Building English Skills by playing games

Games may be known as entertainment by people. However, we should know game gives a good profit in improving our skills. In several games, there’s story, gameplay, songs, conversation, and others. We can learn English by playing games. A game is exciting if it has story. Some games, particularly ones with sequel and they’re in English, have imaginative storylines. Conversation by conversation will happen as we play the game, and by that conversation, we can learn English and improve our English skills from it. Especially there are some games which conversation is spoken by Native Speaker who works as Voice Actor such as Dynasty Warriors 3 until 7, so we can improve our listening skills and pronunciation. Understanding the story of the game means we have good reading, good at comprehending and good listening. Here are some games that I recommend you to play:

1. Harvest Moon: Back to Nature (PSX/PS1, PC Emulator: ePSXe, PSX Emulator)

My biggest recommendation goes to Harvest Moon, since it is the best game which does not provide any violence. This game is absolutely fun to be played. We name our character, we manage the farm, we manage our chickens, we manage our cows and sheep, we marry with one of 5 single girls in the town with some boys as rival, we socialize with people in the town, we participate the festival in the town, and many more. Notice the conversation has some relatively unfamiliar words, so it will absolutely improve your vocabulary. Those screenshots there are the gameplay of Harvest Moon: BTN. Cool, isn’t it? ;-) But this game in the beginning is a pain in the ass. We have to learn first how we crop, how we feed the animals and many things to learn.

2. Pokemon Fire Red/Leaf Green (GameBoy Advance , PC Emulator: VBA)

Pokemon is a fun game indeed. Pokemon is totally common to people in America as their childhood game, but actually even some of them who are around 30 or older, still play this game. This game is about the main character; whether we decide as boy or girl, wish to become a Pokemon Master by collecting 151 Pokemons throughout the world. We will be a Pokemon trainer, raising them until they are strong, and we will have to fight wild Pokemon, or other trainer Pokemon. Fighting the other trainer’s Pokemon will make our Pokemon stronger, but we can’t catch other trainer’s Pokemon. Wild pokemon can’t really be a good way to train our Pokemon, but we can catch them and make them our Pokemon. Some Pokemons may evolve depending on what level they are or requirements to do, for example my favorite Pokemon on the game, Squirtle, will evolve to Wartortle when he reaches level 18, and will evolve again to Blastoise when it reaches level 36. Other example is Eevee, who will not evolve no matter what level you are. You will have to give her an item in order to make her evolves. For example, give Eevee Thunderstone, and she will evolve into Jolteon. In this game you will have a rival in the very first start of the game, just like the main character, we can name our rival as well. Some people said this game is a good media to learn English, as this game was actually aimed for kids, but instead was played even by those who are in 30 until 35.

3. Digimon World 1 (PSX/PS1, PC Emulator same as Harvest Moon)

This game is one of the biggest memories of gaming world to Indonesian children back in around 1995 until 2005, when PS2 entered Indonesia. Most children who have ever played PSX/PS1 have also ever played Digimon World 1. This game will have the main character sucked into the Digital World; he is the Chosen One who is going to save the Digital World from chaos, with his Digimon. As we play the game, we will see a Digimon following us wherever we go. It is actually our pet, we will start whether having Agumon as starter or Gabumon. I recommend you to have Agumon as it will have a stronger Digivolution, Greymon. This game is exciting, we will train our Digimon, we will feed it, we will let it rest, we will let it poop, we will raise its stats so it will digivolve into a stronger Digimon, and many of it. The Digimon will fight for us if a wild Digimon intentionally or unintentionally approaches us, or we approach the wild Digimon. The main goal of the game is to recruit the non-Wild Digimons such as Agumon or Greymon to return to the city. Some recruit able Digimon will fight in order to have it return to the city, some will give us quest. Just like Pokemon, Digimon will also evolve, but it depends on the time, and in Digimon it is known as Digivolve instead of evolve. Unlike Pokemon, Digimon will digivolve depends on stats of the Digimon. In other words, to digivolve we will have to meet the requirements. There are several Digimon we may want to evolve, for example if you start as Agumon, it may digivolve into Greymon, Centarumon, Meramon, Monochromon, Tyrannomon or Birdramon. If we wish to digivolve as Greymon, we must have our stats same as the requirement to have Greymon. The further information can be found in some sites like Gamefaqs, or Gamespot. Notice that the conversation in this game is using plain old English.

4. Dynasty Warriors 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8 (PS2 for DW3, 4, 5 and 6 PS3 for DW7 and 8)

I recommend Dynasty Warriors 4, 5 or 7 for this one. I haven’t played the DW8 yet, since it’s still new. This game has native English as its voice actor. We may be able to hear the pronunciation. We may learn the ancient China History, as this game is based on the novel written by Luo Guanzhong: Romance of The Three Kingdom. Those 3 Kingdoms are Shu, Wei, Wu. Even the characters are based on real figures f the three Kingdoms. If we play DW5, we may play as one of the character in whether Shu, Wei, Wu, and Other. For example, if, in the game, we play as Zhao Yun, then we play for Shu forces. Or if we play as Zhang Liao, then we play for Wei forces. There are more than 40 characters in DW5, more than 70 characters in DW7. In DW7, there is one more forces beside Shu, Wei, Wu, it is Jin, a Dynasty that, in the end, conquered China. DW7 has different play from DW4, 5 and 6. For storylines, we will play as forces instead of characters. The forces are Shu, Wei, Wu, and Jin. We can not play as Other forces. For example, if we play as Wei forces, we will start as Xiahou Dun in the first stage, but it will change to Cao Cao in the second stage. In other words, each stage MAY have different characters to be played as. As we play the game, beware of Lu Bu of Other forces. Lu Bu kicks ass! He is the very strongest character in the game that we may avoid fighting him. We may have our favorite character in the game, whether it is due to their looks, their history, their personality, their moves, or their belief. As for myself, my very favorite is Zhang Liao from Wei Forces, below him; there are Zhang Fei from Shu, Sun Ce from Wu, Sima Yi from Wei and the first leader of Dynasty Jin, and Lu Bu from Other.

Nizamuddi Arriyadhi a.k.a Odi