I tell you what, when I started using this game I was 80 years old and now with (I'm sorry to say)intermittent practice I am 57 years old. My brain age that is, the body is 65!! lol I really do like this game and am glad I got my DSi on sale at Christmas time!!

• from

I just got this game yesterday and have been doing the exercises in it. The voice recognition works fairly well though not 100%. Like another reviewer has said sometime you say it right and it says you got it wrong. I do find this mostly when you say blue. I find the room you are in has to be real quiet. I have improved my"Brain Age" I was a 56 and now I am a 40. Good for me since I am 52!

My 10 yr old son wanted to do it and his brain age is 75. He says it is ok but not his type of game to play.

I do enjoy it though, but it isnt something that you want to play with for hours on end.

• from

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.

• from

Like the game it's works well. Thanks for clearing out previous user's info. I would recommend buying from this seller.

• from

I bought this game at the same time that I purchased the DS. It is perfect to play a couple of minutes a day but if you are looking for a game to submerge yourself with, consider looking somewhere else.

• from

Brain Age, the first of its kind offers a unique experience for gamers of all ages and it will also introduce gaming to non-gamers. It uses the DS's stylus for most game play functions along with voice recognition. This game is perfect for the casual gamer and for the little brainiac in all of us. It is packed with a host of simple math games, word games, and puzzle games that test your brain. Its definitely a worthy buy.

• from

Can't put it down. Well worth the price. You will love all the different levels of problem solving this game throws at you. Be ready.

• from

Great activities that really stimulate your brain---Fun and educational for all ages!!!

• from

The Brain Age game is both exciting and fun!

It is truly a terrific game for adults too!

• from

I found it rather frustrating how often it misunderstood my speech (English IS my first language) and even more-so my numbers it frequently misread my 1's, as 4's and made up numbers for my 8's, all of which I could probably "train" myself for. What I couldn't stand and ultimately lead to my abandoning this game was the repetitiveness and the number of screens you need to just to get to the training. The attempted humor FAILS and I don't need to see the same "how to make this software more useful" screens over and over and over for a program intended for daily training, guess what, its working I remember them from yesterday and every day prior, shut up and let me get to the training already.

Soduku was fun, unfortunately it didn't have many games and your score was horribly punished by the games inability to interpret your numbers.

Something intended for daily training should not be so annoying just to get to the training.

• from

I bought this for my 9 year old daughter, but our whole family plays this game! The Sudoku games are so cool! We love it!

It's worth 3 times what you pay for it!

• from

My 9 yo son asked for this game for months; I put him off until Christmas. I have to give the kid credit, its a lot of fun. I'm not a gamer but for an adult, its a great game, too.

• from

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!

• from

As with its sequel, Brain Age 2, this game is good fun for adults. It isn't, however, always the best measure of brain function. The reason is the input device... in this case the stylus with character recognition. Often times, you can get cheated and frustrated when the game doesn't recognize your handwriting. A "1" can be interpreted as a "7", and vice versa. I've found the game has great difficulty with the number "5". So you could be the greatest math wizard and still get sunk by the game's ability to recognize your handwriting.

In either case, if you can learn to "adapt" to the game's idea of which numbers are which, it can be good challenging fun. The sequel is just as good, but if you were to choose one of the two to get, this one would be it. Besides, this one still has a great version of Sudoku included... and is better than some of the other stand-alone Sudoku games for the DS.

• from

I bought this game with a number of doubts, but since it was $20, I decided to give it a try, and I am glad I did. The game is surprisingly fun, with a number of different exercises for you to do that you actually do need to concentrate on to complete.

As for voice and handwriting recognition problems, neither I nor any of my friends who have played my copy have had any problems whatsoever. There is the occasional error that occurs, but that only happens when I try to hurry and don't enunciate or write properly. It's likely that those having problems with the system are trying to speak too quickly, and are writing too sloppily for the game to recognize. Take your time and enunciate properly, as well as write out the words/numbers clearly, and there will be no problems.

Excellent "game"; I've been playing it everyday since I got it five days ago (admittedly not that far back) and it's still just as refreshing as the first day. And I can see where the exercises could indeed help "train your brain". The simple math exercises and memorization/tracking games require you to concentrate, and also require that you think quickly, both of which are incredibly valuable.

Whether or not this will translate back into real life is debatable, but given the low price (in terms of both time and money) it is worth a shot. At the very least your ability to do simple arithmetic will improve - which is sorely needed in today's age of calculators; it is often shocking to me how difficult people find it to calculate how much to tip, how much change they should receive, etc.

And finally, the Sudoku puzzles themselves are worth the $20 purchase. I hadn't even heard of Sudoku prior to buying this game - apparently I've been living under a rock the past couple of years - and I was addicted after playing a few puzzles. The first ten or so puzzles are pretty easy, but naturally they get progressively harder, and there are over 100 puzzles, so these will last you a while. And the Nintendo DS's interface is PERFECT for Sudoku. The ability to easily write in "potential" answers as notes along with the ability to easily correct errors and erase numbers is lovely.

In conclusion, this is a great game, and very much worth the paltry $20 price tag it is being sold at. It is fun, intuitive to control, may increase your ability to think clearly and effectively, definitely will increase your ability to do simple math, and has Sudoku; you can't go wrong.

• from