Brain Quest: Grades 5 & 6

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What’s the Story?

Brain Quest flashcards and workbooks just got a techie facelift. BRAIN QUEST: GRADES 5& 6, a game for the Nintendo DS, incorporates 6000 questions typically found in fifth and sixth grade curriculum into video game playing. These questions appear in three different modes: Quest, Brain, and Multiplayer and cover the following academic subjects: math, science, English, geography, history, and a catch-all category called "Grab Bag." In each of the modes, kids play to earn points and accolades. The points can be traded in for stickers to use in an art designing area. There is also a robust Sudoku Mode offering 4 x 4, 6 x 6, and 9 x 9 Sudoku Puzzles.

In the Quest Mode, which provides a light story to help motivate kids to tackle the questions, you become a contestant in the Quest Extreme Games festival. Each Extreme Game represents an academic subject. For example, to compete in a soccer match, you will do math challenges. With the Brain Mode, you jump right in and start answering questions delivered in rounds of 5 questions each. And in the Multiplayer Modes, you can play cooperatively or competitively with a friend using just one Nintendo DS and one game cartridge.

Is It Any Good?

Brain Quest delivers on its slogan "It's Fun to Be Smart" with a snappy presentation of academic questions in a video game format. While this isn't a traditional video game with cutting edge gameplay and deep storytelling, it does a great job of making learning fun by mixing up the format of the questions. You'll find multiple choice, select an image, matching, sorting, fill-in-the-blank, word builder (add a letter to the beginning of a word to change into another word), and crossout (cross out a letter in a misspelled word) questions. Accompanying you while you answer these questions with your the DS stylus, is uplifting funky music. Plus the game is always telling you how good you are when you answer questions correctly. This game is so supportive that even reluctant learners will want to play.

For years, families have used Brain Quest cards to help pass the time while traveling. But the cards always worked best when others played along. With this electronic version, playing along is still possible, just now, playing solo is equally as fun.