The success of the Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training games on the Nintendo DS lay, for the most part, in the platform's portability. Why waste time on the bus journey home daydreaming or humming to yourself when you could be furiously exercising your brain?
The appeal of the PC version then is hard to fathom. Sure, I can sit and complete psychometric tests when I'm at home. But to be honest I'd rather watch a DVD. Or play a proper game.
Brain Exercise with Dr. Kawashima offers little more than the DS original did, failing to make any use of the possibilities of running on an enhanced platform. While there's probably not much point in having 3D graphics or video when you're doing mental arithmetic, it would have been nice to have felt some effort was made, and you weren't playing something that could run on Windows 95.
The intensive mouse use required for a great deal of the tests also means that you'll probably get RSI before you see any noticeable increase in the size of any of your lobes.
If you like this sort of thing, it won't greatly disappoint. And there is an option to have a talking panda be your assistant, which is always nice. But hopefully even unexercised brains will realise that such tests are available, for free, all over the internet.
