Welcome to the second part.
In this part, we will review the educational games on the MSX.
Alright! Now it's time to learn!
After assigning the Arabic letters on the keyboard, thanks to the Kuwaiti businessman, Mohammed Abdulrahman Al-Sharekh,
the educational games, or in other words, the educational programs, have started to appear on the MSX,
and the players stuck to them to a large degree.
Most of the programs are useful and enjoyable.
Back then, a lot of people loved to play them
considering that they were released on a console that supports hardcore games and education at the same time.
Even there are some educational games that were exclusive for certain Arabic countries,
but in this part, we will focus on the most common games.
Double Face
First of all, look at this amusing intro.
To be honest, the presentation was awesome back then.
Anyway, "Double Face" is all about teaching basic English.
In the main menu, there are three modes,
and you can select by using Double Pac-Man–– uhh... I mean Double Face.
In the "Review Word List" mode, there are four choices.
The first two is about reviewing English words alongside Arabic words.
You just press "Space" in order to see the English word and its meaning in Arabic.
The idea here is to make you memorize the words' meanings.
The yellow face is for English words.
The red face... I don't know, orange face, is for Arabic words
The third choice in the menu is "Unscramble A List".
And after that, you choose a category of words.
Then you will play a minigame; one of the faces moves automatically
and chooses one of the words randomly either in English or Arabic.
You have to move the other face and choose the right meaning of the word.
Then they will switch turns between the question and the answer.
Notice that Pac-Man eats the words.
Ehh... Who's Pac-Man??!! I mean the yellow face.
Anyway, that's all about the "Review Word List" mode.
The second mode is "Spelling Tutor".
You can set the number of players, level of difficulty, and the time limit.
The mode is simple; it's all about asking the English words of certain Arabic words,
and you have to type them correctly.
Pac-Man–– Ehh...
WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME?? THAT'S NOT PAC-MAN! BUT IT LOOKS LIKE HIM EXACTLY!
LET'S FORGET ABOUT A GAME CALLED PAC-MAN!
Anyway, if you typed the spelling of a word incorrectly,
Pac– Ehh, I mean the yellow face
eats the words and asks you to try again
with making the next attempt much easier.
Of course, you have to press "Enter" after typing the word.
The mode is enjoyable, and teaches you the spelling of English words.
Anyway, the last mode is "Double Face Game"
Of course, you can set the number of players and the level of difficulty.
The game is about entering the missing letters of words, and each player must input the missing letters.
Then, the turn changes to the other player, and that's it.
An enjoyable game and quite playable.
That's all about the "Double Face" program,
and it's an amazing program for learning words and spelling them.
Magic Touch
Look it its intro.
This song... I like to hear it whenever I turn on the game.
Anyway, Magic Touch is about is a training typing program.
The good thing is that it supports two languages in the case
that you want to train yourself in typing in a certain language.
The game or the program have four modes.
The "Introducing The Keyboard" mode
teaches you the right way to use the keyboard.
It shows you the right position of the hands on keyboard.
Uhh... Look how creepy these hands look,
and how they get close to the keyboard...
It looks like a thief is trying to steal the keyboard.
Anyway, as you can see, you have to type a certain letter,
and the program shows you the letter's appearance as well as in different positions in the words.
Notice how are the letters are coming out of the keyboard to the blank section at the bottom of the screen.
The good thing about this program is the unique presentation of its kind,
and the animation is good to be honest, seeing that it's an old piece of technology.
Anyway, the second mode, which is "Lighting Keyboard",
is a training game for memorizing the location of keys by lighting up individual keys on the keyboard.
You have to press the right key before the time finishes.
It's an enjoyable game, to be honest, and the good thing is that you can exit the mode by pressing the "Escape" key.
"Training on the Keyboard" mode trains you in typing on certain line of the keyboard,
and you can take your time in speed,
but what makes me laugh are the words that you have to type.
Ehh... Woolie danceing agains becows aplologize with yous...
Anyway, the final mode is a typing test.
You have to type an entire paragraph while making as little mistakes as possibly can.
After you finish, they show you your mistakes.
As you can see, I made a few simple mistakes,
but my final rating is excellent.
Back then, it was hard for me to get an excellent rating.
The funny thing here is that the paragraph you type has random words only.
Let's read some just for fun and laughs.
Uhh... I back injure form movioes Salem writig with tarnslator...
Ehh... Why's my name even there? Anyway,
Reasons fur anat opposents eatig me Neis–– AHH! UGH!
One hour later...
Sorry guys, I accidentally bit my tongue.
Anyway, "Magic Touch" is an amazing program for training in typing.
Express
A program for teaching English,
but the difference is that it teaches you about the sentence structure and grammar,
unlike "Double Face" which teaches you the meaning of words.
About the first mode, which is called "Expression Review",
it's about showing sentences depending on the certain subject that you chose,
such as greetings, identifying, invitation and others,
and you will see examples in each category.
In other words, the situations you encounter and the responses in each subject.
The second mode is "Expressions Practice".
They show you sentences and ask you what kind of situation each sentence shows,
and you choose between three choices.
The third mode is "Parts of Speech Review".
It show the words in sentences,
and what are their respective parts of speech:
is it a verb or an article or a noun or something else?
The fourth mode is "Parts of Speech Practice".
It shows you sentences,
and they highlight a word or a letter,
then they ask you what part of speech it is between nine choices.
I think this mode is only for the professionals in the language.
Regarding the last mode, which is "Collision Game",
it's about arranging words in the correct order.
When you choose correctly, smoke appears on the top of the trains.
If your choice was wrong, both trains will get closer to each other even more.
If you keep making mistakes,
both trains will collide, then they will show you correct answer.
WOW!
Imagine that they are forcing you to play this game, and you have to be very familiar with the language,
in order to save the lives of people aboard the trains.
Anyway, the "Express" program is an excellent program for teaching the fundamentals of English grammar.
"Who?" or "Who Program"
The name may be very simple,
but it's an amazing program for learning about historical figures.
It talks generally about explorers and inventors.
The game feature two modes only.
The first mode is all about searching the information
First of all, you choose a historical figure,
and see parts of the biography from the choices below.
Back then, the Google website wasn't made yet.
The second mode is a Snakes and Ladders game.
This game is pretty well-known with most of you,
but in this program, they test your knowledge.
You set the number of players, and the type of questions you want to see.
The one who answers right gets few steps forward,
and the one who answer wrong go back steps,
or stays in prison, or become the victim of a snake.
That's all about the features in this program.
Unfortunately, there are no extra modes,
but it's a good program in general for those who would like to know more about explorers and inventors.
The Holy Quran
Before I start up the program, let me show you the awesome case,
which is distinctly designed and well-made,
and even the cartridge has a unique design,
but unfortunately, it's extremely rare,
and for us Muslims, this is our favorite program,
and it's the first software of The Holy Quran released for us.
About the program, you have nine modes in it.
The first mode is presenting the the Holy Quran,
and you can choose between chapter or a verse.
This mode will be useful for reading The Holy Quran from the program itself,
and the font is clear and excellent, and the presentation also is amazing.
The second mode is about searching for a word.
It is about searching for certain words in The Holy Quran,
which chapter did it appear in, and how many times it was repeated.
The same thing goes for the third and fourth modes,
but the difference is that one mode is for searching for vocabulary and the other mode is searching for a subject.
The fifth mode is searching for the meaning of words,
and you can choose the search engine that you want to use to search for the meaning of words.
Then, you will choose a chapter and see the meaning of the words in the verses.
The sixth mode is memorizing the Holy Quran
You can choose which chapter and which verse you want to start with and which verse you want to finish with.
All you have to do is insert the missing words in the verses.
This mode is excellent for memorizing the verses in the Holy Quran.
The seventh mode includes general details about The Holy Quran.
The eighth mode is The Holy Quran library.
It is about analysis of the Quran, how to read with intonation (Tajweed), reading science and others.
The last mode talks about the software itself,
and how was it programmed and made.
This one is worth reading honestly because they worked hard on it.
That's all about The Holy Quran program, and it's an excellent program without any doubts at all.
Test Your Knowledge (3)
Before I get to the program,
who remembers the competition show called "Letters" that was broadcast in the 90's?
It was one of the greatest competition shows on TV.
It was broadcast here in the Abu Dhabi Channel,
and the narrator was the late Fauzi Al-Khamis, God bless him.
The program was very entertaining. The program was broadcast even in the Saudi Arabia Channel,
and the narrator was Ghanem Al-Saleh.
There were some episodes that were narrated by Majid al-Shibl.
God bless all of them. Amen.
In any case, the three of them are worth watching.
We wished back then to play like that in real life.
That wish was granted with "Test Your Knowledge 3".
The rules of the program are different than that of the TV show,
but it didn't make any difference for us in the end.
We will get to the differences after reviewing Test Your Knowledge.
First of all, you choose the level of difficulty.
Then, you type the names of the contestants.
10 players can join, but without controllers of course.
This program doesn't require any controller to let everyone play.
If you left the box blank and pressed Enter, you will enter the game directly,
because you set the number of players already.
The rules are already known.
The teams must make a straight line on the screen either vertically or horizontally.
It depends on the respective team.
The teams have the freedom to choose a category block, and each block has a question.
The questions' answers are presented in three ways:
multiple choice,
True or False,
and matching,
and you choose which choice is the right one.
The team who answers the question correctly first, the block will then be colored the same color of that team.
Then, the turn goes for the other team to choose a block, and that's it.
There are a lot of subjects in the questions,
but personally, I see the music to be the hardest subject,
because there are questions that plays a musical excerpt,
and you have to choose which song it comes from.
To be honest, I don't know anything about Arabic music.
and I don't even listen to the songs because I am not a big fan of them to be honest.
I don't know if this music is familiar to you or not.
Anyway, the weird thing is that the cursor is just a bug.
I thought it was a mosquito or something stuck on my screen,
but never mind that.
Test Your Knowledge is an awesome and fun program.
Now, we will compare it to the TV show.
In the TV show, the narrator asks the question,
and each team has the answering bell
which must be rang before the other team in order to answer.
If someone answered it incorrectly, the turn goes for the other team.
If they answered correctly, they can choose a letter which is usually the first letter of the answer of the next question.
So knowledge is not enough in this game; you must react quickly,
and as you can see here, the red team is stomping over the green team, and doesn't give them any chances.
Subsequently, I think the Test Your Knowledge knowledge is fair,
because there is a chance for the other team to choose and answer at their own leisure,
even if the first team answered right or wrong.
Not to mention that in Test Your Knowledge, they put subjects on the blocks instead of letters,
but in any case, that doesn't change the fact that the dream came true,
and we can play this competitive game on a home console,
we didn't really care too much for the differences.
Despite that, we wished that "Letters" continued even more on our screens.
But, everything has its end, and that's all about the educational games.
By the way, it's known that there more educational games for the MSX other than the mentioned ones.
If you want me to make another part of the educational games,
tell us in the comments below.
If demanded, we will review what we have.
In conclusion, that's all about the common educational games on the MSX.
There are a lot of educational games, but we focused on the well-known ones.
If you enjoy these kind of games,
game on as much as you like.
Thank you so much for watching, and see you in the next episode.
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