Brain Age = amazing

[Julius Seeker]

I really was not sure about the game when I first heard about it, and saw it. After going down to EB games and downloading the demo which has three example games on it. I was hooked, and it's a good game to pass around too, a lot of people will want to play it. I was surprised with how well the voice recognition works, it works perfectly, it's interesting technology.

When it comes out next week for $22.99 (*$19.99 USD) I'm certainly going to be picking it up. The price is right. I'm not going to say much more, if you have a DS, go download the demo at EB games, or some other place that has it, and taking it for a test drive.

I can easily see this game being a huge hit. I guess it depends on how it's marketed. The demo sold me. This is a game that seems to be designed for people ages 20 and up, an actual "mature" game by the more conventional method of the word. =P

I can TOTALLY understand the hype behind this game in Japan's audience now.

Here is the product description:

Releases 17 Apr/06. Brain Age: Treat Your Brain, inspired by the work of Japanese neuroscientist Professor Ryuta Kawashima exercises your brain in an effort to keep it young. Fun for the whole family can be had by playing a series of minigames from doing math problems to drawing pictures to reading classical literature aloud. Work that brain! More Info

FEATURES:

* Draw, count and read aloud to stretch your cognitive abilities
* Monitor your brain age over the course of play.
* Compete with family and friends.
* Demo download to others from a single cartridge.
* Up to 16 player local wireless multiplayer

Future Shop

[Zeus]

I'm really interested to see how this game does here (North America). They did a great job by pricing the first one low enough to entice people to pick it and try it, but how many lazy kids here wanna test their knowledge on their DS? Some parents may buy it for the kids, but will the kids care?

[Blotus]

Downloading the demo at EB? You can do that shit?

[Zeus]

Downloading the demo at EB? You can do that shit?

Yeah, at most of the EBs, they've set up a download station now, kinda like the ones you hear about at E3. Believe it or not, all they are are DSs set up to continuously download to any DS that connects to them. They work on the same principle as playing multiple people on one cart. You have the one cart as a host while the rest get the info from it. It's pretty neat, actually

It's also an option on Meteos I just found out.

[Julius Seeker]

I'm really interested to see how this game does here (North America). They did a great job by pricing the first one low enough to entice people to pick it and try it, but how many lazy kids here wanna test their knowledge on their DS? Some parents may buy it for the kids, but will the kids care?

The game isn't really about knowledge, it is difficult to explain, the best thing to do is to pick up the demo and see what it is all about. It is geared towards adults, but of any game I have ever seen, this one probably has the widest appeal; I can see a lot of 'under age 20' people enjoying it as well. A lot of people I showed the demo to it really enjoyed it, and some of them were non-gamers, and hardcore gamers loved it; they were all older, everyone except two who played it was over the age of twenty and one girl will be 20 in June, the other was 18 (and she tied my ****ing math record at 19 seconds for the twenty problems!). It is the sort of game that you'll want to pass around to your friends. It's similar to DDR in a lot of ways that it can appeal to non-gamers and gamers alike. Only Brain Age is much more accessable, cheaper, and far more convenient than DDR.


As far as the EB games demo service goes. You just walk into the store, turn your DS on, go to the download option and a bunch of different game demoes will pop up on the screen to download. Close your DS when the download is done, and go and play it whenever you want. The demo will stay on the system until the game is turned off.

[Julius Seeker]

Whoah, I got my best Brain age score by far at 5:16 AM after a night of moderate drinking; 24 is my best now, my other scores are 56 and 44. What does that say about the effects of alcohol?

[Eric]

Whoah, I got my best Brain age score by far at 5:16 AM after a night of moderate drinking; 24 is my best now, my other scores are 56 and 44. What does that say about the effects of alcohol?

More like Crack Age, put the game down Seek!!

*Logs into WoW*

[Shellie]

As far as the EB games demo service goes. You just walk into the store, turn your DS on, go to the download option and a bunch of different game demoes will pop up on the screen to download. Close your DS when the download is done, and go and play it whenever you want. The demo will stay on the system until the game is turned off.

Sweet!! I gotta do that....The only DS game we have right now is Dawn of Sorrow. Too many other games we're playing right now to buy anything else.

[Lox]

That's awesome. I'm going to go try the demo out soon! The game sounds really cool.

[Zeus]

Sweet!! I gotta do that....The only DS game we have right now is Dawn of Sorrow. Too many other games we're playing right now to buy anything else.

There are a ton of great games for that system. Try Pac Pix since it's cheap, definetely unique, and fun as hell.

I could sit here and name off about 10 other great games for the system (Mario Kart rules). Look around, there are enough cheap that are really good too.

[Julius Seeker]

Brain Age I have found is easily the most widely appealing game I have ever seen on a handheld system. In the past few days more than a dozen different people have tried out the game.

It's working really well to get people to place higher and higher bids on my DS for when I sell it in favour of the DS Lite. I was only expecting to get $50 at the very most, I would have been fine at $40. Bids are up to $65 currently.

Anyways, as far as DS games, go, I have already written a ton on my opinions on the games. So I will just write out what the top selling games are:

Nintendogs
Mario Kart
Animal Crossing
Super Mario 64 DS
Brain Training

Animal Crossing and Nintendogs have proven to be very widely appealing games, both have sold extremely well in all three markets, but mainly in Japan and Europe: Mario Kart is the top game in North America.

[Julius Seeker]

Whoooooo! I got Brain Age 20, that was at 11:30 AM on a Saturday.

For the record, that is the lowest score possible.

[Julius Seeker]

Alright, after a night of drinking I got a brain age of 39 in the morning after being woken up by loud banging next door after 3-4 hours sleep.

For the record, one girl got a brain age of 20 (which is around her real age) as well; as a description of her, she's got bright blue eyes, blonde hair, skinny, but shorter than desired. She is mostly German and her great uncle was in the SS. My theory is that those belonging to the Aryan Master Race (even if her height is slightly deficient) have excessively high prefrontal cortex activity =)

In terms of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World:

Brain Age of 20 = Alpha
Brain Age of 21-25 = Beta
Brain Age of 26-39 = Gamma
Brain Age of 40-79 = Delta
Brain Age of 80+ = Epsilon

Which is possibly a portion of the literature section of the game =)

[Julius Seeker]

6:45, Monday morning, 4 hours sleep, but a large mug of tea = Brain age of 22. That's my official stamp for today.

For the record, later on Saturday night after five beer and a glass of wine I managed a brain age of 28, and yeah, I was drunk, alcohol doesn't seem to have as major an effect on Brain activity as does the morning after drinking after being woken up by annoying neighbours. For the record, two other people who had also been drinking also got a brain age of 39 and 40 respectively.

Saturday night we also tested a girl who was really high on dope, and she barely managed to get through the first excersize. She chose to use the mic, the first excersize was saying the names of all the colours of the words being written. She over and over again made the mistake of reading the word instead of saying the colour. The next one was 100 short math problems, she got through about 20-30 of them, amazingly getting a lot of them right, but began laughing her ass off and stopped playing due to her not wanting to know how bad she was going to do. So weed = very negative effects on brain function =P

One thing that is really fun with the game is that every day the narrator tells you to draw a picture of something from memory. Just looking at the sorts of things that people come up with...

The one drawback to the game is that it only has 4 saves. For such a widely appealing game as this (that will have everyone wanting to play it) the game should have at least 10 saves. I only know one other person who has the game right now, but she doesn't hang around here often enough.

I got a new record on the word memory thing as well: Essentially you have 2 minutes to remember as many words on the list as possible, and then you have three minutes to write them all out. My new high score is 16. I also have the second place score on my cartridge which is 12.

So yeah, I would say this is my favourite game right now.