➤ My Wellness Coach: Quit Smoking with Allen Carr

First of all, a question: are you a smoker? Well, dear friends, we love you, please skip this introductory paragraph and head bold and full of nicotine to the heart of the article. Aren't you? Ouch ouch ouch, then you are out of the loop: this article, as well as the non-DS game to which it refers, is not for you, so turn away, we do not want you with your clear voice, your youthful energies intact, your teeth immaculate and your chances of who knows what percent less of getting cancer. Tze!

With the first step, you are already on the road

Here we are again, dear smokers friends, those others are gone, do not worry! Well, do you know Allen Carr? Definitely yes, since he is, as he defines himself on the back of this Ubisoft production, the "world's greatest expert on how to quit smoking". At the dawn of this all in all surprising experience, we got the easy and predictable joke according to which maybe he really was because he had done it dozens of times. And instead it turns out, after a quick round of documentation, that Mr. Carr is the inventor of a rather successful method that he finds among its beneficiaries and testimonial none other than Anthony Hopkins, and rest assured, it is only to quit smoking the well-known actor had to start eating people, that was just a movie. At best he will have become a gum devourer.

My Wellness Coach: Quit Smoking with Allen Carr - Review

This method, simply called "Easyway", is also the basis of a book, an international best seller published in 50 countries and which has sold nine million copies, which we, of course, had never heard of before setting out to test this. last non-game of the series "My Wellness Coach": actually, let's reflect, since Ubi is at stake with this very little playful series, making one about smoking is not a bad idea at all, and from here to turn to the world's leading expert the step is short. In short, in fact, the premises are the best: a serious software house, a recognized expert ... The problem is that we have no intention of quitting smoking, they have imposed it on us editorially: therefore, a mocking and skeptical nature, we turn on the DS defiantly as if to say: "Well, dear Allen, show me what you can do!"

The road to freedom

In reality, we would soon realize that it wasn't us who challenged Allen Carr, but the little "nicotine monster" that resides in every smoker, a small, voracious creature that needs cigarettes to live, and that she pushes us to do the craziest things just to satisfy her bulimia. In fact, it can only be defined as crazy, Easyway pushes us to think, spending a lot of money on something that hurts us, does not taste good, takes away our energy and nowadays also excludes us from the social forum; on the DS, the title seems to do everything to welcome us with open arms, it asks us what we are called, it allows us to choose our tutor from a shortlist of six (people who really exist and who work in some Easyway center around the world) , reassures us that the experience of quitting smoking will be anything but painful,

indeed, even funny: in fact, while we stop smoking we can safely continue to smoke. Where is the catch? Simply in the fact that the "game", as well as the method, is divided into two large parts, the first of which, the "Road to freedom", is a sort of psychological indoctrination equal to but opposite to what the little monster: he convinced us, at the time, that smoking was beautiful, that cigarettes tasted good, that it was a good thing to overcome moments of boredom, that made us attractive and interesting for others, that he would relax us and help you concentrate ... Allen Carr on the other hand, step by step, convinces us exactly the opposite, replying point by point to what are all common, positive, clichés about cigarettes. And while we are quite sure that the textual parts of this phase of the game are neither more nor less than summaries of the salient parts of the book, the videogame medium has a possibility that the printed word does not have: at each "section", each concerning one specific reason for which you smoke, a minigame is associated, which reaffirms the concept in an interactive form. And so we find ourselves exploring a cave collecting diamonds which lead us lower and lower until we can no longer go up again, to clean increasingly dirty teeth, to do our everyday work which will be more and more difficult after each cigarette break. ... An excellent idea, even if rather obligatory, which ultimately turns out to be spot on and effective, also thanks to the very simple but nice graphic style; once a minigame has been unlocked in the main mode, we will be able to tackle it individually to get higher scores: unfortunately, however, detached from the context, we realize the playful value not exactly of value of many of the 12 minigames present, often boring, frustrating, not very playable or a combination of the three.

But are you leaving me on the coolest?

After having demolished in a kind and friendly way our beliefs about smoking (which can also be done in half a day), our tutor confronts us with the fait accompli: the cigarette that almost orders us to smoke at this point will be the last! It is a sort of verification, to test how much the things he has told us up to that moment have really been assimilated by our psyche. Then a series of tips to face the last and definitive part of our journey, which unlocks at the same time:

the "Calendar of Benefits". One expects who knows what, a support of a certain level in what, you know, is the most difficult part when you stop smoking, and instead this is precisely the most disappointing, poor, poor phase of the whole "game", limiting itself to a couple of phrases to unlock, one a day for the first week, then one a week for the next three, which inform us, for example, of when the nicotine circulating in our body is exhausted, when we should start to realizing that we have a brighter skin, than when we begin to feel flavors and smells in a more defined way ... All true things, for heaven's sake, that we have been able to find firsthand, the fact remains that dear Allen seems to abandon us right in the moment of greatest need: after doing a splendid job of creating, or awakening, even in those who did not intend to quit smoking the belief that smoking only hurts without giving anything in return, when it comes to really having to c omstarting to resist the temptation Easyway seems practically useless, leaving us at the mercy of willpower alone. Which, perhaps, from the point of view of psychology and the effectiveness of the whole can also be positive, but having to judge the product from the point of view of a video game magazine ...

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There is no rating in this review because it would not be correct to include I Quit Smoking with Allen Carr in a scale of values made up of products of a completely different purpose; of course, the title has a playful component that, let's cut the bull's head, is certainly not disastrous but becomes absolutely insignificant if taken only for its traditional values, but the point is another: Will Allen Carr really make you quit smoking? The writer hasn't touched a cigarette for exactly a week, and the benefits, needless to say, are concrete, tangible, superior to anything you may hear around. Not smoking, in a word, is wonderful. Except that the writer also has an incredible desire to turn on, which is perfectly normal, but here the support provided by the game has completely failed, after having proved absolutely successful in the first phase, and now we have to rely only on our strength. In short, the Easyway method works, but perhaps the DS is not the ideal means: maybe it would be better to buy the book and go to a center. Or, simply start resisting whenever temptation arises. In any case, good luck!