Brain Age 2: More Training in Minutes a Day!

This is one of the best brain games. It gets harder and harder the longer you play and the younger your brain age gets. I especially love the piano play along.

I hate to say I started out as an 80 yr old YIKES. Now after a week I test at 47yr old. And the tests are harder than at the start so you really can see you make progress. There is a little racing man that you have to track with your eyes and tell what place he comes in and others pass him and he passes them. I do terrible at that but it is a good eye training test.

At 52 I realized I needed to do more to keep my mind active and doing these games is a great way to do that and have fun at the same time.

I highly recommend the Nintendo DS and all the brain games.

Brain Age 2 has many interesting and challenging games, although some can be hard, especially for very young kids.

Brain Age starts out by calculating your brain age through a series of tests, one of which is Rock, Paper, Scissors but it adds a twist. It asks you to win or lose which can make it quite challenging if you're not concentrating. There are other tests to test your brain age as well which are non-verbal like pick the biggest number on a screen full of numbers, repeatedly subtracting a smaller number from a bigger number, memorizing number placement in an equation to write in the total. After the testing your brain age is calculated - closer to 20 is better.

You can then try the daily activities to improve your brain age. Some are easy and others quite hard. Here is a list of some:
-Word Scramble where you have to unscramble letters to make a word, medium difficulty
- Change maker, giving back change from a total, easy
- Memory Sprint, keeping track of how many runners passed a runner, medium difficulty
- Piano Player, playing notes on a simulated keyboard with the stylus, easy
- Sign finder, you get a simple equation and have to determine what sign goes in between, easy but you need to be quick
- Word Blend, 2-4 words are spoken together by different voices and you have to write them down, hard - this game is ok till there are only 2 voices speaking but with 4 voices it's almost impossible to figure out what they're saying
- Calendar count - You're asked questions like "What will be the day 3 days before 5 days from now?"

There are some other games that get unlocked as you keep playing. However, I don't play daily and each time I pick it up after a gap I seem to be stuck at the same level I was the last time so I have not been able to unlock any more games.

I've also played Big Brain Academy and it is a little less challenging, a little more diverse and colorful and therefore more fun than this game. I like Brain Age 2 but sometimes because of the "strict" instructor who chides you when you've been remiss, black and white colors and games that require good concentration it seems more like work than just plain fun. So I don't play it very often.

Overall it really tests your brain with interesting activities and I rank it highly as one of the best brain games available on the DS.

I loved the first edition of this game. I ordered this with better expectations, I guess I am over the Brain Age fascination. I would have been happier if I purchased a different game. It is not much different than the first and only has a few more mini games than the first. Not much to rave about.

Those who have played Brain Age before, Brain Age 2 offers even more fun trainings that aren't just repetition of the previous version in disguise. Brain Age 2 has a better stylus and voice recognition system which is a welcoming improvement (no more screaming at the DS shouting *blue*). There are plenty of variety in minigames this time to keep you entertained.

As Dr. Kawashima says in one of his brain tips, "Your brain's greatest enemy is a daily routine." Well, if Brain Age 1 has become a daily routine, try your hand (or mind) at Brain Age 2 and you better be prepared to work your brain even harder than before! This game was much more challenging to me than the first Brain Age which probably means it is better for exercising the brain; however, it made it less fun for me and I didn't keep up with it for as long as I did the original Brain Age.

The game is the same format. The same head of Dr. Kawashima, the same music (albeit a little jazzier), and graphic style. Right from the start, the game is more challenging. The initial brain age test is rock, paper, scissors. You get a graphic and it asks you to win or lose. This was much more difficult than reading a word from Brain Age 1. You have to consider two choices and then factor in winning or losing. You do not have a choice when re-testing your brain. It's rock, paper, scissors, repeatedly subtracting a number, and memorizing number placements (much more difficult than memorizing words from the first brain age).

The daily training games are also more difficult. In "Sign Finder," you get a math problem with the answer and have to put in the sign (multiplication, subtraction, etc.). "Piano Player" is a cute game. You have to hit the right note to the music. I'm not sure how it scores this game as I always get a high score even when I don't think I did very well. It my favorite training game. "Word Scramble", to me, is terribly hard. It has letters floating in a circle and you have to figure out the word they make. As it gets more difficult, I often have to pass in frustration. "Memory Sprint" is like "Head Count" from the previous game, but you have to keep track of a runner and who he passes and is passed by to know what place he finishes in the race.

"Change Maker" is just that. You're given an amount something costs and the amount the customer gives you and you give them change. Years in retail made me pretty good at this game. "Word Blend" is where my frustration reached its boiling point. Computer voices say several different words at the same time. You have to distinguish what the different words are. This game is almost impossible for me, especially the three word level. It does add a new dimension to Brain Age--being able to hear voices through the D.S.--but yuck! "Calendar Count" asks questions like, "What day will it be the day after today?" and you write the date (be sure the calendar setting on your DS is correct). "Math Recall" has you answering simple math problems by using one of the numbers of the previous problem in the next, only erased (you need to remember it to answer the problem). I liked this game.

There are other daily training games I never got to. The extra games are kind of cool. One, you get a screen full of dots, visualize an image, and connect the dots. Kawashima then shows you his interpretation which will make your image look pretty stupid (I did get the jack-in-the-box, though). There are also slogans you can create using the letters of words to describe that word. Again, Kawashima will share his example, though I thought some of mine were better. Oh, and you get a bunch of sudoku puzzles with this game, too.

If you are up to a challenge, this game will probably be better than the first Brain Age because it will work your brain more and give you a better indication of your brain age. There is also more variety with more fun graphics than Brain Age 2. I didn't enjoy it mainly because I was so bad at so many of the games it was more work than fun. To use the brain tip I picked as the title of my review, I guess I didn't enjoy myself as much with this game.