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IGN Review of My Secret World by Imagine
Are diaries still relevant to young girls these days? I feel old saying that people used to use small books filled with paper to write down their innermost thoughts (and we had to write in them while walking uphill in the snow!). In the world of Livejournal and MySpace, it seems archaic to have a dedicated book for chronicling your day. But that doesn't make My Secret World bad. It's a solid, if slightly sexist diary, combined with an awful minigame collection.
This isn't the first diary software for the DS, but it is the first one that actually lets you keep a functional journal. My Secret World has a customizable diary feature that lets the user choose the design of the paper and font, add stickers, and change the colors. There are dozens upon dozens of choices, and you can choose a new design for each day, or entry, or even individual page if you want. While there is a size limit to each page, users can just go to the next page and keep going. So if you've got a lot of thoughts to put down you're allowed to just keep going. The entire program is presented in book style and everything is operated using the touch screen.
It's a really solid diary program that has a lot of features. Beyond the aesthetic customization there are privacy controls, both for the entire entries, or even individual words and phrases. So if for some reason you want your friend to read your diary, but not see the name of your secret crush, there are options for that. The seemingly limitless number of pages is a welcome feature, since other similar diary programs have limited entries to a few hundred characters.
While My Secret World is a functional diary, that is hardly enough to warrant the purchase of a DS cartridge since a notepad and a pack of stickers can be purchased for a fifth of the price. The developers have included a variety of other features to pad out the title. There's a focus on sharing the game with friends (thus making it My Not Secret at All World?) so one of the major features is making friends cards.
When you start My Secret World you fill in your own info card, with your name, birthday, favorite pets, hobbies, musical instruments and some other information. You also make an avatar for yourself. The friend cards work in the exact same way. What's strange is that even though you can make friend cards for boys or girl, your personal avatar can only be a girl. It's bizarrely restrictive. I understand that the game is marketed towards girls, but the developers put the customizable boy avatars in there, so why can't I make it my personal avatar?
After you make the friends cards, you can share with friends. Up to four people can take group quizzes and play group mini-games. The quizzes are used to measure the compatibility between you and your friends. Again the girl centric theme makes things a little awkward here. Boys can take the quizzes, but many of the questions are about things really only relevant to girls (make up, sharing clothes with your sister, buying halter tops). Some of the quizzes are more universal, but nearly all of them have at least a couple questions that are only relevant to females. It's not a big deal except My Secret World sends mixed messages. It wants you to share the quizzes and games with all your friends, but really only if you and them are girls.
In addition, the things that constitute mini-games in this title are terrible. None of them are fun, and some of them aren't games at all. Copycat, the very first one you unlock, has the player try and copy a sticker collage exactly using the touch screen. It is such a boring, tedious mess that it's hard to even muscle through it and unlock more games. At least the multiplayer games aren't about obsessive compulsive decoration, but it's not like taking turns blowing into the DS microphone to inflate a balloon is much more engaging. I appreciate the idea of making the software more than just a diary, but not when the added content is shoddy and boring.
©2008-10-23, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
This isn't the first diary software for the DS, but it is the first one that actually lets you keep a functional journal. My Secret World has a customizable diary feature that lets the user choose the design of the paper and font, add stickers, and change the colors. There are dozens upon dozens of choices, and you can choose a new design for each day, or entry, or even individual page if you want. While there is a size limit to each page, users can just go to the next page and keep going. So if you've got a lot of thoughts to put down you're allowed to just keep going. The entire program is presented in book style and everything is operated using the touch screen.
It's a really solid diary program that has a lot of features. Beyond the aesthetic customization there are privacy controls, both for the entire entries, or even individual words and phrases. So if for some reason you want your friend to read your diary, but not see the name of your secret crush, there are options for that. The seemingly limitless number of pages is a welcome feature, since other similar diary programs have limited entries to a few hundred characters.
While My Secret World is a functional diary, that is hardly enough to warrant the purchase of a DS cartridge since a notepad and a pack of stickers can be purchased for a fifth of the price. The developers have included a variety of other features to pad out the title. There's a focus on sharing the game with friends (thus making it My Not Secret at All World?) so one of the major features is making friends cards.
When you start My Secret World you fill in your own info card, with your name, birthday, favorite pets, hobbies, musical instruments and some other information. You also make an avatar for yourself. The friend cards work in the exact same way. What's strange is that even though you can make friend cards for boys or girl, your personal avatar can only be a girl. It's bizarrely restrictive. I understand that the game is marketed towards girls, but the developers put the customizable boy avatars in there, so why can't I make it my personal avatar?
After you make the friends cards, you can share with friends. Up to four people can take group quizzes and play group mini-games. The quizzes are used to measure the compatibility between you and your friends. Again the girl centric theme makes things a little awkward here. Boys can take the quizzes, but many of the questions are about things really only relevant to girls (make up, sharing clothes with your sister, buying halter tops). Some of the quizzes are more universal, but nearly all of them have at least a couple questions that are only relevant to females. It's not a big deal except My Secret World sends mixed messages. It wants you to share the quizzes and games with all your friends, but really only if you and them are girls.
In addition, the things that constitute mini-games in this title are terrible. None of them are fun, and some of them aren't games at all. Copycat, the very first one you unlock, has the player try and copy a sticker collage exactly using the touch screen. It is such a boring, tedious mess that it's hard to even muscle through it and unlock more games. At least the multiplayer games aren't about obsessive compulsive decoration, but it's not like taking turns blowing into the DS microphone to inflate a balloon is much more engaging. I appreciate the idea of making the software more than just a diary, but not when the added content is shoddy and boring.
©2008-10-23, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved