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Talkman
Take a talking bird and
chuck him into a game for the PSP that involves language. Equip the PSP
with a mic and then hit the road in search of people who don’t speak
your language and then trust the aforementioned bird, Max to get it
right.
Which unfortunately, he does his best but don’t
entrust him with any diplomatic conferences. Max acts as the go between
for you and the foreigner that you are trying to talk to and you need to
make sure that you choose the right situation for him to help you out
in.
Talkman lets you select your language, the output
language etc etc. You need to select the location that you are at and
what you need to achieve and Max will loosely translate what you need.
He is not too bad either, however he is not bang on the money, he is
simply close to saying what you need.
Covering six languages, those being English,
Japansese, German, French, Italian and Spanish, Talkman has a variety of
game modes involving speech recognition that will allow you to make your
way through the game by interacting with Max and listening to what he
has to say in whatever language. There are several thousand phrases
built into the title and you should be able to get through that
particular country with only a bit of effort.
Talkman is an interactive experience though that is
for sure, despite how annoying Max is. If you are really going to use
Talkman on your travels, you can even hand your PSP over to the person
from that country and let them answer you in English by reversing the
process that you used to ask them the question.
Load times are a little too lengthy to really use
this program actively when abroad, however it might be a great way of
making new friends in pubs and clubs where English is not the first
language spoken. It could even assist in romance!
I would say that this is a title best not taken too
seriously. Setting up the unit is as easy as plugging the mic into the
unit then finding someone who speaks the language you want to play with.
From there, it’s simply a matter of passing the PSP backward and
forward.
Ultimately this is a bit of fun. How long lived it
will be remains to be seen, however I am sure that there will be other
developers who finds a use for the mic so even by using this game to get
used to how the mic can be used with the PSP will see you ready for
other titles on the system.
I think that gamers will treat this as a novelty and
will be intrigued by the way the mic interacts with the machine and this
will open the market to a whole lot of new games. Does this game have
long-term appeal? Not really in my opinion, however if you go a wanderin’,
then you will be sure to get this baby out and going again. |
