Platform: Nintendo DS
ERSB: Everyone
Genre: Mental Training
Number of Players: 1 – 16
Publisher: Nintendo
Release Date: US April 16, 2006
Official Website
Writers: PinkGeek

Rating: Halos: 4 out of 10

Brain Age: Train Your Brain is part of Nintendo’s “Touch Generations” currently being marketed toward non-gaming types. Uncomplicated and easy to learn, the gameplay is done entirely with the stylus and voice commands. Basically, this is a simple game anyone can pick up and play.

Almost a non-game, Brain Age is a series of excercises designed to boost your mental abilities, and keep your brain young. When you begin, you can run through a short series of excercises that will establish your “brain age”. Once you have created your brain age profile, you can begin your training. The first time I played I scored a brain age of 60, the second time I scored a 27. This is quite a contrast. Either the game is magical, turning me into an instant genius or, more realistically, there’s a bit of a learning curve. Some of the excercises are fun, and others downright boring . If you like this style of game, it’s worth a rent at least, but even a $19.99 sticker price seems too high.

Graphics:
Are very simple, using primary colors and basic shapes, but it gets the job done.

Controls:
Consist of voice commands and use of the stylus for writing or drawing. Here is where the game has a few glitches. The handwriting recognition can be a pain, I had some trouble and my handwriting is fairly neat. Fours were sometimes interpreted as nines, and other times I received a “?” when the game couldn’t recognize what I was writing. This can be a bit frustrating when you are doing a timed task. I hit more snags with the voice recognition. In one excercise you are asked to say the color of the text of words out loud. Trying my best to speak clearly, with the microphone at a good distance, I was repeatedly told I was wrong because the game could not recognize what I was saying. If you’re anything like me, you will continously embarass yourself by yelling at your DSlite.

Replay Value:
Is the goal of this game. The idea is to play each day and as you do new excercises are added. Some of the tasks include: reading an excerpt of a story out loud to yourself, counting people going into and out of a house, and drawing animals (with a blunt plastic stylus!) There is also a stand alone Sudoku section. If these sound like fun to you, then you may enjoy playing this game on a daily basis.

I find Brain Age: Train Your Brain mildly entertaining in short bursts when there’s not much else to do. Challenging myself is something I enjoy, but this game seemed too elementary to be of any benefit to my brain. If given the choice again I would probably try Big Brain Academy instead….or go old school and pick up a good book.

Second Opinion by Typhoid!