Brain Age on the Nintendo DS is probably one of the most original titles to hit the system. I say this because it has been out for not even half a year and it has already spawned wannabe Brain Age games on the handheld system. This game is probably does one of the best jobs at taking the capabilities of the DS and using them to their full extent. That being said let's get on to the review.
Brain Age gives you a number of tests and depending how good you do the age of your brain is measured, with 20 years old being the youngest your brain can be. You can only test your brain once a day, but there are ways to train your brain in fun little mini games that will keep you busy. The sad thing is that you can only save your scores once a day, so once you do everything for the day there is really no need to come back to the game for the rest of the day. This is disappointing because the game has so much potential to be even better than it is.
In my mind Brain Age is the perfect handheld game. You can play it for five minutes or for fifty minutes it doesn't really matter. You can do some quick training or you can play the newest craze in puzzle gaming Sudoku. The game does however come with some flaws that most gamers can come to expect from a DS game that uses all of the DS capabilities.
First of all the voice recognition is so-so at best. Some days everything that you say will be heard correctly, but sometimes even when you are in a silent room the game doesn't always think that you say what you said.
Another flaw in the game is the stylus which can at times are touchy, and thing that you are writing a number when you are trying to write something else. Both of these flaws will be overlooked after you play the game for some time.
The game doesn't have that much lasting appeal because once you get to 20 you feel like you have completed the game. Another thing that I did not enjoy about this game is that all the games which you unlock in training cannot be played in the Brain Test section, which is a little disappointing and definitely could have upped the replay value of this game.
Brain Age is however a budget title and at twenty bucks you can simply not go wrong. The low price helps you overlook the flaws that would be much more noticeable if you were paying thirty or forty dollars for the game.
Concept: 9/10
Graphics: 7/10
Control: 7/10
Sound: 7/10
Replay Value: 8/10
Worth what you pay: 9/10
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