Correlating strongly with Nintendo's Brain Age and Big Brain Academy games, Personal Trainer: Math seeks to improve basic math abilities with fun and rewarding games. Personal Trainer: Math features the Hundred-Cell Method pioneered by the in-game host, Hideo Kageyama. This method requires players to do back-to-back, fast-paced arithmetic problems, including addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Starting with a 10x10 grid, with numbers populated along the top and left sides, players will need to perform the specified function and fill in the corresponding grid space. The exercise continues until all of the one hundred cells are filled.
Kyle casts magic -- number magic. Does his brain get a workout from Personal Trainer: Math? Read on.
Electric Playground:
"Personal Trainer: Math is obviously designed to improve your skills with numbers, and it does what's required, albeit unspectacularly. Then again, there's only so much you can do to sex up multiplication. So, you'll find yourself doing all sorts of mathematical exercises such as long division, multiplying missing numbers, and so on. It's good practice, but lacking in wow factor."
WorthPlaying writes: "It would seem as though the folks at Nintendo have taken it upon themselves to solve the world's educational problems by simply using the DS and an avalanche of software. The company has released an untold number of brain-building games over the past several years, and various third-party companies have been happy to supply even more. Now the big dog is back in the game with the release of Personal Trainer: Math, the latest in the Touch Generation series. Unfortunately, the title is not only boring and monotonous, but it also commits the cardinal sin of educational gaming: It doesn't teach you a thing."
