User Reviews (11 - 21 of 284)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Fun and it works!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 14 / 14
Date: May 24, 2006
Author: Amazon User

My job doesn't require a whole lot of thought and I felt that my brain was getting lazy. I bought this game for the Sudoku, but ended up really enjoying the rest of it, too. It really is addicting. The first time I tested my brain it was an 80, the highest you can get. Now I'm down to a 22.

I've noticed changes in other areas of my life after playing for a while. My attention span seems to be longer, I'm able to focus on things more intently, and since my brain is "warmed up" after playing first thing in the morning, I'm less groggy and more productive during the day.

The game keeps you interested, especially if you're competitive. If you have more than one person playing the game on a daily basis, after you finish an exercise it will tell you if you beat someone else for that day. My whole family plays. Another part of the game is it asks you to draw pictures of every day objects from memory. After everyone has drawn, when you log in you get to see them all side by side. It can be very funny and it's a nice way to encourage communication in the family. It would probably even be good to pass around in the office.

If you have a job that doesn't require recalling facts or much meorization, I highly recommend this game. I've recommended it to my grandmother as well, because she wants to keep her mind sharp.

Have Fun and Help Your Thinking!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 13
Date: July 02, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I'm a 50 year old woman - and probably in the age range of people that this product is supposed to help. Like my friends, I complain of forgetting names, and other memory lapses that undermine my confidence. Brain Age is a program that touts working your brain's pre-frontal cortex - to keep your brain in good shape.

The first time I did this program it said that my Brain Age was 80! After a few days I got my Brain Age down to 28. (20 is the "best" age you can get.) My 9 and 12 year old sons' first Brain Ages were also in the 80s, though it told them that players under age 20 should take the results "with a grain of salt."

There are two categories of activities in Brain Age. You can choose "Brain Age Check" or "Training." If you choose "Brain Age," you first answer if you are in an environment where you can speak. Then you are given three tests chosen at random, and your Brain Age is calculated based on how well you performed on the three tests. Examples of Brain Age Check tests are:

Stroop Test - This test shows you names of colors. Each name is in a different color, and you are to name the color that the word is written in. You may see the word "Blue" and it can be written in Yellow, Black, Blue or Red, and you are to say the color it is written in. (This is harder than you think!)

Counting - This test asks you to count, as quickly as possible, without slurring, from 1 to 120.

Connect the numbers-and-letters. In this test one screen has the letters A through M, and the numbers 1 through 13, each circled, randomly placed on the screen. Your task is to take the stylus and make one long line, connecting A with 1, then moving to B and 2, then C and 3, etc., until you end with M and 13.

Word Memory. In this test you are shown 30 words on the 2 screens and given 2 minutes to memorize them. You then are given 3 minutes to write down as many as you can remember.

Counting numbers. On one screen you are shown different numbers in different colors, some of the numbers may be pulsing, rotating and/or sliding. The program will ask you things like "How many blue #s?" or "How many sliding numbers?"

The other part of the program is Daily Training exercises. At first not all of the exercises are available to you, more become available as you use the program. Some examples of the Daily Training activities are:

Calculations X 20. You are given 20 easy calculations, like 5-2, 7X8, 6+3. You try to complete these as quickly and accurately as possible, with penalties for inaccurate answers.

Calculations X100. Same as above, with 100 calculations.

Low to High Number Memory. One screen flashes four to eight numbers. Then, on the other screen, you are shown spots in the same formation, and you are to tap, in order, where the lowest to highest numbers were. The screen may flash up to 8 numbers at a time.

Head Count. On one screen you are shown a number of people figures. Next, a house comes down and hides them. Figures then enter and exit the house, and, after a few, you are asked how many figures are left in the house. The training exercise has you do this 5 times, it starts out very easy and gets very hard.

Reading Aloud. You are timed as you read a short passage aloud. Passages are interesting, and include sections of Dracula, Jack London, the Constitution, etc.

Syllable Count. You are shown a number of short phrases, like "A penny saved is a penny earned." and asked to count the number of syllables in each.

There are other games, and more games become "unlocked" as you use the program.

Plusses and the minuses:
I like this program a lot - and I do think that it has helped my attention to detail. I'm getting better at all the activities - I can remember up to 18 words on Word Memory, when I started playing I remembered only 10.

The Voice Recognition and writing recognition are better than I expected, but they are far from perfect, and that is the most frustrating thing about the program. For example, in the Stroop Test the DS never understands when I say the word "Blue" (and I am a native English speaker.) So I use 2 player files: one where I say I can speak when I do the Brain Age Check, and one where I say I can't. The age difference in the Brain Age is about 20 years.

Also, many times I will write a number or a letter and the DS will think I've written a different number or letter. Many of these tasks are timed, so I am trying to write quickly, and it'll think, for example, that a "5" is a "4", or an "L" is a "C", and then I get penalized for wrong answers. (On the bright side: this is a good exercise in persevering in the face of frustration! A whole new product line idea!)

Bottom Line: This game is fun, addictive, and might actually have lasting benefits. Not bad for $19.95!

In This Game You Will Destroy Evil Brain Eating Aliens

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 14
Date: April 19, 2006
Author: Amazon User

... if that's what you need to tell you kid to get them to play Brain Age, go for it.

It doesn't happen, of course. This is calesthenics for your noggin, and it's a well-crafted, fascinating, exciting little adventure. This game is a phenonemon in Japan and I can see why. Amazing interactivity coupled with intense training, a wicked sense of humor and something that will actually do something positive for your mind and show measurable results!

Yes, the sound and hand-writing recognition leaves a lot to be desired, but this video game is about the TRAINING, not the destination. Get out of thinking that you must reach Level Four or you're a failure. Just doing these exercises is what it's about. I won't go into the actual training techniques, which have been covered in other reviews, but will say they are challenging and enjoyable.

Finally, the biggest audience for this game in Japan are the over 50-60 age range. It has been blamed for Nintendo DS systems selling out! This kind of stuff sits Nintendo above the competition. It will actively help your mind. Kudos to them for creating it and kudos to all you non-video-game players who will pick it up and get the benefit from it.

Fun Despite a Few Flaws

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: May 02, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is alot of fun and helps to wake up the old grey matter. My only problem is that occassionally the voice recognition was a little off (although it helps alot if you hold the DS far away from you) and every time I played the word memory game it wouldn't recognize my letters, often thinking that an "N" was a "W", causing me to get frustrated, forget half of the words I just spent 3 minutes trying to memorize, and then get a lower brain age as a result. The good thing however, is that there is a way in which you can select which exercises you want to do when determining your brain age. Although sometimes I feel cheap when doing this as I tend to choose the exercises I'm better at. Despite minor flaws this game is still alot of fun and at 19.99, it's worth the price. Plus, it's got Sudoku (which I honestly didn't think looked that fun until I gave it a try in Brain Age) which can also be alot of fun.

Fun Game i luv to play

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 14 / 16
Date: November 12, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is awesome. I love to play it, and i play it everyday. In school it gets me way far ahead, and much quicker too at math. The only thing that puts the game at a rate of overall 4 stars is that in one of the games you have to speak out, and sometimes it won't take your answer. this happens sometimes, but it kind of stinks because your getting tested, so when it won't take it it counts it as wrong. But i gotta say don't let this little thing stop you from buying this game. It will kill alot of time. On long trips i always take it, and whenever i get to my destination im like man i spent over two hours playing the ds? It totally rocks! i used to get car sick because i was bored, and just sitting in the car, but now i don't get car sick at all, because im doing something else. This game has made me good, and quick at math in my school. It really helped. This game is definitely good for all ages even my dad plays it!

Gets Boring After Awhile

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: May 29, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is based on research that shows that we can keep our brains in good shape by exercising them for just a few minutes a day. The game therefore contains a number of exercises that the player is encouraged to perform at least once a day, including simple calculations, reading aloud, counting syllables, and counting the number of people going in and out of a house. You are also encouraged to test your "brain age" daily to see your progress. The test will include activities similar to the ones described above. The ideal brain age, according to research, is 20. The game also includes about 100 sudoku puzzles of varying difficulty levels to work on.

Although I tried following the training program for about a week and a half, it quickly became boring and monotonous. As there isn't much motivation to play the game for more than about 10-15 minutes per day since the game will only save one score per day for each activity, it is easy to lose interest. And though the game teases you the first few days by rewarding your daily training by opening up new activities, after a few days you stop unlocking new things. So after playing for 10 straight days and still seeing activities on my screen yet to be unlocked, I was rather frustrated.

In addition, there were a few frustrating glitches in the game. One of the tests for brain age requires you to speak into the DS's microphone and name the color of the words printed on the screen. While not a particularly difficulty activity, the DS had a great deal of difficulty recognizing when I said "blue" or "black" so I had to keep repeating it, sometimes costing me several valuable seconds. Even more frustrating was the fact that I found it very difficult to write the number 5 so that the computer would recognize it. So in calculations, I would write a correct answer, but the computer would think my 5 was a nine so I would get the wrong answer and lose huge points.

The main redeeming quality of this game is the included sudoku. The system they used was practically perfect. You are able to put in up to 9 possible numbers in a space and then write a large number over them when you are sure of the correct number. And the fact that you can use the stylus to play it just like a regular pen and pencil puzzle without having to constantly erase numbers was nice.

Flawed implementation, problematic

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 26 / 41
Date: June 12, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Firstly, the interface is a bit flawed. On many many occaisions I would say the correct answer (the Nintendo DS/DS Lite has a mic that this game uses), and it wouldn't register my answer being correct even though I was speaking the correct term. So, actually I was correct but the game thought I was wrong and gave me a poor rating. This can be very frustrating and seems unfair when it displays the color Blue for example, and you clearly say "blue" and it doesn't even register.

Secondly, it relies on how fast you can write with the stylus. A lot of people may be very quick to think the correct answer, but may not be that good writing on the screen with the stylus, which can be awkward since to play this game, you have to hold the DS or DS Lite turned on it's side like an open book. It will give you a bad score just based on this, even though you knew the answer.

Thirdly, the sayings that are on the screen during game play are strange and condescending. I think they are supposed to make the doctor virtual character seem powerful and superior, but really a lot of what he says doesn't make much sense. There is no way to turn this off, which can be a bit annoying because you have to sit through or click throw his sayings each time you play.

This game should not rely so much on stylus and voice input and it should be redesigned to use the buttons more. As it is designed, the buttons are virtually never even pressed!

The game is more frustrating than fun not because I can't answer the exercises quickly and correctly most of the time, but because the game doesn't recongize my correct input as correct the majority of the time. What good is that?

The premis of the game is empty-it's supposed to exercise your brain but in reality, playing Super Mario Brothers (or any other game) probably exercises your brain just as much and is a whole lot more fun.

I give it a thumbs down.

Useless buggy recognition code

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 15 / 19
Date: September 25, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The concept for this game is strong, and it's got some cute ideas, but the voice recognition - especially for the word "blue" - and the character recognition is abysmal. It makes the "game" an exercise in frustration, more than anything else.

As to character recognition...unless you write in whatever font the game is programmed to recognize, it's going to record your answers as something different than what you wrote.

You are penalized when the system doesn't recognize "blue" or the correct number.

If the system is so rigid that it only accepts one way of saying "blue", then the system should have a sound file that tells you what it wants to hear. As to the number recognition, it should have a screen that shows you how the system wants the numbers written, or it should be able to allow you to enter your numbers and correlate them to numbers within the system. (When I make this mark, it = 4)

Also, the "intro" content is absurdly long, with no way to skip over it. Huge waste of time after the first 10x you've seen it.

I just got the game today, and I've spent hours trying to figure out a way to say blue such that the game will recognize it...now, I just wish I could return opened software. I'm very frustrated with the entire experience.

Great concept, but it needed more development time

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 11 / 12
Date: April 26, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is an extremely interesting piece of software. Though I only ranked the same 3 stars on the fun factor, I think that's plenty since the game is not designed to provide an evening's worth of entertainment like a Metroid or Castlevania game. Unfortunately, due to the buggy "Microsoft" quality of the software, I can't justify an overall score greater than 3 stars either.

First of all, the game's speech recognition software is horrendous. The "Stroop Test" challenge requires users to state the text color of a word that spells a different color. When the correct answer is "blue" the game will usually fail to understand your voice. I have experienced the occasional flaw with other words as well, but I have both personally and through reading reviews found "blue" to be the worst. There's just no excuse for this game to be on the market with a bug this big! Fortunately you have the choice to skip the microphone-based challenges.

Other challenges involve writing numbers and letters, and this software only does an OK job. Some challenges give you plenty of time to repeat character entry, but some are not forgiving. I find that an 8 is often seen as a 6 (or was that the other way around?). Alphabetic character recognition is even worse, but I've found that uppercase characters are easier for the software to understand. I doubt handwriting aberrations like the ridiculous little slash some add to the number '7' and the letter 'Z' would be understood by this software, so proper handwriting is probably a requirement. Overall I would rate the handwriting recognition aspect far better than the ridiculously mangled symbols required on early PDAs, but not quite good enough for 2006.

It's sad. This software would have been excellent had Nintendo given it the development time that it needed. The bugs are so in-your-face that Nintendo should be ashamed for releasing this product.

Just a thought...
The DS does not contain region locking, so I can't help but wonder about getting a different release of the software that has had more development time. Australia will probably get this release, but I doubt software of this nature would be successful anywhere in western europe. If an Australian version is released it would be designed for a different english dialect, but the additional development time may fix enough bugs for that version to be superior for a US resident.

Fundamentally flawed

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 18 / 25
Date: September 22, 2006
Author: Amazon User

After five minutes on the initial test having my speaking "blue" misrecognised constantly, and my written "4" interpreted as either a 9 or a 0, I looked through the manual for the instructions on how to train it to recognise YOUR speech and handwriting.

It didn't have one. Because it doesn't have those features. Which renders the game next to useless. Am I prepared to alter the way I speak and write to play this, and keep that in mind constantly while I try to solve puzzles? No.

The REALLY stupid thing is that it prints the number 4 (in questions etc) the way that character is usually printed on books, on your keyboard etc, i.e. with three contiguous strokes forming a figure with a pointy top, but it seems trained to recognise only an "open" four, i.e. one with no join at the top.

Play "Big Brain Academy" instead - less famous but FAR more playable.

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next 

Actions