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Brain Age 2: A Family Review
Written by Chris Goldberg on Monday, October 22, 2007
Chris Goldberg gets personal, and gives his whole family an opportunity to weigh in on Nintendo's latest non-game....
...Continued From Page 3 A thousand nations of the non-gamer army descend upon us...
It all was a very interesting experiment, and it didn't end here. I brought the product with me to work, and allowed many different people play. The experience was an enlightening one, as each individual approached the product very differently. Some hated the instructions and thought it took too long to get to the game itself the first time you start Brain Age 2, and others were shocked at how much they loved it - my friend Kevin Heron, who hadn't played a game since Pac-Man, was elated to see how games had evolved and was eager to train. And this was accompanied by a second shock, as he scored a 21 his first attempt. At 33 years of age, he was quite proud of this acheivement and you could see it reflected on his face. Jocelyn, a co-worker, who mentioned she hated games (even though she purchased many of them for her kids), spent over an hour at the various training modes, mentioning that she "loves when she can show how smart she is." In this end, no one had anything bad to say about it, save that single nagging criticism surrounding the voice recognition and the odd handwriting complaint. The combined scores of all my co-workers and friends registered at 5 out of 5 stars.
What was the ultimate statement on Brain Age 2 here? I certainly learned a thing or two about the different expectations people have when playing videogames, and it opened my eyes a little bit about what people find important. With Nintendo consistently dropping new training products on the market in Japan, and third party developers filling in other previously untapped voids, this is something that might just be good for the industry. One thing that is clear, it does not make you any less of a hardcore gamer to tuck this product into your daily play regiment... as long as you're having fun.
FINAL SCORE: 4/5
