Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Highly addictive"

Brain Age is somewhat a mystery. How can you score something that, theoretically, isn't a game. How can you break it down so that it makes sense to the gamer. How can you expose its flaws and parade its triumphs when you have nothing to place it against, no criteria to judge it by. If you go out and buy Brain Age, you're not buying something that you'll play with, or even have fun with. You're buying something that will teach you. It'll scold you when your wrong, and praise you when you're right. If that's something that you're into, then this is perfect for you. If it's not, then stop reading.

Game play in Brain Age, if you could call it game play, is simple. You have three main options - Quick Play, Daily Training, and Sudoku. Quick Play allows you to access all of the content from Daily Training in a quick burst. Sudoku is basically what you'd expect - a range of different Sudoku problems for you to work on. Daily Training is the meat of the game, and it's where you'll spend a large percentage of your time.

You start off by creating a profile. Then you undergo your first Brain Age check. You undergo something called the Stroop test. Based on your performance you'll be given a Brain Age. The closer you are to 20, the smarter you are. Once this initial test is done, you'll move on to the training. These are basic activities which test your basic math and reading skills. There are 9 activities in all. Once you've completed an activity you'll get a stamp that goes on a calender on the right screen (you're holding the DS sideways). The game will also record your score, so you can challenge yourself later on. You can only record your first score of the day, so you'd better make it a good one. The same goes for the Brain Age tests, which you'll also want to take daily. These tests consist of the Stroop test you took earlier as well as other activities. All of these activities use the touch screen or the microphone to great effect, as you write down or say aloud your answers. There are cases where the DS doesn't read what you've written or said, but they're few and far between. Game play in Brain Age is nothing revolutionary - you're basically doing what the hardware was made for - but it works well enough and if you immerse yourself then you'll get a lot out of it.

Graphically this is pretty plain. What you get for your money is white background after white background and a 3-D head of Dr. Kawashima, the game's creator, on your menu screen. There are nice little touches in some activities, but it doesn't push the hardware graphically like it does in game play. If you're looking for a stunner then ignore this. That said, I found absolutely no glitches, and it does manage to keep up if you're writing at a fast pace. Overall, it's all very simple, but that ties in with both the accessibility of the title and its homely charm.

The sound is basically the same deal as the graphics. It's a bit underwhelming, with very few effects save the scratch of your imaginary pencil, the little bloop noise when you get something right and the noise when you're handed your score. It certainly isn't flawed, but it lacks that little something extra where a game can draw you into its world with a great score.

If you're looking for something that you will invariably play day after day until you wear out your touch screen then this is the best thing for you. It's simple, addictive and charming. Though you probably won't have fun playing it, you will learn and you will feel the improvement. It's not something that will captivate you and draw you into its world. It's one of those titles you'll play for a while until the next big game comes out. Then, when you're done with that, you'll go back to it again, and the cycle will repeat. If that sounds good to you, then by all means go buy it, because it excels at what it's good at. However, there are flaws, so it could be better to wait and hope that next time around, some fun will be added to the mix.