Nintendo smartly created a genre of games known as Touch Generations that attract all generations, not just the hard core gamer. Such casual games focus on unwinding and brain exercise. Nintendo is definitely onto something as brain exercise games grow more popular as Baby Boomers want to keep their minds sharp with puzzles like Sudoku and Kakuro.
In addition to Sudoku and Kakuro, Brain Buster Puzzle Pak, by Agetec, helps players flex their mental muscle with numbers and logic games of Nurikabe, Light Up, and Slitherlink. Not only do players work their way through the puzzles, but also watch for monsters and aliens to zap and gain bonuses. The games also reward players with wallpaper for changing the background look.
Brain Buster Puzzle Pak provides guidance every step of the way: how to play the puzzle, how to get around the games and what the menu items do. Anyone new to Nintendo DS won't have much trouble learning how to use Brain Buster Puzzle Pak. The menu did confuse several adults because it uses "Game" and "Session" as in "End game" or "End session." Distinguishing the two isn't as easy as it should be.
Another annoying feature, the "Return" button, takes you up one level or back one screen. When you reach the top level and tap "Return," the game opening credit appears. The button shouldn't be available on this screen. Who wants to see the opening credits again besides the company that developed it?
Playing Sudoku in this one was a better and more enjoyable experience than in another brain game pack, which took more effort. Sudoku contains a 9x9 grid with nine boxes. Each box must contain a number one through nine and those numbers cannot appear on the same row or column in the other boxes.
Mixing addition, logic and Sudoku, Kakuro involves placing numbers that add up to the number for that row or column and not reuse any of the same numbers. In trying to enter three digits that total 7, you can't use 3+2+2 because two appears twice. It must be 4+3+1. Oh, and it doesn't have to appear in that order as it depends on the other boxes. This is the only one that involves math.
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