Brain Age 2 Review

Brain Age 2 Review- Facts, Company Profile, Product Description, Customer Comments, And Personal Review

***We suggest you look at the Posit Science Review or the Lumosity Review as these are my top choices of the brain trainng games available.***

Facts & Company Profile
The Brain Age © games may be one of the most well known of the brain training games. This is due in large part to Nintendo’s © marketing television campaign. You may have seen their commercials showing off one of their games. For this reason, I looked at trying out the Brain Age 2 © game with great anticipation. This review was made on June 1, 2008.  The games are promoted through a number of different retailers that can be viewed at the brain age website, www.brainage.com.

Product Description
The Brain Age 2 game is designed as an entertainment game that has brain training applications as a possible side benefit.  The program has a number of different games that focus on various mental skills ranging from doing quick math, decoding letters, and requiring some spatial memory skills.

Customer Comments

I was bored of this game just one week after I got it."  Review from Amazon.com ©

"...there are worse ways to blow a few idle minutes every day than playing games like Brain Age."  Review from Amazon.com ©

"I have to say I like Brain Age 2 more than I liked the original."  Review from Amazon.com ©

Personal Review 

To first play Brain Age 2 ©, you will first need to purchase the Nintendo DS or Nintendo DS Lite ©.    The Nintendo DS Lite retails for $129.99.    This is hefty price, but it is competitively priced compared to other portable game player systems.    Then, you will need to purchase the game, Brain Age 2, which can be bought for $19.99.    Naturally, you may be able to find discounted prices if you hunt around, have a coupon, or willing to buy used equipment.     This barrier to entry $149.98 plus tax does give you some pause when you are deciding whether purchasing the system is worth it to get the game.    Nevertheless, I pulled the trigger and this is what I found.

I begin initially being impressed with the portable of the system.    This is a nice feature as you can play this game just about anywhere whether it be on your coach at home, on the bus, or even during your lunch break or waiting at the doctor’s office.    This is a major advantage when compared to other brain training games in which most require you to be online on a computer. 

This initially enthusiasm was challenged somewhat as I started to play the games.    One of the first things it does is test your “brain age” by having you do a basic exercise.    The example I had was play rock, paper, scissors where they would alternatively ask you to pick the winner for a period of time and then, pick the loser for a period of time.    In other words, if it showed, rock and you were to give the winner, you would say paper.    The system works great for hearing what you have to say; however, I found it bothersome that there was no clock or some way telling you know how long the game would last.    After a while playing it, I got bored and was wondering when it would end.

From here, you are given some brain training games to play.    I played several games and found them entertaining.    The game is interactive where you have sound and the talking head of Dr. K speaking to you about your progress.    I personally did not care for the talking head, but I did like the volume and the game play.    The types of games vary from a piano game which type in the letter of the note as it plays to a game which requires you to give back change based on a dollar amount.    Most of the games use the electric writing pin which is also fun to use.    If you have used graffiti software for your pda, you will be used to this.    One problem though is they haven’t quite worked out the kinks with this software, it can get very frustrating when you play the game and know what the right answer is and the software thinks you put in the wrong letter.    Nothing worse than being right and scored wrong.    Regardless, as I said I would have to say the games are    entertaining and could see how it would be fun to compete with friends on some of the games.

Sadly, my opinion is the majority of these games offer little brain training benefit.    I can see how you can develop some skills with increased repetition from playing the game where you determine what is the appropriate amount of money to give back.    However, I felt that too many of the games did not challenge you significantly to get the type of brain training benefit most people are looking for.    One exception of this is their addition of sudoku puzzles to their system.    If you are not familiar with sudoku puzzles, they are logic puzzles that require you to do some reasoning to determine which number fits in large square made up of 9 smaller squares.    The ability to do this on a computer rather than on paper is an added plus.    They have a large number of games to play and, I think most sudoku players will really enjoy playing this on a computer screen.        

Pros 

• Portability is a great feature to have.    Let’s you play games anywhere.  
• Games are entertaining.     Nintendo does not disappoint here.  
• Sudoku puzzles on a computer screen beat paper every time.  

Cons 

• High cost of game and system combine for high barrier to entry.  
• Limited Brain Training benefit.    Games not challenging enough.  
• Handwriting kinks not completely worked out yet.  
• Smaller screen is a trade-off for the portability.    Hurts the eyes after a while, but you do find that you learn to adjust to it quickly.  

Final Analysis 

In the end, I find myself recommending this game for its portability and the sudoku puzzles.   These two features are great to have and are a good additional tool for your brain training.    However, I would not recommend this game as your main brain training game as there are better ones on the market.  The game can be purchased through the following link: Brain Age 2.

***We suggest you look at the Posit Science Review or the Lumosity Review as these are my top choices of the brain trainng games available.***