What impressed us most was the possibility that a player just might get hooked on Conrad or Bronte and this little handheld game might actually spark someone to put down the electronic gadget for a while and pick up a literary classic.
Dr Kawashima`s Brain Training is more than a game. Its puzzles are challenging and motivating. Especially if you`re a fan of Sudoku, you will have a lot of fun. Very addictive!
The fact that it’s just mental arithmetic simply doesn’t matter: all it makes you realise is that most games are mental arithmetic one way or another. [May 2006, p.95]
The handwriting and voice recognition are great features, except when they fail; it takes practice to retrain your writing and pronunciation to Brain Age's expectations, and in the meantime, your DS just thinks you're stupid.
With a budget price of just $19.99, this game has done something I thought I’d never experience or see: a fun video game that also educates. In your face, channel four evening news!
Brain Age is like those game that came out of nowhere , and have a different scheme. Is lacking, not to many diversity , just finish to unlock all the content and nothing more. My big complain even if i enjoyed a lot , is that if you finished school and one of your families member gives you as a gift this game, please , is like having an insult.
Brain Age is entertaining at the very beginning, I was really into doing my brain age check (3 random exercises that put your brain to the test and depending on your skill it gives you a score), you can see results even the second day of your check, and that's kind of promising, the thing is that current studies say that still there's no real evidence that you gain something by playing this kind of games so lets you get that aside.
Gameplay wise, the puzzles are fun at least when you start the game but they became repetitive really quickly, also I don't know if it was just me or my 3DS but I had a hard time when it came to registering my voice or writing letters, so at least a third of the puzzles malfunctioned on my "playthrough".
It's hard to recommend Brain Age, its a game for quick plays and time passing, it starts fun but ends like a chore, kind of.
DISCLAIMER: If you are going to play this game. Play it simply for fun. Because it will not increase your brain's ability. There was even a law suit over this.
Other than that, yeah it is a fun game, but won't make you smarter or keep your brain healthy. If you want to keep your brain healthy, cardio exercise is the way to go. Also dedicate yourself within your field.
To enjoy Brain Age you may have to learn to write again, and that almost reduces the entire experience to frustration.
The Good: Nice ideas for an innovative dual screen use; good time comparing graphs and drawings with other users; sketching individual stamps is great; funny interaction with doctor Kawashima! Sudoku.
The Bad: Sometimes it just can't recognize your handwriting, and losing points for that is EXTREMELY frustrating; graphs are limited to one month per time, so you can't follow your progress in a long term; normal and hard modes are mixed in one graph, making your average fall when you try the hard mode.
Good brain training programs, an overall delightful bright sound and the funny doctor's head floating around the screen don't keep Brain Age from being frustrating.
The major problem here is the not-always-good handwriting recognizing system. Every now and then you'll find yourself scratching the screen here and there while watching the time going by without being understood; or being misunderstood, resulting in lost points anyway. In a nutshell, the pieces fall apart because of a structural defect.
A little extra encouragement would have been nice too--like giving prizes for reaching higher age levels or completing sudoku--but it's not there. Add to that the disheartening mix between normal and hard modes in the graphs generation and we've got more problems than qualities.
On the other hand some training programs like Low to High and Head Count and some tests from the brain age check feature like Connect Maze work pretty fine and are well-executed ideas, but that only sum up for a final disappointment feeling.
In the end there's only a bitter taste in your mouth because it's easy to recognize a good opportunity wasted under technical issues.
If you are old and boring you will love this game. Good thing I am both. The entries in the series are mostly indistinguishable so you're better off going with the most recent adaptation.
Summary(Also known as "Brain Training For Adults" and "Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training") Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day for Nintendo DS is a fun, rewarding form of entertainment everyone can enjoy, as it helps players flex their mental muscles. Brain Age is inspired by the research of Professor Ryuta Kawashima, a prominent Japanes...