User Reviews (1 - 11 of 115)

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Better Than The First!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: August 24, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Brain Age 2 has so many more exercises than the first one. There is a little problem with voice recognition in Paper, Rocks, Scissors- but don't let that stop you from getting it. There are still many, many more games to play. What I really like is that it has it's own version of Dr. Mario! If you click on "training" and scroll down to the last "???" block and click on it...you will find VIRUS BUSTER!!! That alone is worth 20.00! Get this game, it is good!

Great Brain Training for All Ages

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 126 / 130
Date: August 28, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The first Brain Age on the Nintendo DS spawned a whole generation of brain training games. Now they're back with Brain Age 2 - and I really feel they did a great job of enhancing the game's functionality!

First, the infamous "voice test". In Brain Age 1, it was the classic see-a-colored-word-say-the-color game that so many magazines and websites print. The big problem there was that blue and black always got confused. With this one, they changed it to rock-paper-scizzors. It's just as challenging, and we've never had any problems with it understanding us. Hurrah!

Next, the mini-games. I appreciated the challenge of the Brain Age 1 games, but they were pretty boring. They just weren't much fun to play, especially compared to some of the other games on the market.

They did a great job of revamping the games in Brain Age 2. Some of them are still on the boring side, like the 'running people' game where you try to figure out what place the dark player comes in. Most of them, though, are truly fun to play. The spinning letters game where you try to figure out what word they spell can be quite challenging. I love the piano game where you try to play along with the song.

There are the usual graphing options, so you can see your progress over time, and then the "brain age" with an ideal age of 20. Just like with the first game, I have to protest that it's a silly idea that your brain is best at 20. Your brain can easily be very slow at 20 and much better at 30! They should rate it as a 0% to 100%, rather than pushing this idea that youth is best. What's next, a diet program that gets you to weigh the weight of an "ideal 20 year old"?

Still, it is certainly valid that the more you use your brain, the better it gets. Everyone needs to keep their brains exercised and fresh. Playing this game is far better than sitting back and passively watching TV all night. Best of all, you can bring this along with you and increase your brain power while you ride the bus, wait in line, and do other boring tasks!

Highly recommended!

Brain Age 2: More Training in Minutes a Day

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 7
Date: September 01, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is a good learning tool . The only thing I am dissapointed in it took to long to arrive at my home after preordering in advance.

better than the first

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 11
Date: August 28, 2007
Author: Amazon User

like this one better than the first. i can never remember what 7X8= but i can remember that 2 PLUS 2 equals 4.
wish there were games like this.

Another winner!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: August 23, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I played through the first installment (any doubts that there will be a third ?), and found it a fun, stimulating challenge with decent replay value. The ability to set personal bests, combined with the enticement of a normalized ranking (the much ballyhooed "brain age") suits the quantitative, competitive sorts like myself. Some of the concerns voiced above re: BA2 are easily sidestepped: Don't play the voice recognition game. Easy enough, and there's plenty of other places to find fun. One feature I'd like to see are the dedicated Brain Age tests broken out as individual games to play (some in BA2 are a very cool, but you can't play them outside of the BA testing environment) as well as ALL games as possible selections for a Brain Age test. Interestingly, BA2 is more math focused than BA1, which I like. But there are a number of other enjoyable games that will make you think. Anagramming, music composition, information aggregation, memorization, and a host of general executive function tasks come into play. In particular, the piano game is a blast, although if you can read music, play the piano, and best of all, play by ear, you'll have a powerful advantage. It is worthwhile to spend a little time learning shortcuts for handwriting recognition (like a slash for division, rather than a line with dots above and below); this will improve the times and prevent a break in the mental flow as the problems stream by. There are still too many click-through screens of various beheaded ramblings, but the quick fix presented by this quirky edutainment title is compelling. It does seem to me that the brain age rankings are a bit tougher this time around, but maybe it is my lack of familiarity with the games. All in all, the game isn't perfect, but it's perfectly suited to serve up daily dollops of 1-10 minutes of fun. Just don't expect a significant boost in IQ.

Let's call this brain age "squared"!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: October 02, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Just a little humor there - look at the package, the two is a superscript so I like to call it Brain Age squared!

At any rate, this is a wonderful addition to the original Brain Age with some more brain sharpening tools. The same explanation is there at the beginning, i.e. the one where the host presents pictures of MRI images of the brain at "idle", while figuring out a difficult math problem and while reading or working simple problems. It's worth noting that the brain working simple math problems or reading aloud demonstrated more activity on the MRI scans. That said, working out the brain does not have to be difficult or super frustrating and can indeed be fun.

There are some clever additions such as identifying which mathematical symbol belongs in an equation. Again, these are not difficult problems and the goal is to recognize what symbol is needed FAST - just as jogging or doing some other form of exercise daily, these little work-outs keep the mind sharp.

The addition of "Making change" is brilliant! We need more activities like this - not only is this brain sharpening, it is something that can be used in every day life when making purchases. Of note, this reviewer does this regularly - whenever paying for something, my own little game is seeing if I can figure out the change before the clerk tells me (without cheating by looking at their computer)!

The piano playing addition is enjoyable albeit having been a musician for years, I might have just a bit of an edge over a non musician. Nevertheless, I love the connection between music and the mind and hope to see more research in this area.

Admittedly, I have not tried anything that requires the voice. I was disapointed in that regard with the first go round but since I have not tried it, I cannot comment on the quality. Another reviewer comments that it seemed to go well.

Finally, there are new Sudoku puzzles and a new addiiton, virus busters, kind of like tetris in a way. The game instructs that this is not meant for training but more for relaxing. Rather enjoyable once you get the swing of it - your mind works by strategizing where to place the "capsules" and just how to turn them.

Contratulations and kudos to the developers of this fine software - it's a wonderful addition.

I love this game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: October 02, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have Brain Age 1 and Big Brain Academy. I recently bought Brain Age 2 and really enjoy it. The activities are challenging, especially the piano player one. Twice the notes printed were not on the keys available so I had to adapt, but even having a piano background, it is challenging. The drawback to most of these "brain" games is that you have to move past the 'doctor's' comments before you can go on and they are mostly the same things over and over. I would highly recommend this game for challenging the mind.

Way too fun!!! I am always asking for my son's DS!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: September 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I love this game but it is not really a game at all!! My husband and whole family enjoy seeing who is better at each of the different mind strenthening tests that there are. I recommend and show this to everyone. Even my 87 year old parents!!!

LOVE IT!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: September 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I got this one because I have the first one. I love the added tests on this one. My favorite, is the piano. Lots of fun.

Flexes all the DS's muscles, in addition to your brain

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: October 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game really shows off all the capabilities of the DS. It can utilize the microphone, the WiFi connection, the touch screen, etc. all in one sitting. It is a very well rounded game, so even if some of the tests/challenges are easy others will be hard. For example, I've taken piano lessons so playing the songs on the piano keyboard is pretty easy; however, I'm not a great speller, so some of entries in the word scramble stump me.

It's great fun competing with yourself and can get really addictive if you start trying to one up your friends. After playing this game, I've been having a hard time deciding what game to pickup next because the all seem too "traditional" now!

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