Description

Below is a user’s review on the product:Pretty good for 21 games, but a bit annoying, 18 Jan 2008By AquaViola (Nottingham) – See all my reviewsI have played this DVD twice, so your results may vary!Trying to appeal to the same market as Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training, Noel Edmonds moves you through 5 rounds:1. 3 questions, 3 points each.2. 3 questions, 5 points each.3. 1 question only in the “Speed Round”, this combination of observation and mathematics is worth 20 points.4. 3 questions, 8 points each.5. 2 questions, 16 points each.At the end, you will have a score out of 100, and you either compare them with everyone else in your room, or have Noel tell you what creature your brain resembles.So, does it work? You don’t see Noel, and he reads some of the questions and answers, with his generic comments for the rest of the time.During the questions, the combination of the music and Noel’s “random” comments (“Concentrate!” he would say – does he have any indication that people were not concentrating?), together with the realisation that he would be saying roughly the same in each game, and the fact that his comments don’t add any information you need to answer the questions together with the annoying music and children cheers or boos (echos of “Are you smarter than a 10 year old?”) make me reach for the Mute button.This DVD is definitely appealing to the same market as the Nintendo DS game. Some of the games are identical (how many people are on the bus?), some are close but adapted to fit the DVD form (the endless mathematical question), but a lot come from the IQ test type of books (where is the path out of the maze?) and from memory tests (Have you memorised these playing cards. Good. Where is the King of Hearts?)There are only 21 different games to play, but that shouldn’t worry too many, because by the 20th time I’ve found the Nintendo game loses its appeal a bit. However, you can’t “train” every day, because if you start on February 1, by February 21 you’ll have answered all the available questions! Also, you may find that you are training yourself to answering the sorts of questions that it asks, as opposed to anything more general.Should you get this DVD? If you like Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training but don’t have a Nintendo DS – if you have a competitive family of adults (as there are no children questions) – or if you enjoy IQ-type tests, but want them on the TV with a time limit, then this is your DVD. The video is nicely presented, and the variety and difficult of the questions are well judged.