Reviews

Believe it or not, girls do actually play games. With Nintendo's desire to be the no.1 console developer again they have taken a step that Microsoft and Sony fear to tread: producing software for girls. I love games and I love girls (within legal boundaries - on both), it's only right that those two can merge (if only my wife was that understanding when I switch on the Xbox). Ubisoft have been helping the cause with their hugely successful Imagine series that puts you in real life professions and situations. With several already produced, such as Babies and Fashion Designer, it's time to put you in the shoes of those much hated teachers.

Who needs school when you can play games...about school?

You take the role of a young female teacher called April, who has just started teaching at a small primary school. So small, in fact, that you only begin with 4 pupils. The game is set out in weekly stages, with lessons in the morning and afternoon. Your first task on a miserable Monday morning is to set out the lesson schedule for the entire week ahead. You can mix it to please, with a serious lesson in the AM (Maths) and something more fun in the PM (Pottery), or just have a whole day of misery (Biology then Geography). The choice is yours, depending on when you want to teach a specific subject.

When classes begin you have to sit certain pupils away from each other. This varies with each lesson, depending on who has fallen out with whom and is likely to be a nuisance in class. A lesson involves two mini games based on the subject, followed by a mini game based on marking a pupil's work. The first part of every lesson revolves around touching and rubbing images on the screen to turn the pages of the book and is used only to gain the pupils attention. After the first couple of lessons this task becomes tedious, but is sadly unavoidable.