in self-improvement. So that's not terrible either!

[Via CAG]

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These screens of My Word Coach highlight one new minigame found in the collection: understanding the French language. Okay, two new minigames-- there's also a game in which you click on falling letter-emblazoned blocks to spell out a list of words. It's Wordtris with a prescribed word list, basically. It seems a little simplistic, but we can see how it could get hectic, especially in multiplayer.

If this has a decent selection of multiplayer language-based minigames in addition to its single-player stat-tracking, and if it doesn't force you to play through the entire game before you can play in multiplayer, than this could easily overtake Big Brain Academy as the brain training party game of choice.

[Via GoNintendo]

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, speaking to Spiegel magazine, candidly (yet indirectly) revealed that he believed that some of his company's Wii releases were less than perfect. No, not Red Steel. Guillemot was referring to the spate of ports that Ubisoft released to fill out their lineup.

Regarding the hasty ports (games such as Prince of Persia: Rival Swords, Far Cry: Vengeance, and Monster 4x4 World Circuit), Guillemot said that "We made mistakes." Ubisoft admitting to overporting? Between this and weird releases like My Word Coach, Ubi seems like a whole new company!

[Update: Fixed broken link.]

Surely you've thought at some point, hunched over your keyboard because that damned essay is due tomorrow morning, that words could flow glibly and beautifully from your fingertips, as they do so often at Nintendo Wii Fanboy.

All right, that was a little arrogant. We're sorry.

Anyway. As you very well may know, Brain Age focused fairly heavily on the numerical side of things. Equations = sadness. Did it teach you how to express, or to inspire? Hell no. And so Ubisoft jumps into the brain training genre, with both Wii and DS versions of their literary inculcator, My Word Coach.

There's an in-depth preview over at IGN, and we highly encourage you to peruse their hands-on experience. We'd also like to point out that this game features a simple and effective DS-to-Wii communication feature, in which handwriting performed via stylus is instantly translated into the Wii title, which coincidentally happens to have a far more robust handwriting recognition system than did Brain Age. Is your brain tingling in excitement? We certainly hope so.