Spanish for Everyone

Spanish for Everyone
"In short, Spanish For Everyone isn't for everyone. In fact, we can't recommend this piece of garbage to anyone." - one of the few times that IGN was trustworthy.
Genre(s): Education Platform(s): Nintendo DS Release Date: October 26, 2007 Developer(s): Humagade Publisher(s): Activision Country: Canada Successor: French for Everyone (cancelled)

Spanish for Everyone is an "educational video game" that was released on October 26, 2007, for the Nintendo DS and published by Activision. It was created and developed by an independent company, Humagade.

The game was notorious for having various subtextual messages with mature content, despite being an edutainment game.

Desarrollo (Development)

On the ocremix.org forums, the lead designer of Spanish for Everyone answered some questions regarding the game. He confirmed that the game indeed has some "double meaning jokes", but it was not intended to offend Latin people. According to him this was tentative of having a redeeming quality because Spanish for Everyone had a low budget and the development team knew all the problems of the game, with no resources to solve them. So, as a tentative to compensate the lack of game quality, they tried to do something like in the Shrek movie franchise; make it a game aimed at young audiences that also has some innuendos for comedic purposes. He confirmed that one of the characters, Miguel's father, indeed was being chased by policemen and that the ending of the game really is a shootout scene. Everything was intentional, even the name of a female character which is a pun for the word "vagina".

The game ends with the protagonist traveling to France, suggesting that the game was meant to spawn a sequel or be the first of a series. The lead designer confirmed that the game could have gotten a sequel: "French for Everyone". However, this never happened likely due to the game's terrible reception.

Por Qué Definitivamente NO es Para Todos (Why It's Definitely NOT For Everyone)

1. The whole "game" is nothing but text, which wouldn't have been a problem considering it is supposed to be educational, but it is riddled with grammatical errors in both English and Spanish languages.
2. There are only four mini-games, which require you to know Spanish in order to play them, and none of them has real captivation.
3. The plot is annoying and paper-thin. It involves a Mexican kid named Miguel who accidentally steals the protagonist's DS, which leads to him heading south of the border (to Tijuana) to get it back.
4. The game's cutscenes contain subtextual, stereotypical, and offensive messages, particularly against Latino and Hispanic people.
   • For example, it is heavily implied that Miguel has a father who is involved with crime. In the opening, he is chased by police cars (possibly Border Patrol agents), and in the ending, his house is suddenly surrounded by cars, followed by what sounds like gunshots and ricochets.
   • What's worse is that the game is rated E for Everyone with no content descriptors, even though it contains innuendos to themes such as drug smuggling, theft, and animal abuse.
5. Instead of featuring the real cast of characters, the cover art has two girls that don't appear in the game at all. This was probably done to make the game appear more child-friendly and seem that it contained positive messages about diversity.
6. The cutscenes have no voice acting and they look as if they were made with MS Paint.
7. Ear-bleedingly awful music.

Recepción (Reception)

Decrying the game's premise that encourages dangerous or illegal practices and criticizing its gameplay with poor English grammar and questionable teaching ability, IGN rated it 2/10, saying, "We can't recommend this piece of garbage to anyone".

In Mexico, this game made for some laughs and became popular for memetic mutations rather than gameplay.

Enlaces externos (External links)

• Official website of the developer (archived)
• The lead designer answering some questions
• Nintendo admitting that they have licensed this game
• IGN trying to be a good game reviewer

Comentarios (Comments)

Loading comments...

[[]]