Monday 23 Oct 2006

I remember being subjected to countless IQ tests at school, ranging from the 3-hour long tests that were run by some big “official” company to the 3-minute “what’s your favourite colour” tests in the teen magazines. No matter what the outcome was, you had to take everything with a pinch of salt. Brain Training – How Old Is Your Brain is based on the studies of a Japanese researcher, Dr Kawashima (Pronounced car-washy-ma). He suggests that doing a set of simple tests every day will help stimulate areas of your brain that sometimes are not used in day to day living, and goes on to say that by doing these sets of tests everyday will improve your brain’s functionality.

More about game play

The tests involve reading, writing and arithmetic. They are reasonably straightforward and rely on you to complete the tasks as quickly and as accurately as possible. There are nine training tests in total, which range from 100 calculations (which I can usually do in about three and a half minutes) to reading aloud. Like I mentioned above, they all rely on the amount of time it takes you to perform each task, for instance with the reading aloud you try to read a section of text out (aloud) and as fast as you can. The game then measures how long it took you to complete the passage of text and then compares that to the amount of syllables in the passage. I average at about 6.5 syllables per second. At the end of the test you are shown a graph that tracks your progress through that specific test. This is plotted along a timeline (that can later be measured against other players graphs). Dr Kawashima then goes on to explain how you are doing, and then gives you some suggestions on how to increase your brains performance.

You hold the system on its side, yes that’s right. Holding it as if you were holding an open book, and with the stylus in the one hand, which has now become your pencil. You write on the touch screen as though it were a piece of paper. Don’t worry though lefties, you can change your handedness in the options, and all you need to do is hold the DS the other way around and you can write with your left hand! It is really clever to have done the game like this, it so easily could have been done the normal way around but this way is far more comfortable for holding the DS with one hand and writing with the other.

Track your progress

After you have completed the first task for each day you are allowed to stamp off that day on the calendar. The Dr really would like you to perform at least 3 tests per day, in which case he will give you a bigger stamp (and we all know that bigger is certainly better). It really is as basic as that, and yes there isn’t really much else to the main game, but what I would really like to mention is the following. It seems to work. I’ve been playing this game basically every day for a three-week period, and when I go into the graphs section I can review my progress. I can see that, although I have been playing daily, my performance on the arithmetic side has maintained, there has been no real improvement of drop in my standard, whereas if I take a look at my reading out loud, I have improved from about 3.5 syllables per second to 6.5! I always like to say that the proof is in the graphs, and by this I can see there has been an improvement in some segments. Whether or not that can be directly correlated to the game still can’t be confirmed because like with most games, the more you play them the better at them you get. 8x7 used to take me a while to work out, but now as soon as I see that sum I know the answer is 56 (I hope!).

The other major part of the game is the actual Brain Age part of the game. When you do a check on your brain age you are given three tests which are different to those that you do during your daily training. The first is a memory test, 30 words are displayed on the screen for 2 minutes. After they disappear you have 3 minutes to recall as many as you can remember and write them down. The second consists of a number of circles with the letters A-M and 1-13. What you need to do is draw a constant line through the circles linking A to 1 to B to 2 and so on and so forth. Again it is the speed in which you do this that will give you your results. The last is a speed counting test, which will display a bunch of numbers on the screen and ask you a question, either how many “yellow” numbers there are, or how many “sliding” numbers there are. You have to be quick and accurate, as an incorrect answer will result in a time penalty. Your goal in the Brain Age Check is to get an age that is as close to your actual age as possible. The younger your brain, the more energetic and active it is. Once again might I remind you that all these tests and results go according to Dr Kawashima’s theories, you need to take it with a pinch of salt, and yes there really is no need to jump off the nearest bridge if your brain age is ranking in the 80’s… unless you are in your 80’s off course, in which case I congratulate you for getting an age score close to your actual age.

Taking multiplayer to a new level

The game can register up to four users. Each users profile remains hidden until you unlock all the tests, in which case you can compare graphs with the other users. I don’t know how exciting mathematic skill comparison can be, but I suppose it does give you something to strive towards if you are being totally wasted by a braniac (in this case Peter with scores off the chart). There is also a multiplayer game that takes advantage of the DS’s download play functionality. You can connect up to 16 other systems and battle it out in a 30-calculation speed battle! A new height in nerdiness, please I don’t want anyone to know that I spent my Saturday night doing math battles with my friends, over and over again. As bad or boring as it sounds, it is really addictive and quick, so you’ll be retrying it again and again to improve your times (which, by the way, it measures down to the millisecond). That’s the multiplayer feature. I was expecting more, maybe a few more kinds of tests but they didn’t seem to put them in.

Sudoku lovers will also be glad to know that the game comes with a Sudoku game built in and features over 100 different puzzles, enough to keep you entertained for hours. I started playing them (believe it or not it was the first time I had done a Sudoku puzzle) and was doing quite well, and I was quite chuffed with myself, then after the first eight things started getting tougher, and it was all to much for my brain to handle so it put it down. I think Sudoku puzzles should be reserved for Sunday afternoons.

Good value for money

All in all this game is very good value for money, even if you just buy it for the Sudoku puzzles. There is also a lot of gameplay time to it, and a point to mention is that I haven’t ever gotten tired of any of the tests mostly because you play for about 20 minutes a day and then put it away. Yes, there is a limit as to how much of the training you can do in the game, which is kind of cool in a way because it forces you to actually stick with the program and do exactly what it wants you to do… Train your brain in minutes a day!

Pros: Interesting non-game title for the DS; good use of the touch screen.

Cons: Not entirely accurate; voice recognition needs complete silence in the room.

Rating:
Contributor:	Justin

Purchase: