Review - Talkman Travel Tokyo
The Playstation Store added three new Talkman Travel programs to their lineup last week, one for Tokyo, one for Rome, and one for Paris. For only $5.99, I figured the price was low enough to take the plunge and see how helpful this tool would be for navigating around Tokyo. After playing around for a short while (a very short while, as there's not much to see), I was left feeling disappointed, particularly at the fact that this product has convinced me this would be a great idea, but it falls short in every tool it presents.
First off, the biggest feature of Talkman Travel is the pocket guide of useful phrases. The phrases are tabbed by category, which you can navigate easily with the shoulder buttons. From there, just scroll down to the phrase you want and press 'X' to view it, and 'X' again to hear it. Obviously having an easily cross-referenced selection of phrases is incredibly handy, but my problem is in how I'm assuming they intend you to use it. You see, what I'd expect is that when I hear the phrase, it will be played in a way that will allow me to repeat the phrase to the person I'm communicating with. Instead, the speakers talk super fast, as if to a native speaker. I'm guessing that instead of me repeating the phrase back to learn it, they want me instead to present the PSP to the person I'm speaking to and pressing 'X' so they can hear it, not me. That idea seems a little ridiculous, and it's par for the course throughout what little else this program offers.
The next section is the mini games, three in all. Once again, what I expected and what was delivered were vastly different. From the term mini games, I expected there to be some kind of game where I match a word or phrase in Japanese to its English counterpart. Makes sense, and I'd be learning something while having fun. Instead, the 3 games, which aren't even really games at all, are all based on picking up girls. One is a love meter thing, where you're supposed to hold one side of the PSP while the person you're hitting on holds the other, you each press a shoulder button, and it tells you your compatibility. That one was the most interactive of the 3 'games'.
Lastly I'll talk about the map feature. You're given a map of Tokyo divided into square grids. Highlight a grid to zoom in on it. From there, you can press 'X' to place a pin and a small note on the map. You can even attach a picture from your psp memory stick to the pin. Conceptually this one had me pretty interested, as being able to carry around a map of the area in your PSP and place pins with notes is a pretty handy feature. However once again, it just doesn't deliver. The big problem with the map feature is that zooming in doesn't zoom in enough! Even zoomed in, you're not given the name of individual streets. You can see blocks, and it names major places like parks and Akihabara, but without street names it's a pretty useless map!
So there you have it. This is a product that I'd really like to see expanded upon, as having a travel guide saved on your PSP memory stick seems like it'd be incredibly useful. Unfortunately every feature in Talkman Travel Tokyo seems to fall just short of being of any use at all! I will make mention though, that there's a series of pictures you can access within the individual categories of the phrases menu. The pictures are accompanied by handy one or two sentence descriptions, such as what taiyaki is, etc. If they release more in this series that take these concepts a bit further this couple be really handy, but as it is I can't imagine that this would be of much use during a trip and have a hard time recommending it unless your don't mind spending $5.99 to satisfy your curiosity.
First off, the biggest feature of Talkman Travel is the pocket guide of useful phrases. The phrases are tabbed by category, which you can navigate easily with the shoulder buttons. From there, just scroll down to the phrase you want and press 'X' to view it, and 'X' again to hear it. Obviously having an easily cross-referenced selection of phrases is incredibly handy, but my problem is in how I'm assuming they intend you to use it. You see, what I'd expect is that when I hear the phrase, it will be played in a way that will allow me to repeat the phrase to the person I'm communicating with. Instead, the speakers talk super fast, as if to a native speaker. I'm guessing that instead of me repeating the phrase back to learn it, they want me instead to present the PSP to the person I'm speaking to and pressing 'X' so they can hear it, not me. That idea seems a little ridiculous, and it's par for the course throughout what little else this program offers.The next section is the mini games, three in all. Once again, what I expected and what was delivered were vastly different. From the term mini games, I expected there to be some kind of game where I match a word or phrase in Japanese to its English counterpart. Makes sense, and I'd be learning something while having fun. Instead, the 3 games, which aren't even really games at all, are all based on picking up girls. One is a love meter thing, where you're supposed to hold one side of the PSP while the person you're hitting on holds the other, you each press a shoulder button, and it tells you your compatibility. That one was the most interactive of the 3 'games'.
Lastly I'll talk about the map feature. You're given a map of Tokyo divided into square grids. Highlight a grid to zoom in on it. From there, you can press 'X' to place a pin and a small note on the map. You can even attach a picture from your psp memory stick to the pin. Conceptually this one had me pretty interested, as being able to carry around a map of the area in your PSP and place pins with notes is a pretty handy feature. However once again, it just doesn't deliver. The big problem with the map feature is that zooming in doesn't zoom in enough! Even zoomed in, you're not given the name of individual streets. You can see blocks, and it names major places like parks and Akihabara, but without street names it's a pretty useless map!So there you have it. This is a product that I'd really like to see expanded upon, as having a travel guide saved on your PSP memory stick seems like it'd be incredibly useful. Unfortunately every feature in Talkman Travel Tokyo seems to fall just short of being of any use at all! I will make mention though, that there's a series of pictures you can access within the individual categories of the phrases menu. The pictures are accompanied by handy one or two sentence descriptions, such as what taiyaki is, etc. If they release more in this series that take these concepts a bit further this couple be really handy, but as it is I can't imagine that this would be of much use during a trip and have a hard time recommending it unless your don't mind spending $5.99 to satisfy your curiosity.