Video Games : Dr Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain? (Nintendo DS)

Rating: - A decent Brain testing game
This a decent title that tests your brain and gives your mental powers a nice 5 minute warm up excercise everyday. A good well worth it purchase but just do not expect a massive game that lasts for months on end.

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Rating: - Brilliant game hehe
i don't even own this game, my friend does, but i always play on it cos i luv it, there are all sorts of maths and brain exercises but they aren't boring because you can use the cool touch screen stylus to draw and scribble down your answers. You can always come back to this game, even if you get bored with it after a while. It will also give you your rough brain age which is sooooo funny!

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Rating: - Great idea, poorly executed = massive disappointment
This was exactly the sort of game I wanted to try when I bought my DS Lite - in fact this game was probably one of the main reasons I did buy it, so when I got my DS Lite this was the first game I bought to go with it.

At first it seemed a great decision - I really enjoyed the exercises and it was great calculating my brain age and trying to get it to improve.

However once you get onto the games which require handwriting recognition, the whole concept falls flat. The game simply fails to recognise far too many things you write, even simple numbers it will often confuse what to me look like obvious and clearly-written numbers into something else.

At first this didn't seem much of a problem but it actually seemed to get worse as time went on. Eventually you end up with a load of "incorrect" answers which you actually got right, but the game took as being something else.

So the results are meaningless and you can't really track your progress because the results are skewed by the handwriting recognition getting it wrong all the time. It just gets so frustrating you want to throw it out of the window.

The game does come with a seperate manual explaining how to write characters in such a way that the game will understand you better, but this means learning a whole new way of writing which doesn't feel natural and slows you right down - and since all the exercises test you on how fast you complete them as well as how many right answers you get, this just makes the results wrong in a different way, because you're writing far more slowly than you normally would. The handwriting recongition still isn't perfect even if you follow their instructions.

Given that the vast majority of the games rely on handwriting recognition (or voice recognition, which is better but still not 100% reliable) the results are meaningless the games just too frustrating to be fun.

A brilliant idea, but the technology just isn't up to it and leaves for a disappointing game.

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Rating: - Good
the idea of this 'game' is great, to 'train' your brain and to calculate your own brain age. its fun to do all the activities, but it can get a bit boring after a while, but when you pick it up again after a while, you will feel like you have to go on it everyday, until you get bored again.

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Rating: - A commitment worthwhile
This is the perfect game for having a bit of fun once a day, and it's great to see how your brain progresses, or digresses over time. It doesn't have a massive content, but for its price you get a lot of fun out of it everyday. The head of Dr Kawashima is one that informs and charms the gamer, and he gives you loads of cool tips whilst you train your brain.
The only problem I find with this game is that the lowest brain age is 20. I get a brain age of 20 everytime but because i am under 20 he still tells me that i could do better, but its just a little glitch i suppose.