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

Rating: - A game worth every penny!
Dr. Kawashima's Brain training is a unique way of getting you to effectively use your brain. My first outing scored my brain age to be 80 year old! EEK! However after a couple of months my brain age has gone down to a repectable 25 years and also improved my memory in the process! This is a must for any age wanting to improve their maths skills as well as reading and writing too. The bonuses gained through a stamp system if and when you complete your daily training is really great.

Reccomended for everyone young and old alike. Thank God for Dr. Kawashima!

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Rating: - Worth buying; Surprisingly addictive
When I first read about Dr. Kawashima's game taking Japan by strom, I couldn't help but wonder why a maths game should attract such popularity. Months later, I can now understand why. Brain Traing is a series of quick-fire maths games, that are supposed to improve your brain's activeness. Only games that increase your brain's blood flow noticabally have been chosen, so you can be sure they're doing you good.
Each day, you do these training games. Dr. Kawashima's virtual face will reward you with a stamp on your calender, plot your results on graphs, and add more games to your list. These fetures are certainly pretty rewarding, as you can see, over the days, your "brain age" results rising towads the 20-year-old target. Occasionally, the Doctor asks you to draw certain objects, and will compare your pictures with those of other players sharing the same game-card. All of these features turn an eductaional game, into something that's serious fun to play, for younger gamers, and parents alike.
Finally, the game comes with 100 sudoku puzzles (with space to obtain more from DS download stations). Once you've tried these, you'll probably never fiddle around with pen and paper puzzles again!
The only disadvantage of this game, is that there is a fairly small amount of content available. The DS is capable of much more programming. At £20 pounds, this is a cheap game. But it couldn't really have been charged at a higher price, without being a bit of a rip-off.

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Rating: - Does it make you smarter? I dont know, but it sure is fun
Dr.Kawashima's brain training is a very unique 'game' although it is more like a edition of pocket puzzler than a game, basically the Dr asks you maths questions, puzzles and thinking games etc. and at the end depending on how well you did he will tell you the age of your brain. Although the target is 20 the first time i played it was 60, Cripes! After a while i whittled it down to a respectable 27. Even though you can only do the age check once a day there are always the quick training puzzles and 'sudoku' (that game Carol Vordaman always goes on about) which will keep you occupied for a while. Overall i would say this game is a good deal for the budget price of £16, if you think you will like this game, go for it. You hardly have anything to lose

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Rating: - Who says maths isn't fun?
this game is not only incredibly addictive in the way that it keeps records of all your daily results and compares them with your freinds results but it also keeps your brain in gear!

doin the 20 maths questions with freinds is fun and addictive, and it can get furiously fast - my record just now is 14 secs for 20 questions.

brain training is designed to be played everyday and it keeps you hooked by asking you to draw random things that you can compare with the drawings that your friends draw its all very compepitive.

the games also comes with the healthy selection of soduko puzzles which are on par with seperately sold soduko only games.

brain training is another succesful venture by nintendo to create new audiences and differnent types of games.

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Rating: - Entertaining, interesting and useful
This 'game' has been very well thought out and makes the process of "improving your brain age" a lot more fun than it first sounds. It keeps track of your progress via a profile (the game can handle several profiles, so different members of the family can use it without interfering with each others records) and rewards you for doing your 'training' daily by giving you a stamp for each day. You can track your progress over the days via graphs and statistics.

The activities themselves adjust to your skill level so they're never boring. Activities that sound like they may be tedious (such as doing 100 calculations!) pass quickly enough, and the more fun activities make up for them. Like any game, you find yourself wanting to beat your best score and that's a real motivator. Progress in the games unlocks new games and possibilities, and this happens at about the right rate.

The sudoku is a nice addition. There are a large number of puzzles of several levels to complete. I would suggest that if you like sudoku then this title is worth it for this function alone.

Multiplayer looks like it would be fun but I have not had a chance to try this yet. The game also supports download play if you have DS-owning friends who don't own it.

The only minor criticism I have is that sometimes the game doesn't recognise what you write correctly, which is frustrating when it thinks you've got an answer wrong! However, with a small amount of practice you can get the hang of what it expects to see (although I find 8's a it tricky sometimes). You just need to write everything as large as possible and that usually works.

All in all this title should have a long life and is well worth the asking price.