Metareview - Brain Age (DS)

by Blake Snow { Apr 18th 2006 at 8:00AM }

Not quite a game, not quite a puzzler; Nintendo's Brain Age simulation title gets an average review score of 79 at the time or writing. If you're looking for something new and have $20 bones to spend, this might be a nice pickup. However most critics are calling it a hybrid sim/puzzle title rather than a true game so maybe head on over to a DS download station for a free demo before you buy.

Gamespot 72% - "All in all, Brain Age is a quirky and unique product that's worth taking a look at, largely thanks to its budget price. Whether or not it's improving your mind or just improving your ability to perform its specific tasks is ultimately unclear, but there's currently nothing else quite like it on the market, and fans of logic puzzles and other basic puzzle games should enjoy it quite a bit."
1UP 86% - " Even if the effects aren't immediately recognizable, the placebo effect alone is powerful enough to make you feel like you're thinking clearly. It's not a game, and because you're never taught anything new, it's not really even "edutainment" -- Brain Age is a tool, one that sharpens your mind not just for playing real games, but living real life as well."
Gamerz Edge 79% - "Depending on your approach, Brain Age could either be very fun or quite boring. Perhaps the best criteria to judge your compatibility with this type of game is: 1) Do you enjoy learning or are you interested in keeping your brain “young?” 2) Do you find mathematical, logical, and memory-based exercises to be fun? 3) Do you enjoy or are you interested in Sudoku? 4) Do you have friends or other people with whom to play and compare your results?"

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

boots (former bd (former b)) @ Apr 18th 2006 9:02AM

Rating this game as you normally would, is almost as stupid as rating an "English-Japanese" dictionary. They review it like hardcore gamers... fucking incredible.

AlloyNES @ Apr 18th 2006 9:09AM

I picked this game up yesterday and I'm delighted by its content. I knew it was a "non-game" as they call it, and have actually tried to keep up with it since it came out in Japan. It's good to finally get my hands on it.

This "game" delivers a way to exercise your brain on a personal daily basis. The floating head talks to you and what he says is relative to you and what time/day/month it is. Ex.: "I hate allergy season." or "You're up late! Get some sleep, its important for the brain." It's a cute touch.

Sudoku is a bonus feature in the cart, and is pretty fun. The brain excersices are compelling and are actually entertaining and challenging (in a fun way). I can see why it became so popular and spawned 5 sequels in Japan. It's like the exercise craze of America, but with your brain. Brain Age is more of a fun little tool than anything. And comparing it to software that isn't a "non-game" isn't fair to Brain Age. You can't justly compare it to Mario Kart or Nintendogs or Metroid Hunters. And I also think the reviewers and audience for those previous mentioned games may not be the right people for Brain Age.

Nicholas @ Apr 18th 2006 9:25AM

I picked it up too, and I've been compltely impressed and satisfied. I think this style of a "gaming" or "non-gaming" is actually the future of a large portion of gaming. Imagine if you will the day when all your college courses come with a game instead of that useless CD in the back of the textbook.

funkonaut @ Apr 18th 2006 9:29AM

I also bought this game yesterday from the Nintendo World store in NYC and I'm having a blast with it so far. You play for about 30 mins a day working on the various exercises. It's engaging and fun, and you really feel like you're doing your brain some good. And you can't go wrong with the $20 price.

Todd @ Apr 18th 2006 9:32AM

It does seem that most reviews follow some sort of predefined scale based off of sound, graphics, gameplay, appeal, etc. However, how do you rate something that chucks most of that out the window? It seems a shame that this product is getting mostly average ratings since, as far as I can tell, most reviewers see it as just a puzzle game. I don't think that calling it a puzzle game quite does it justice. Calling it boring seems to be even worse. It's an educational tool. It�s not even edutainment. Why should something that comes out for a game system even have to be fun if it is helping us learn or at least improve our skills? I personally want to learn to read and write Japanese and if a program came out for consoles that had very structured lessons with an interactive interface I'd be in heaven. However, according to the way they review games now it still might get an average score because it�s not considered fun to play or have good graphics. There really needs to be a better way of rating software. That�s right software. Not every thing that is played on a console or handheld has to be a game.

Most of us know how this series is doing in Japan. I can't wait to see how it does in the US.

GlitchCog @ Apr 18th 2006 9:39AM

I had my fiance try it out, as she's not really a gamer. She said it was too much like school to be enjoyable. Also it didn't help that repeatedly screaming "blue" at the DS didn't work for her, even though to my ear she says blue perfectly normally.

Martin @ Apr 18th 2006 9:47AM

Imagine if they reviewed all books like that,
Goodnight Moon
by Margaret Wise Brown, Clement Hurd

Character: This book just does not have it. There is no character building first of all! You never feel any connection or any understanding of why this little girl is saying goodnight to everything.
Story: There is also no plot! What is going on. The book is filled with random acts and nothing really bringing them together!
Writing: A 5 year old could have written this book. Thank god it is short, otherwise it would put the common person into a coma after 50 pages. There also is very little written description. Obviously the author doesn't want the reader to know what the hell is going on.

All in all, Hardcore readers should really be warned, this is not an average book!

7.5/10

Paul @ Apr 18th 2006 10:08AM

I picked this up as well, and am having fun with it. I enjoy the sudoku puzzles, and the idea of only playing half an hour a day in the normal game is a nice one. It takes off any pressure to "win" I guess.

The polygonal Japanese neuroscientist kind of creeps me out, though.

JKTrix @ Apr 18th 2006 10:08AM

The job of the reviewers is to review games as games. It is difficult for them to rate these 'disruptive' games since they don't exactly match a traditional game's attributes. It's possible that it lost a point or two just for that fact: it doesn't wholly fit into the criteria as a "Game".
It used to be that anything that came on a game system is a game, so these problems didn't exist. It's changing now. Sometimes asking a reviewer to review Metroid Hunters, and then Brain Age is like asking a computer game reviewer to review Half Life, then Microsoft Word. Maybe not as drastic as that, but I think you get my point.

By the way, 7/10 is *not* an average score. All the reviews have been mostly positive, but they all take into consideration that it's not exactly a game. Electroplankton had a similar reception, and Phoenix Wright is probably right on the borderline of this category.

Gonzo @ Apr 18th 2006 10:11AM

Was anybody expecting a game?

I tried the demo at the nintendo world store and I have to say I'ts a good bit of simple fun but I'm glad they're only selling it for $20. For some folks, it's worth thzat just to get the sudoku puzzles on their ds.

DG @ Apr 18th 2006 10:22AM

Ha ha..very funny.

You forgot to mention the cigarettes rampant in the original version of that book (concerned parents have since had them removed). Although, I would imagine several video games reviewers would view the inclusion of cigarettes in a children's book to be "hardcore," and thus worthy of an automatic 95%.

GlitchCog @ Apr 18th 2006 10:25AM

Paul:
It takes off any pressure to win?! No way. If you loose at Mario Kart, it's just a video game. But if your brain age is 92, it's saying your mind is only as sharp as a geriatric's. I feel more inclined to win at Brain Training than other traditional video games.

(No offense to all the 92-year-olds who read Joystiq now that Nintendo has opened up the market to them.)

Matthew @ Apr 18th 2006 10:50AM

I knew this was going to happen. That reviews were going to start becoming more and more "weird." There's definitely a problem with reviews these days. But anyway, those reviews really don't matter. If you look at Japan, the game is selling like crazy. And it keeps on selling with each iteration. If the games sucked so much, it wouldn't sell that great, especially with the new iterations coming out. I knew the reviews were going to be like this, and I also get the feeling that in the future reviews are going to become less and less relevant. It's going to come to a point where it's like reviewing colors. The reviewer says, "this new color, blue, sucks, I like the color green better." And of course, the consumer disagrees with that, because he/she likes blue better. It's all coming down to taste. Not only that though, but I really do think these games were reviewed from a hardcore perspective. The truth is, reviewers are no different than consumers. I can easily review a game. So remember, a review, if truthful, is coming from someone else's perspective. No different than a perspective that comes from you and I. I might like hockey more than baseball. And you baseball more than hockey. That doesn't discredit the other game.

Nmaster @ Apr 18th 2006 11:03AM

The demo lived on my DS for like a week. I think it's pretty cool for a "non-game". It can be remarkably addicting at times...

I had gone back and forth on whether or not to pick this up for keeps, and the other day I finally decided I wasn't.

Then I saw the price tag. A DS game launching at $20? Awesome! I get discounts from GameFly too, so I can pick it up real cheap. Thanks Nintendo! Now maybe I can earn back all those brain cells I've lost over the years from playing your other games! lol, I kid, I kid!

idioteraser @ Apr 18th 2006 11:06AM

Glitch a tip. The microphone on the DS is very sensitive so speak away from the microphone a bit and not up close. Up close the air going into the microphone from one's mouth creates feedback.

As for school have her try some of the other puzzles.

Some people dislike some puzzles of Brain Age while others love it.

Martin @ Apr 18th 2006 12:17PM

If you do the Konami Code, you get to mentally beat hookers, which brings the game from a 7 to a perfect 10!

David @ Apr 18th 2006 12:20PM

My gf and I are pretty addicted to it right now.

My only problem is it doesn't seem to like the word "blue" as much as the others. Outside of that, I have little issue with it. I hope they add more puzzles to it.

Paul @ Apr 18th 2006 12:39PM

Yeah, it had trouble with my "Blue"s as well. You have to pronounce it with a kind of prolonged "oo" sound. I suppose I usually say it kind of like "blew" with light emphasis on the vowel, just part of my southern accent, but I changed it to "blooo" and it works everytime. I can even say "Brooo" and ti picks it up.

Also it has trouble with my 7s. I draw the 7 from the bottom up and everytime it reads it as a one, but I switched to drawing it from the top down and it gets that, but I have never drawn 7s like that. Also I wish I could do the "one stroke" 4, up, diagnol down left, and across, but that doesn't work(even though that's the way they represent fours), so you have to draw a 1 and quickly do an "L" shape thing crossing the 1, the other way of drawing a four.

MikeM @ Apr 18th 2006 12:48PM

I plopped the demo onto my daughters DS while shopping at Best Buy. I enjoyed the demo very much. What I did'nt like was the voice-recog messing up on "BLUE" most of the time. Very annoying. I'm suprised because it sounds like Nintendo let that bug through to the final version of the game. They should have just picked another color for that challenge..."GREEN" was available!

airpolgas @ Apr 18th 2006 1:00PM

Remember, the games comes from Japan, so pronounce all "Ls" with "Rs" and vice versa. :)

Bru.. Gleen.. Yerrow...

On a serious note, I dropped by at my local BB and Toys r Us yesterday and was pissed that they haven't received their shipment yet. They should be getting it today (18th)-- one day late -- said the clerk.

fawazr @ Apr 18th 2006 1:02PM

Reviews are getting worse and worse. Do they even bother reviewing games on their own merits anymore? I agree with boots' comment completely. Game journalists get way more credit than they usually deserve, especially since they're rabid cheerleaders for sequentially numbered sports titles and cosmetically enhanced first person shooters.

Also it's ironic (well, not really) that Americans are having such a lukewarm response to a brain training game.

jay @ Apr 18th 2006 1:26PM

I'm picking this up as soon as it hits the UK. Or till it appears in GameStation. I'm after something like this, brain training is something I've wanted for years. I've been working out for the past 5 years so my body is good, I just need something other than my course to stimulate my brain. Something as focused as this is right up my street.

And yes. I feel I'd much rather win at this than a real game. This actually means something! Rather than "yey, you got a trophy because you raced faster than anyone else!"

zero2dash @ Apr 18th 2006 1:45PM

I love it...$20 well spent.
Fun and an easy excuse to play a 'game' without feeling like I wasn't productive with my time. I just started playing Sudoku recently and wasn't really good at paper-n-pen Sudoku but I'm kicking butt on the DS one (and have passed quite a few with 0 errors).

I'll get more than enough play out of Sudoku to get my $20 worth but the rest of the 'game' is fun as hell. I can't wait to unlock more of the challenges.

Paul @ Apr 18th 2006 1:54PM

Yeah, the sudoku application really kicks ass in this one. Being able to list all possibilities on a square and cross them off as you see fit works really well. I can finish the beginner puzzles in about 15 minutes, and I've never done the game before. Haven't tried the intermediate yet, but am looking forward to it.

Babylonian @ Apr 18th 2006 2:25PM

I'm so glad that they released it for a mere $20 because now I have absolutely no problem recommending it to friends.

Plus, single-cartridge 16-player multiplayer is one hell of a landmark. Now to meet 15 other people with DSs.

AlloyNES @ Apr 18th 2006 3:20PM

I made a post in my blog about this "non-game." If anyone's interested on my thoughts on it, go to http://blogs.ign.com/AlloyNES

By the way, the sequel to this comes out in June! Woot! In Japan, I believe there are currently 5 sequels. WOW~

Deth @ Apr 18th 2006 9:51PM

I cannot believe i am going to say this, but bd is right. with that out of the way, i am loving brain age right now. i have a hard time with the "red" on that game.

PS- i made my stamp the oblivion symbol! it makes my calender look pretty creepy.
Cheers!