The success ofBrain Age games and Wii Fit has proven so effective in establishing new trends in video games that Nintendo, along with partner Ubi Soft Montreal, were able to fill a spa this week with demonstrations of seventeen titles in the life coach and fitness genres including a new cooking guide, a stop smoking coach, two new yoga trainers, language instructors for Chinese and Japanese, and a Pilates guide. In previewing them, I found myself surrounded by female reporters, the only man in the tour, and suddenly recruited for a Yoga lesson. To make up for the tree poses and breathing exercises, I was given a rather butch tattoo on my forearm, so I still left the spa with my dignity intact.

M.Net's Gina Desjardins and I take lessons from Ra Sunspa's Yoga Instructor

The biggest surprise for myself was My Japanese Coach, the latest in Ubi Soft’s language lessons series. Previously they have released coaches for both French and Spanish, but both were designed for people who were already familiar with the basics from lessons in elementary school and were looking to advance to become fluent. The lessons where made up of interactive pronunciation guides and memory games, but they could not teach you the subtle nuances of the language, which you need if you are starting from zero.

My Japanese Coach and My Chinese Coach are dramatically different in that they are designed for people who are starting from zero experience and offer some very sophisticated tools to make that possible. When the computer’s voice speaks a word for you, in addition to displaying the text and the phonetic pronunciation on the screen, it prompts you to record your own voice as you say the word using the DS’ built-in microphone. It then displays a small spectrogram of your voice pattern alongside the computer’s for comparison. It will play your recorded voice back underneath the recording of the computer’s so you can compare every subtle inflection and cadence. Controls are built-in to slow down or speed up the computer’s voice to match your own talking speed.

My Chinese Coach

The software will also take your through learning to write the Japanese or Chinese, showing you first the symbol so you can trace it using the DS’ stylus and then giving you a blank screen to try to reproduce it. It then displays the symbol again under your own writing for comparison. It also includes memory games (a whack-a-mole variant where you have to whack the correct words) and both a translation dictionary and phrase book.

Considering the success I’ve personally had in learning how to sing with Rock Band and losing weight with Wii Fit, I’m keen to see if I can continue the trend and learn Japanese, I’ll have to wait until this Holiday season when both titles will be released to see.

Speaking of Wii Fit, there were four health titles featured. My Weight Loss Coach which I’ve previously reviewed, Quick Yoga Training, Let’s Pilates, and Let’s Yoga. All three exercise games include virtual instructors who both guide you through the different poses and stretches alongside taking your through programmed workouts. Quick Yoga Training is developed by Ubi Soft Montreal and offers the most depth of the three with over 180 poses and interactive breathing tests that are used to adjust the pace along with environmental sounds such as birds singing for atmosphere. Konami’s Let’s Yoga and Let’s Pilates may not include as many exercises, only 80, but it allows you to view the instructors from all three hundred and sixty degrees and includes a calendar for scheduling workouts along with interactive quizzes.

Quick Yoga

Let's Pilates

My feeling is that all three exercise titles will suffer from being on the small screen, it’s hard to physically act out instructions when they are being displayed on a portable screen and can’t measure up to Wii Fit.

Nintendo’s upcoming Personal Trainer: Cooking! is exciting, offering a deep collection of recipes and a virtual guide that will read out to you the various steps in preparing meals. Just place the DS on your kitchen counter, select a recipe and then turn up the volume and an expert voice will bark out instructions as you follow them out in the kitchen. Using the voice recognition feature of the DS, you don’t have to touch the system to interact with it, just use your voice to talk to the DS to get it to move from one step to the next or back again. It includes video instructions along with full explanations of ingredients and techniques as well as a shopping list. Just select the recipes you wish to prepare and it will assemble a shopping list where you can tick off the items you have, then take the DS to the supermarket and tick the rest off as you pick them off the shelf. I expect Cooking Guide will become a surprise hit for the holidays and will spawn an entirely new genre in video games as a result.

Personal Trainer: Cooking

My Stop Smoking Coach from Ubi Soft Montreal is an intriguing title that I’m not sure how to assess. It includes mini-games and a reward system based on the system developed by guru Allen Carr who counts Anthony Hopkins, Richard Branson and Ruby Wax among those who have successfully used his method. The process involves first recording and tracking your smoking habits and then offering advice based on that input as to making changes that will reduce your use. It includes a calendar to keep track and follow your progress as well as count down until you unlock the rewards for reaching your goals.

As a non-smoker I won’t assume to know the challenges of breaking the habit, but my guess is that unless you can carry your Nintendo DS around with you everywhere you go, the same as a packet of cigs or your lighter, its effect may be limited and I can’t help but consider the title has a bit of an oddball idea.

Another odd concept it My Fun Fact Coach which is designed to boost your general knowledge across a variety of subjects. It’s a strange mix of trivia. I tired out the “Social” category which put me into the scenario of standing in a super market with a child having a tantrum and offered me a multiple choice of answers including ignoring the tantrum, submitting to the kid’s demands, remaining neutral, and disciplining the child right then and there, which I of course chose and was wrong. You are supposed to ignore it according to the coach which also has a section on computer technology, explaining what bits are and what ISP network configurations are all about, plus many more topics.

My Fun Facts Coach

Although already available on stores, but new to me is Crosswords DS, a collection of interactive crossword puzzles designed across a wide range of ages and difficulty levels. As you’d expect you use the stylus to write in the answers to each puzzle with a hint system that unlocks additional clues for the ones that stump you. Also included are Word Search and Anagram puzzles.

The spa included several familiar titles that I’ve already covered before including both Brain Age games, Big Brain Academy. Flash Focus for visual training, Tetris DS ( a touchscreen version of the popular puzzle game) and Guitar Hero On Tour which includes a special add-on frets accessory and guitar pick-shaped stylus.

Following Guitar Hero’s lead, Ubi Soft’s Imagine Rock Star is a girlish music game where players work their way through a concert career playing four different virtual instruments; drums, guitar, bass, and piano. Each one has its own controls and you press the keys or buttons to match the notes for each song. As you progress through the music you can design your own outfits, hair styles, and make-up as well as assemble a band and earn better instruments. With four players, each with their own DS and a copy of the game, you can connect up wirelessly to play as a band. It’s available now.

Both music games were placed inside a makeshift tattoo parlour in the back of the Spa where airbrush artist Joshua Andrews gave me a dragon tattoo on my forearm so I could play Rock Band On Tour in style. The non-toxic paint will last on my arm for one week before wearing off with the option that if I suddenly have to remove it I can use rubbing alcohol or baby oil to wipe it completely off. Joshua can also airbrush designs onto video game consoles and gadgets, something I will have to take him up on, as well as full body make-up for Halloween costumes, another option I’ll have to explore.

You can visit his online portfolio at airbrushtoronto.com