The Three Phases Of Talkman
Firstly, if you after an engrossing story line, 700+ different racing cars or a king of the hill deathmatch, Talkman is none of these. In fact, it could only be described as a game in the loosest sense of the word. This is a tool, a very clever one.

If you know nothing of Talkman, it's the latest offering from Sony Japan, promising to act as a translator between four different languages. English, Japanese, Chinese and Korean. Thankfully, I have been blessed with Japanese, Chinese and Korean friends, so we spent a weekend giving Talkman a thorough run for its money....
Phase 1: excitement
So, the package is opened, the mic is plugged in and we boot up. Initially, you're asked what language we speak from the four available (this happens upon each boot up). This option then sets the menus and speech into something your familiar with, which if you're reading this, is probably English. Now, you're introduced to Max, a blue parrot who will guide you through the Talkman world and hopefully broaden cultural horizons. It starts with a small menu in Max's home, you can fiddle with some options, play game or go straight to the main event, which is Talk mode.... After a brief wait while the UMD rotates a few times, there's another language selection, here you choose what we want our English translated to. After this screen, Max flies away and lands amongst to a huge selection of situations that you can find yourself in on holiday. Hotel, train, general greetings, shopping, restaurant, taxi, beach, ski resort, hospital, police station, night club etc. After choosing your situation, that's it we're finally at the part where the PSP wizards start working their magic.

The rules are simple, you hold down square, speak a short phrase to Max, there's a 5 second pause and Max gives you a selection of phrases that he thinks you might be trying to say. After you choose, you hear your phrase spoken in Japanese! Talkman is no Babelfish, these phrases are coherent and spoken with a perfect accent.

Phase 2: frustration
Sadly, the initial euphoria of phase one doesn't last too long. Soon, a struggle sets in, sentence after sentence, Max can't seem to understand the words that are thrown at him. The reason for this is quite simple. Talkman consists of a set number of phrases, possibly around 2000 (in the 4 different languages), when you speak into the mic, Max searches for the most compatible phrase amongst his database. Obviously, if he doesn't understand a word or two from your sentence, the results will probably be wrong!