Brain Age is designed to be played a little each day, similar to the Nintendogs titles and Animal Crossing: Wild World. The Nintendo DS is held on its side, with the touch screen on the right for right-handed people and the left for left-handed people. The game is entirely touch and voice-controlled; in some puzzles, the player must write out his answer, or he will have to speak the answer into the microphone. Before the player can begin a Brain Age session, he must input information. First, the player must confirm the date and select which hand he writes with. If he is right-handed, the touch screen is on the right side; if he is left-handed, he must flip the DS so that the touch screen is on the left side. The player must input his name and date of birth.


At the end of all Brain Age Check puzzles, Training puzzles, Quick Play puzzles, and Sudoku puzzles, the player is shown how quickly he completed it, the player's speed (such as "bicycle speed" and "jet speed", the highest being "rocket speed"), and a tip for either improving the player's brain or a game-related tip. If the player's time or score in Brain Age Check or Training is high enough, it will appear on one or both of the Top Three.





Brain Training/Brain Age was given to me as a gift, because at the time everyone had a DS and a copy of the game. It was the most popular thing at the time. Mostly adults were interested in these brain testing games as everyone likes a challenge and a brain teaser at times. Chess, sudoku nd crosswords from papers were thrown aside and the "craze" began. It was simple, clever, easy to follow, universal, and accessable to all ages. When I first powered on Brain Training/Brain Age it was pretty neat. The nice simplistic music and a floating head giving you instructions. It immediatly had a sort of charm and made the gamer anxious to start.





The tasks and puzzles are kinda fun and challenging. At first I had no idea it was being timed, so I instinctively took my time at doing the puzzles which in the end... gave me an embarassing brain age score. So, I tried again. Getting higher brain age scores the more I played and keeping to the calendar, I did feel the game work. Exercising my brain and improving my weaknesses.





There is a confession I must make before I go on that I'm quite embarrased about and not proud of, but at least honest about....... I suck at maths. I always have and always will. An 11 year old could beat me at algebra, I'm that bad! So, the mathematics part of brain training DID piss me off... big time. However, I tried my very best at it and the more I did - the better I got at it. Which was a big surprise and a help.





For me, the best part about this game is the sudoku. Which is quite addictive and a lot of fun. However, before I give this game too much credit there is a couple of things I did not like.
1- When Dr Kawashima speaks to you: The game has a clock on it that can tell what time of the day it is. Where it would say "what a beautiful morning" when you turn on the DS in the actual morning. It's pretty cool but can get really repetative and annoying. Especially when it says "good afternoon, look at that radiant sun", when you look out the window and it's pissing rain.
2- When you get a poor score: This is really annoying as the game lets you know exactly how bad you did, then patronises the shit out of you. With sayings like "oh dear, your brain is very tired". Fuck you! At least I'm trying. Sometimes it gets so patronising that I almost feel like taking it out of the DS and smashing it with a big brick -or- just put in another game thats actually fun and entertaining to play.


Overall, this game is only alright. It challenges the mind and thats all it supposed to do. So, if you prefer more actiony type games stay clear of this one. But get this if you love this kind of stuff. I didn't find this game too exciting as it lets me know how thick I am. A decent puzzler. 6/10