Product Details
 | Brainiversity |
| List Price: | $19.99 |
| Price: | $6.60 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details |
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Average customer review:
Product Description
To stay fit and healthy, we should regularly exercise our bodies, and the brain is no different. Brainiversity is a game designed to stimulate your brain with 16 different activities covering Language, Memory, Math and Analysis. You can track your progress with daily exams and compare your results with your friends and family. Best of all, Brainiversity is fun!Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #3295 in Video Games
- Brand: BRIGHTER MINDS
- Model: 61190
- Released on: 2008-04-24
- ESRB Rating: Everyone
- Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows XP
- Format: CD-ROM
- Dimensions: .20 pounds
Features
- Get ready to have fun with Edison, your mental personal trainer!
- Daily Chart tracks results for up to 6 people on one computer
- Practice mode allows you to hone your skills and play your favorite activities any time you want
- "Hey, this game is making me smarter already!" - Gamezebo
Customer Reviews
A darling brain training game
I love brain training games
and Brainiversity is one of the best. It's bare-bones design is very
appealing. Edison the talking lightbulb is adorable and makes you feel
like you have a friend when you play. I like how his words are
'garbled', not actual words..really cute. The only drawback is during
some games (like Wordmaker) he repeats himself the whole time you are
playing, which is distracting. Therefore I usually turn his voice off
(nice to have that option).
There are many different games to
play, and all are in big, bold, simple graphics which are appealing. You
won't be squinting at the screen! The music is WONDERFUL, sweet and
simple, and stops during the actual "tests" which is good (no
distractions).
As you progress, different games are unlocked. You
get a daily test each day composed of 4 tests. At the end it is
recorded on your own private graph. Then you can play all the games
individually and each one is recorded on your own private graph for the
individual games, too. You can then play again as much as you want (but
it is only entered on your graph(s) once a day).
I am 46 and
reasonably intelligent and I do not find this game too simplistic or
repetitive. I thought for sure the Spelling Test, for example, would be
ridiculously easy but it isn't! It's multiple choice and they have come
up with some long complicated words to challenge me. I'm guessing the
game is created to grow along with the user. A young speller's words
would probably be easier, and as you progress, the words get harder.
This makes for endless gameplay w/out getting bored.
Similarly
the other games get harder as you progress.
This is a sweet and
simple yet challenging game, one of the best brain train games I've
tried (and I've tried many). Die-hard "experts" will find it too easy,
and it does not inundate the user with statistics (like reaction time
etc; there is none of that here). It would be a great game for kids and
also for seniors. It's not intimidating, its friendly and easy to play.
Highly
recommended for all but the most advanced (advanced brain train
enthusiasts should try mybraintrainer.com).
You can download a
trial version off the internet. No doubt you will be hooked. I bought
this as a gift for my sister on her birthday as she fell in love with it
playing it just once on my PC. She is 48.
Too much emphasis on speed but not enough on
accuracy
I agree with the other
reviewers that the games themselves are fun and challenging. There's one
big flaw in the program though, and it's with the scoring system.
Specifically, there doesn't seem to be much (if any) penalty for
providing wrong answers. In essence what this does is puts a mammoth
emphasis on being quick, while relegating accuracy to a byproduct. In
other words, you're better off guessing versus spending more than a
second to think of the right answer. Here's a concrete example.
There's
a memorization and matching game called, "Remember Me?", where the
player is given a minute and thirty seconds to re-associate as many
faces to their respective names as possible. The results of 3 test runs
are as follows:
* In a run involving zero guesses and where I
took my time to actually process and memorize the information, I scored
an 80% or "Good" mark (17 correct answers, 0 wrong answers, 100%
accuracy)
* In a run where I guessed 75% of the time, I scored a
100% or "Perfect" mark (28 correct answers, 25 wrong answers, 53%
accuracy)
* In a run where I just chose a random answer
(basically closed my eyes and clicked the mouse like mad), I scored a
92% or "Exceptional" mark (24 correct answers, 41 wrong answers, 36%
accuracy)
These kinds of results are not relegated to this one
particular game, either. The best strategies to obtain the highest
scores for every game in Brainiversity is either to just flat-out guess
the answer or take a "best effort" approach where it's far more
important to be really quick than accurate. Also, there is no option to
change how your scores are weighted.
Having said all of this
though, Brainiversity can still be worthwhile to play IF you "don't
cheat" and consciously make the effort to actually THINK about the
problems presented to you. Still, because the penalty for a wrong answer
is so insignificant, the in-game tracking of your progress won't be as
accurate as it should be.
Great tool to
keep you mind sharp
If you'd like to have a fun
way to keep your mind sharp or even improve your mental skills, then
this is the game for you. If you're just looking for mindless
entertainment, look elsewhere.
I've tried a number of the
puzzle-type games which have the word brain in the title and some are
fun, some are not. I really wanted something that would be both fun and
actually track my results so that I could see how I am doing. I
downloaded all the free trials and from my testing I found that
Brainiversity was the best. Unlike the others I tried it isn't childish
or overdone.
When you look at these games you have to think, is
this going to get annoying on day 7 let alone day 120? This game does
not make you click a bunch of crap to get between the practice games and
tests, and doesn't make you wait for any animation either (which some
others I tested did). I do recommend turning the voice sound off on the
lightbulb character in the options menu. Some might say that it lacks
the cool graphics that others have, and they'd be right, but the
graphics don't distract from the game this way and it is more likely to
work on old computers.
From the score history and graphing, to
the random jokes and interesting facts that sometimes show, there are a
some well-designed features. The feature that ties it all together is
the score and progress tracking. Without that it would be amusing but I
wouldn't use it every day. Because of the tracking I want to see how I'm
doing each day, and that's what will help you stick with it and see
some improvement. And this game is all about improvement rather than
just focusing on your score itself.
I recommend at least trying
the trial version to see if you like it.
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