Train that brain!

Advantages: Tons of activities, keeps your brain healthy and active, lots of sudoku
Disadvantages: doesnt understand some words/handwriting

...After seeing countless TV adverts in the past few weeks showing me games that could actually improve and exercise my brain, namely Big Brain Academy and Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training, I decided to take the plunge and buy one to see what the fuss was all about. In the end I opted for Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training as after reading reviews it sounded like a better choice for the older gamer. Never mind that I didn't actually own a Nintendo DS at the time! I ordered it off Amazon.co.uk for the fabulous price of £17.99 and in 2 days it arrived on my doorstep, giving me time to buy the console to play it on. Who is Dr. Kawashima I hear you ask? Well a quick search on google tells me that he is a Japanese neuroscientist whose research involves mapping the regions of the brain to certain human faculties and then applying this...

welshgal17 31.07.2006 · Read review
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Review of Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain?

Dr Kawashima's Brain Training

Advantages: Lots of different types of training
Disadvantages: Speech recognition/microphone isnt great, Dr Kawashimas comments can get a bit annoying

...This is probably one of the most well known/recognised and advertised Nintendo DS 'games' released so far, although I'm not sure if I'd strictly describe it as being a game. I had been pretty curious to see if it could improve my brain (and memory) after seeing the TV ads for it, I finally got around to buying myself it back in March. Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training is a 'game' which consists of a number of different training mini-'games' or training exercises to get your brain flow moving and it logs your progress by assessing how quickly these mini-'games' or training exercises are completed and relating that back in terms of speeds (walking speed being the slowest, then there's faster ones like 'driving speed' each 'speed' is shown with a picture of whatever was described (someone walking or a car) moving across the screen...

IzzyS 23.06.2007 · Read review
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Review of Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain?

Train your Brain!

Advantages: Great fun, good for your brain
Disadvantages: Time consuming and addictive!

...For Christmas, my dad and I each got a Nintendo DS (Dual Screen) Lite and we each got a Brain Training game for Christmas. I got the first one and my dad got this one. You can save up to four data files on the DS game so I have been using it most days. I prefer this one to the Brain Training, as the features are more interesting. Dr Kawashima Dr Ryuta Kawashima was born in 1959 in Japan, and is a neuroscientist. In 2003, he wrote "Train Your Brain: 60 Days to a Better Brain" which was a huge success in Japan and was later released worldwide. In 2005, it was turned in to the first brain training game for the DS and this sequel was later released. Instead of accepting the royalties from the games for himself, he has built two laboratories. There is a cartoon image of Dr Kawashima and it is a speech bubble from his mouth...

bluejules 16.02.2008 · Read review
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Review of More Brain Training: Dr Kawashima's How Old Is Your Brain (Nintendo DS)

Brain training for the brain dead!

Advantages: Enjoyable game, loads of levels
Disadvantages: can drag on, DS can be a little fiddly.

...Brain Training on Nintendo DS. I recently received the above as an early birthday present and liked it so much I thought I'd write a review! To play the game you need to turn your DS sideways, you then choose left or right handed (This DS came from the far east, so not sure if it's the same across the board, but I guess it is). You initially do a very basic exercise, usually a the name of a colour written in coloured writing, but a different coloured writing from the colour spelt out. They occasionally match, but usually they are different. Your challenge is saying the colour the word is written in, not saying the word. For this feature of the game you need to speak out the word. The microphone is good, but remember to speak out clearly. I've had a couple of experiences with the microphone not picking up the sound, even when...

shazzy1967 08.11.2007 · Read review
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Review of Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain?

Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training

Advantages: Learning
Disadvantages: You Will get extremely tired

...This game is very good, it is quite hard, its not that you can't do it but your eyes are thrying to watch so many different things on the screen your mind can't catch up. Depending on which Brain Training you have got there are 2 out at the moment Brain Training and More Brain Training. I recommend you get them in order Brain Training first and More Brain Training, the second one is really much harder. You can only test you brain age once a day the last time i did it i had a brain of a 69 year old and i am 32, i wasn't too happy about that, although i did beat my husband he is the same age and hes got the brain of a 89 year old. At least with this game your children are actually doing something with there time, they are learning spelling, maths, reading, and a lot more, depending on what level you get to all depends on what you...

KIWIMULLAN03 11.02.2008 · Read review
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Review of Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain?

Play the Game and Train your Brain

Advantages: Keeps track of how you are doing
Disadvantages: Could get boring after a couple of weeks

...Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain? CONSOLE: This game is for the Nintendo DS or DS Lite. PRICE: £16.99 Amazon, Around £10 Ebay, £20 Game. This isn't really a bad price for what you are getting. WEBSITE: http://braintraining1.nintendo.com.au/ (For more information this is a good site to visit) PLAYERS: You can have 4 people store their information, or there is the quick play option where you can simply have a go at the exercises and not store anything. WHAT DOES IT DO? Brain Training has been designed to exercise and stimulate your brain. The makers believe that if you carry out certain exercises or tasks each day then you will hopefully train your brain to retain more information and become cleverer. Just as you exercise your body and muscles to become fitter, this allows you to exercise your brain...

kelassa 05.09.2006 · Read review
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Review of Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain?

Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training

Advantages: the activities are taxing as well as the fact you can have fun while training
Disadvantages: Mostly the game is aimed at the older audience

...Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training: how old is your brain? is a great game and has definitely improved my brain usage especially in calculations. The game includes many brain training activities including 20 calculations, 100 calculations, Reading aloud. You get a stamp everyday you train your brain. As you go through the game and earn more stamps you get harder, more fun, brain training programs ( must play to discover). Also included on the game is sudoku ( which you may have seen in the newspaper). The levels on sudoku vary between easy and difficult, for all you beginners and advanced players out there. Aswell as all this the game even has the capacity for four people to have a profile of there own and the fun of this is you can compare your scores of exercises with the other profiles. To top it all off the game even randomly gets you...

superstar522 01.06.2007 (02.06.2007) · Read review
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Review of Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain?

Dr Kawashima's Brain Training

Advantages: Does help keep your brain active
Disadvantages: Gets repetitive and not really much fun

...Dr Kawashima's Brain Training was a game that I had seen advertised for so long that when I got my DS really wanted to see what the fuss was all about. This game involves many different training exercises including simple maths and memory puzzles. You can also take the brain age test in which you complete a range of exercises and using how well you do a brain age is calculated. When I first got this game I played it everyday and did the training regularly but after a while and when I had unlocked all the different exercises I really found it a bit pointless. Yes, I could see my times getting quicker so obviously it was helping me use my brain in ways I usually don't during the day but it does get very boring. I did enjoy doing the sudoku puzzles that are also included in this game but they aren't part of the brain training exercises...

skipper6 14.08.2008 · Read review
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Review of Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain?

Brain Training, does it warrant all the fuss?

Advantages: Original, innovative, surprisingly fun
Disadvantages: text and sound recogntion can be difficultt o use, not a wide range of puzzles

...a test, the result of which is an age of which your brain is, you can complete this once a day and the training programmes as often as you like. The aim of the game is to improve the age of your brain by training it and completing the tests. The training games use methods such as speaking aloud or manually writing the answer on the touch screen to take answers. Some people will also have problems the handwrinting software, as it finds it sometimes difficult to read certain writing forms. Every day on which you train, you will receive a stamp on this day in your calendar, when you complete three training exercises you will receive a larger stamp. When you acquire a certain number of stamps, the stamp that is displayed can be customised, that is you can draw a picture and that will be used as your stamp, not important but a nice touch i feel...

rik13 12.10.2007 · Read review
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Review of Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain?

Train your Brain - it's fun and works

Advantages: Fun games and it really does seem to improve your brain
Disadvantages: Speech and Writing recognition is a little tricky to begin with

...I think by now, with the mainstream advertising campaign and word of mouth, everyone must have heard of this by now but does it really help your brain? I got this game back in August last year and used it every day, my brain age started off badly and gradually improved and I really sped up on the different tasks and training programmes, then I got side tracked by other things (Zelda included) and I forgot about this game. Recently I started using it again and I was quite surprised that I when I started again my scores and times on the training had dropped dramatically and my Brain Age was considerably worse. One of the training games consists of 20 calculations to do in your head, back when I had been using this every day I set a record of 22 seconds for this. Going back to it recently my time was a dismal 1m 45s and I had got...

valve90210 15.07.2008 · Read review
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Review of Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain?