The Life of Brain

By Tom Bramwell Published 13 June, 2006

One From The Archive - Brain Training.

We all worry about something. Football aside, at this time of year it's skin cancer. And so we slap wads of sunscreen on all our precious bits before we go anywhere near the outside.

It's not such a problem for us, obviously. I've been on one whole beach since I was about 15, and Pat's not allowed after the "I'ssh going for a midnhgith swsimmmss" no-sign-of-him-for-two-days incident.

But there's nothing you can do about summer worries. In fact they seem to multiply. And if there's one that's going to particularly worry us as we laze about next to the, well, kitchen door drinking Sangria by the bucket, it's whether we're getting thicker.

It really shouldn't take us a whole minute to figure out whether England will be "safe" based on two wins from a group where the other teams either lost or drew in their opening games. It shouldn't take us a whole sentence to figure out that half of you will click X in the top of the page every time we mention football.

Good then, that we need worry no longer - because now, when we're doing what all stereotypical gamers do and packing our DS when we go on holiday, we can keep that stuff in check with Brain Training. Bit of a placebo effect, maybe, but then so's the way most people apply sunscreen.

The point of all this, in case you're wondering, is that with the games industry winding down a bit over the summer before the inevitable deluge of new formats and games this Christmas, we're going to spend the sun's peak hours each day revisiting a number of recent favourites - giving you a chance to catch up on stuff you might've missed, or simply revisit an old argument with a bit of hindsight.

'The Life of Brain' Screenshot 1

We only managed awkward blobs. Our shrink says it's fine.

Where best to start our midday siesta I MEAN important attempt to educate you, then, than with a recent-decent, a game you'll want to stuff in your suitcase wherever you go and, handily, a game that finally came out in Europe last Friday? It's "Prof. Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain?" of course.

Known as "Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!" in the US (and, for reasons best ignored - they were by our editing department - "Brain Training" throughout the review), Nintendo's noggin-nurturer was originally reviewed on April 25th and scored a hefty 9/10.

Since then we have stopped playing it, but it took over a month of daily training to find all its hidden bits, not to mention New Super Mario Bros. to scoop it out of the game-card slot. Since then it's filled the gap marked "skin cancer" in our worry-hole. Are we getting thicker? The arrival of the game's sequel Big Brain Academy this week seems to confirm it. At speed, I can't tell if a cat's heavier than an elephant.

And if you worry about things like that, and whether you can read Kipling at 10 syllables-per-second, Brain Training might be just the place to turn. We still firmly recommend it. Read our review to find out why.

If you've recently picked up Brain Training, why not give it a rating? Fortunately our server can count votes better than we can count men running into and out of a hut. Stay tuned for more old-days reviews plucked from our expansive archive, not least because it's a bit cooler in there.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (40) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • JetSetWilly #1 6 years ago

    That attempt at drawing a Kangaroo looks more like Scooby Doo.

    Mind you, I needn't criticise - it's way better than my effort.
    Edited by 1 at 13/06/06 @ 11:39

  • Teeth #2 6 years ago

    Comparing your drawings if two people are playing on the same cartridge is piss funny, and probably the best thing about the title... if not that, then the sudoku section is great too.

  • urban #3 6 years ago

    mike looks like he's playing with himself in that pouch

  • flp #4 6 years ago

    A great game because:

    * Watching your friends repeatedly shout 'BLUE' into a DS is entertaining

    * Watching your mother, with a complete lack of understanding, trying to start playing the game on the instruction screen is amusing

    * Doing 30 sums before your mates can via wireless is INTENSE

    :)

  • richardiox #5 6 years ago

    Definately all about having more than one profile per cart. Have a great running competition with the girlfriend and it's cool being able to compare each others results over time.

    Plus the little drawing comparison tasks are always fun.

    £12.99 from Movietyme too which is a criminal price at the end of the day.

  • UncleLou #6 6 years ago

    I love that kangaroo.

    My drawing efforts are appaling. But a lot better than the girl-firend's - the woman really can't draw, I was shocked. :p

  • Mr_Whacker #7 6 years ago

    And I thought my kangaroo was bad!! Is that a labrador having a s**t wearing an apron?

  • Mr_Whacker #8 6 years ago

    Its a hilarious 'game' though. Totally recommended. I actually caught myself reading tube adverts quickly to myself this morning!

  • Teeth #9 6 years ago

    "if it was called "Dr Hank's Brain Training" and had a picture of an archetypal fat American on the box, would ANYONE buy it?"

    yes I would

  • el_pollo_diablo #10 6 years ago

    Dr Nick Riviera's Brain Training?

    I'd buy that one.

  • GingerNathan #11 6 years ago

    I hate and detest this game... it's a total and utter scam and yet everyone seems to have fallen for it hook line and sinker

    Fallen for what? It's twenty quid and it's a good laugh to play - if there's a scam somewhere there I can't see it! :/

    If you refering to the 'keeping you brain young' marketing then the game dosen't claim to do anything more then what happens when old people play Chess or Bridge, ie it just helps keeps minds active. As far as the 'evils of video games' go, even Thompson can't have have a problem with this title :p.

  • asphaltcowboy #12 6 years ago

    Got this today! Superb!
    I feel smarter already! ;)
    Edited by 1 at 13/06/06 @ 15:20

  • hilts #13 6 years ago

    Its a great game. Arrived on Friday and have been playing it daily since. The wife thinks i am nuts shouting BLUE at the DS but it is great stuff! True, when doing the 100 calculations or the 30 words the recognition is off, but 95% of the time it is fine. The little quips are quite amusing, like "isn't that ten years more than your real age" or "aren't you a trooper coming back every day" etc. I am sure i will be playing this daily until the arrival of New Super Mario Bros in a few weeks...

  • kangarootoo #14 6 years ago

    "Self Portrait in a Day - the Kangarootoo Way"

    Its clearly a popular market.

  • Teeth #15 6 years ago

    You have to be trolling.

  • asphaltcowboy #16 6 years ago

    So you don't believe it stimulates brain activity and that stimulated brain activity is good for you then?

  • GingerNathan #17 6 years ago

    LOL get out of your own arse, it's a twenty quid piece of software that endorses using your brain rather then the promotion of death and destruction.
    It's evil I tells yer! :p




    PS the Sudoku is worth the twenty quid by itself. :)
    Edited by 1 at 14/06/06 @ 00:33

  • a8a #18 6 years ago

    "playing on the inherent belief of westerners that the Japanese are some kind of higher and more organised form of life!"

    Wouldnt that suggest that these games dont do well in Japan?

    Not so!

  • GingerNathan #19 6 years ago

    What Perri-air? :-D



    That reminds me I must watch Spaceballs again soon!

  • kangarootoo #20 6 years ago

    I am erring toward being with MMUK on this one, but only on certain points. I should point out that I haven't played this game, so some of my assumptions may be off base.

    But it sounds like (sudoku aside) this product presents you with some simple metal tasks and then proposes to be able to show you how your mental agility has improved.

    Now practising mental tasks is known to improve your ability to complete them, that isn't news. A trawl through Amazon will almost certainly reveal several books that claim to do exactly what this game does and chances are they are both right (insofar as practising sums makes you better at sums, etc).

    Now if the books do the same job of making your brain "better" and cost half as much, BT doesn't seem to be particularly good value. But on the flip side, if BT is twice as entertaining as some dusty old "Dr Kanga's Book of Sums" then as a game it is good value.

    Perhaps the point MMUK is making (at the risk of putting words in his mouth) is that as an entertaining game it is great for those that enjoy it, but as a quality way of improving your mental capabilities it is something of a con made attractive with pretty pictures. Perhaps?

  • Mr_Whacker #21 6 years ago

    Nah, don't agree. Kawashima's 'thing' is that simple constant brain activity is far better exercise for it than sporadic complex calculation. Thats why its just some simple sums. What you are getting is an organised way to do this. So its as much of a con as a yoga class. You can do it yourself but many people find it more productive to pay for some enforced structure and a bit of encouragement.

  • asphaltcowboy #22 6 years ago

    Well said Mr_Whacker!

  • Teeth #23 6 years ago

    Mr_Whacker's on the money.

  • kangarootoo #24 6 years ago

    "So its as much of a con as a yoga class. You can do it yourself but many people find it more productive to pay for some enforced structure and a bit of encouragement."

    Thats a really good example, point taken. Looks like I do actually need to play it myself to form a proper opinion.

  • Teeth #25 6 years ago

    If nothing else it will teach you your multiplication tables. Plus, it's fun. And there's sudoku. And then there's the drawing stuff. It tests your memory and stuff. Sure, it's not like having a teacher. It's more like a game, the better you get at playing it, the lower your "brain age".

    Of course it's not an accurate gauge of the age of your brain; it's more of a gauge of how well you're doing with learning your tables or reacting quickly to certain inputs, or discerning colours and shapes and movements. It's all good.

    How anyone can say it's a con or is worthless or is a scam (lol!) is beyond me; I can only assume that such people have redundant minds or have not played the title.

  • kangarootoo #26 6 years ago

    @Xiphos

    "a stupid person will always be stupid - no matter what you, or they, try to do "

    But that is just rubbish isn't it? Education is one example of why that statement is incorrect. But on a lower level it is also possible to increase your IQ through practice, depite what mensa members may like to suggest.

    And lets not all start calling each other names (I include all "sides" in that). There is nothing more pointless than a slanging match where people try to suggest they are smarter than someone else.

  • asphaltcowboy #27 6 years ago

    Ok, if actually believe that it makes your brain "younger" (a physical impossibility, surely?) rather than just helps to keep it active... then I'd have to worry...

    EDIT: Oh and Xiphos, you do talk some rubbish!
    Edited by 1 at 14/06/06 @ 15:19

  • Teeth #28 6 years ago

    @MMUK

    "Like I said, if you enjoy it then fine, fair enough, but you could have saved yourself a bit of cash by just going down to your local library and pulling a few old 11 plus examination papers out of the archives!"

    It's not as much fun, as it's not interactive. Quantifying your progress would be a matter of recording your success rates yourself and storing the data somewhere. You would also have to extract those exercises and turn them into fun exercises that randomly diversified within themselves. Hey, I tell you what: instead of using your computer to write your next design document, or write your next bit of code, or draw your art in photoshop or whatever it is you do there, how about you ditch the computer completely because writing with a pen and paper or working out code in your head or drawing on paper with a pencil is far cheaper! You're totally being scammed there dude!

    "Teeth - if you are trying to imply that I am a thicko, you would be wrong, but I'm not going to try and have that argument with you over the internet... my reasons for calling this a scam are very clear, it doesn't do what it claims it does, and exact equivalents exist that could be accessed for a fraction of £20."

    I'm not calling you a thicko, man. I'm saying your brain must be broken in some way if you can't see that this title isn't valueless. Having a broken brain doesn't mean you're stupid, so don't sweat it. And I just refuted your "fraction of £20" argument above.

  • Teeth #29 6 years ago

    It really sounds as if you haven't played the title at all. If you are focussing on the calculations test, I mean.

    Just a sec, though: "Now I'm REALLY confused... what are you saying? You point out yourself that a pen and paper would be a pretty viable alternative to this £20 cartridge!"

    Ah - you may have taken what I said at face value: actually I may have lapsed (for shame!) into sarcasm at the end of my first paragraph there. My point is that the effort required to extract fun from 11+ examination papers that one has on loan from the library far outweighs the fun that may be extracted from them. In addition, such tests do not contain analysis of counting, colour recognition, shape and motion recognition, and all of the other features that are present in Brain Age.

    "What's the difference?"

    The difference is that the title presents you with 20 or 100 calculations chosen at random, and it will do this indefinitely. In order to achieve the same output using test papers on loan from the local library, one would have to write down all the questions and produce some method of selecting a certain number of them at random. Half way through such an endeavour, one might be forgiven for thinking that using a computer to randomly select the sums would be more efficient. Indeed, one would be quite correct in this assumption; that is why Brain Age works with respect to testing calculations.

    In opposition to the way in which doing the same examination paper over and over again becomes easy after the first time, the randomly selected sums cause the brain to think fast and act fast, instead of commiting to memory a set of, let's say, 10 examination questions with set answers. True, there are a set number of sums that may be asked by Brain Age, and once one has learned all of them and can write the answers in a way that the software can recognise fully, quickly, to the best ability that the game can detect, one might say one has gleaned all possible value from the calculations tests the game has to offer, and move on to, say, the memory test that trains you to memorise 30 words in a certain amount of time; something that mathematics examination papers on loan from the local library could never do (extra effort would be required to construct this particular test on one's own)

    "But I don't think that's how many people feel"

    Here I also assume you haven't seen how well the title has been selling? Otherwise perhaps you wouldn't be making this statement. You also appear to be the only detractor in this thread (aside from roo2 but we all know he's undead and paints his face like a clown :)).

  • kangarootoo #30 6 years ago

    I like this thread :)

  • mad_caddy #31 6 years ago

    My opinion is that it's a realtivly functional bit of entertainment.

    It's helping me with my mathematic skills which I hardly use on a regular basis (yes amazing as that is) without some form of electronical device and if my brain starts working at these solutions and thinking more on the fly rather than reaching for a calculator then great (Before i get slapped, I don't need a calculator for basic sums, I'm saying that it's helping my brain with number pattern recognition etc, the basics of addition and subtraction etc)

    My other point is the memory tests that it provides, my wife takes medication which she has to take on a daily basis, this hinders her capacity to memorise simple things, yet this has proven to be beneficial, she's learnt new ways of memorising things and that from my point of view is a good thing.

    It's a good fun slice of entertainment for the whole family.

    /yes yes typo hilarity a go go
    Edited by 2 at 14/06/06 @ 16:37

  • Teeth #32 6 years ago

    "that from my point of view is a good think."

    Awesome typo :)

  • kangarootoo #33 6 years ago

    "(aside from roo2 but we all know he's undead and paints his face like a clown :))."

    LOL, have you been lurking my MSN? Anyway, that was yesterday. Stinkoman is currently my weapong of choice.

    Hehe, that made me chuckle. I should use that as my avatar piccy, I'm sure my anonimity would remain intact.

  • Teeth #34 6 years ago

    :)

    It's like you're him! You should do it

  • kangarootoo #35 6 years ago

    "(Before i get slapped, I don't need a calculator for basic sums, I'm saying that it's helping my brain with number pattern recognition etc, the basics of addition and subtraction etc) "

    On that note, I actually find that sometimes I reach for a calculator for simple maths these days. Not because I can't do the sums, but because I don't trust my brain enough due to lack of use. Many years back during A level maths study (which I failed incidentally, though due to lack of study rather than lack of ability, but then I would say that) I could do all sorts of bonkers stuff in my head and I trusted myself to get it right.

    But that was because I was doing it every day and it was second nature. I really find it shocking just how crap you can get at simple arithmetic when you never have cause to use it.

    Maybe this product is just what I need. It won't genuinely hide the 7 signs of ageing the way a paper bag can, but it may be more convenient than dipping into a copy of "Mathematics for the Modern Gentleman".

  • kangarootoo #36 6 years ago

    "It's like you're him! You should do it"

    Bollox, the piccy is at home. It will have to wait. Tune in tomorrow kids (like anyone actually cares) to see kangarootoo in disguise.

  • Teeth #37 6 years ago

    Hehe, well - OK. Fair enough about the 11+ tests being similar to what's in the software. Your point is that one can do these tests without buying the software, but it's still out of context, because the game automates the process of doing the tests in such a way that regimenting yourself to do so without the game would be no fun.

    Your other point, that the diagrams are lies and the "doctor" is a liar and should burn for his filthy lies... well, I'm not a Brain Doctor so I can't comment on all that. Seems sensible to me that if you stimulate the brain to do common tasks and stuff like the tests in Brain Age, it will be able to make certain connections more quickly. One is only supposed to play the game for about 5 or ten minutes a day, if that, and ideally one would spend more time doing much more healthy activities than video-gaming, such as reading or perhaps eating. In any case, I like to think that learning multiplications tables again is a bit better than say, trying to find the way to open up the cannon in world 1 of New Super Mario Brothers by doing the same levels over and over again until I find the secret bit.

    Anyway I'll let you keep going on about how this is a "scam" now, and how you're comparable with Galileo in doing so :)

  • Teeth #38 6 years ago

    OK, this is where the conversation ends.

    "but products like this imply that all those other videogames are brainless and evil, and only Dr Kawashima's patented techniques can help you.

    It simply isn't true.. whatever benefit is present in this game is equally present in GTA, or PGR3, or Tetris, or Ikaruga, or Mario, or any other game you care to mention... It is honestly true that trying to find the secret bit in Mario really is every bit as beneficial as playing Brain Training."

    Now you put it like that, I agree with you.

    "And I didn't compare myself to Galilleo, and if you think I did you need to go buy Dr Kawashima's English Language Training."

    I know, man, I was just ribbing you. Sorry :)

  • kangarootoo #39 6 years ago

    "do the two results match? Do they BOLLOCKS!"

    Proper LOL. Top work. I'd love to be able to use that line in a court room.

    This thread has an excess of "if you think X then you had better Y" statements in it. I suggest a fight using telepathy is the only way to settle things.

  • Mr_Whacker #40 6 years ago

    Wow, you guys been busy!

    I wouldn't call the age thing colour as such but thats close. More like a metaphor - as in go jogging and feel 10 years younger.

    And yes the 11+ exam papers would do the same. But libraries smell of old people and I love my DS so I'll do it there. As a gamer I want to see a game made out of of everything.

    And its spot on about real world excersing - the game does encourage you do things like speed reading whenever you can.

    Ultimately its just fun to have a game that's about thinking not avoiding/shooting (which is cool but plenty represented).

    edit - except knitting. That would suck.
    Edited by 1 at 15/06/06 @ 08:58