Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day

Brain Age, at its core, is a puzzle game. What’s unique, though, is that this is a puzzler that guarantees to strengthen your mind or your money back. It’s based strictly on the works of genius neuroscientist Ryuta Kawashima. Brain Age promises to eventually make you a sharper individual with mini games designed to empower your prefrontal cortex, or the part of the brain that’s said to allow you to apply knowledge. The concept here may seem a tad on the boring side, but don’t be scared just yet as Brain Age actually incorporates some fairly enjoyable modes and features, including a ravishing Sudoku aspect.

Before I get into the content of this game, you’ll probably want to know what a ‘’brain age’’ is. It’s honestly a very simplistic conception – the older your brain age the more tired it is, with the ideal age in this game being 20.

There are essentially three modes: quick play, daily training, and Sudoku. In quick play, you’ll be able to commence in a speedy brain age check, partake in some quick training, and play a round of Sudoku. Quick play is intended to get your friends interested in the theory that is this game. There’s no saving, no storing any personal data, and absolutely no frills.

Daily training is this title’s primary single-player facet. Here you will complete various puzzle-influenced mini games to prepare you for the brain age check, which you are encouraged to take on a daily basis to track your progress. There are nearly a dozen games. The most notable ones consist of the math-inspired ‘’calculations x20/x100,’’ which will carry 20 or 100 straightforward math problems respectively, ‘’head count,’’ and ‘’reading aloud.’’ Head count is probably the most enjoyable out of the bunch. The idea is to determine how many people are in a house at the end of a leaving/entering cycle. Stick figures will constantly be departing and coming in as the tempo profoundly speeds up each sequence. Be warned, things can become rather hectic.

As a whole, Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day is a fairly innovative contraption of a video game. Will it make you smarter? In all honestly, no, but that’s not what it pledges to accomplish. Using this software day in and day out will make your mind sharper and more viable to learn new concepts. At 20 bones, this isn’t exactly a money-making scheme, and with the included Sudoku puzzles, there’s something for the entire family.

Gameplay: 7.2
Brain Age fully utilizes the touch screen of the Nintendo DS. While the recognition, especially concerning letters, could have been further ironed out, the overall foundation works incredibly well. The same can’t exactly be said for the voice recognition, but for a first attempt on the platform, you really can’t complain.

Sudoku lovers who don’t feel like dishing out their cash on a title solely created for one puzzle fixture will most definitely want to give Brain Age a whirl as well. The execution in this particular portion is flawless.

Graphics: 6.5
There’s no eye-candy to speak of in Brain Age. The backgrounds are generic and the mini games are presented in substandard fashion. However, the interface and menus are easy to navigate, and in a title such as this, that’s key. 

Sound: 6.5
The audio is virtually the same as the visuals in that there’s truly nothing to speak of. Brain Age’s music is awfully subtle, and at times, you won’t even realize there’s any music at all. My advice? Throw on some headphones or turn on a radio while playing. After all, you really don’t need to hear any of the in-game effects as everything is stated through text.

Difficultly: Medium
You’re not going to find anything exceptionally challenging here, but completing the tasks as fast as possible to lower your brain age can be generally demanding.

Concept: 7.8
A video game that’s actually healthy to play? Frankly, this is unheard of. Nintendo liked Brain Age’s concept because it had potential to get non-gamers into gaming. Whether you want grandma joining in on the festivities or not, casuals will be attracted to this game’s premise.  

Multiplayer: 7.0
Two-16 player multiplayer via a single card is offered, but when you go over to a friend’s house with a DS in-hand, I doubt you’ll want to play Brain Age over titles such as Mario Kart DS or the recently released Magnetica. Don’t get me wrong, Brain Age’s multiplayer is pretty well done, but a tad of refining and maybe some exclusive mini games would have gone a long way in raising its fun factor.

Overall: 7.5
If you’re searching for a hearty, unique puzzler for your DS, Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day may just be a perfect match.