Customer Reviews

Flash Focus: Vision Training in Minutes a Day

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Flash Focus is an eye-training game which helps you improve your peripheral vision, eye reaction time and other eye related functions. It is similar to many actual eye-training exercises used by optometrists.

Set up much like the Brain Age series, each player creates a profile. There are daily activities you perform to improve your skills, and then you do a series of tests to determine your "eye age". Your aim is to hit 20 years old, representing a young, healthy pair of eyes.

The tests cover a range of eye activities. There is the peripheral vision test, where you focus on a central spot but have to see the items around that. There are quick moving tests where you have to track a fast-moving object and remember where it ends up. There are reflex type activities where you stylus-click on objects, hit a moving baseball, swat at a ping pong ball. The more activities you work through, the more training session styles you unlock.

I definitely see the value of these activities, and like that it tracks your progress over time. However, I have the same complaint with this game as I do with Brain Age - and you would think that by now they would have fixed these issues.

First, the "discussion" involved with each game is maddeningly repetitive and annoying. You have to page through every single prompt. Surely by now they should have a "discussion off" option in the options menu!

Next, when they kick you up to hard, you don't get any credit in the tracking system. So if you go from easy games to hard games, and don't do 100% on the hard games, they berate you for being less good even though you are now MORE good, i.e. beating harder tests. If the point of the game is to improve your skill and to be tracked in that improvement, they should track it properly.

Finally, I am all for concentrating on the main task at hand, but some of the graphics here really could use a designer's touch. Remember, this is a VISION game!! The whole point is how things look! I think about how gorgeous Plankton looked, and that game was a very simple game. Just a basic overhaul like that could move this game from looking like it was made by 3rd graders to making it a game that's a true visual feast. They just didn't bother.

Well recommended for its practical eye enhancement features - but I really hope someday that a person with a clue about game design takes over the Brain Age group and overhauls these games with some basic but much needed upgrades.

This is a wonderful game! The layout is nice. The training games are new and fresh. The relaxation eye exercises at the end of the taining is great. You can do the daily exercises selected for you in relation to your eye test or use custom training mode. If you've played Brain Age or Brain Age 2 you will notice some similar formats but in no way is this a repeat. I would highly recommend this game. It is fun and it really does give your vision a workout. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

If you've played Brain Age, you'll know what to expect from this game. It's somewhat fun. Doesn't take long at all to do the exercises. Seems it's more of an observance teacher than something to improve eyesight.

I recently purchased 4 games for my Nintendo DS lite, Flash Focus is the best game in my personal opinion for this system. It is fun, easy to use, and keeps you on your toes. Having a sharp mind is cool. I highly recommend this game for gamers of all ages. President, Brooklyn Institute of Massage Therapy ( Brooklyn, New York ).

This is only one of two pieces of software I've played so far on my new Nintendo DS Lite, but I'm totally hooked. The first was Brain Age and while I enjoy that, I think this has more variety. I'm not a gamer, so perhaps my descriptions will help those who are novices to Nintendo DS. It's been a while - my last game was an Atari.

Update 10 months later: I've now had my Nintendo DS Lite for 10 months and not to knock Brain Age/Brain Age 2, but they haven't held my interest or remained as much fun as Flash Focus. There are more games and most of them remain somewhat challenging. I don't know if using Flash Focus truly improves your vision, but I will say it's given me increased awareness of how the various aspect of my vision deteriorate when I'm fatigued. This is my favorite of all my games!

There are 10 "core training" exercises to test your various types of vision, which are varied and challenging. You get 10 attempts or segments to each of the 10 exercises. You start out at the slowest, (skill) Level 1. If you respond correctly, you will advance to the next Level, which increases the difficulty. If you respond incorrectly, it will often return you to the prior Level. Since there are 10 sections/attempts, the highest Level is 10. The first time you take each training exercise each day, the game records your results and then graphs them in subsequent days. While you can take do the exercise more than one time a day, it will only record your results the first time. When your final results reach a certain level, you will be offered a "Hard" version to go with the "Normal" level of difficulty to choose from for that exercise. "Normal" and "Hard" results are tallied separately for the first attempt at either level exercise each day. (Correction entered 3/22 - only one score is recorded each day - either Normal or Hard)

Only a few training exercises are available initially. Every few days you play, you get another training exercise until they're all available.

What makes the this game even more fun is the 7 types of "sports training" exercises. Like the core training exercises, the game records the results of your training exercise and graphs them in subsequent days. As with the core training exercises, you start out with just a few and an additional game is made available every few days. You're also given a "Hard" level version of each of the sports after you've mastered the most difficult level - or after you've "trained" with Flash Focus for a certain number of times.

You are given the opportunity to take an Eye Age Check each day, which is recommended regularly. It's been interesting to see how my Eye Age changes, particularly that it seems to deteriorate when I'm tired. These start out at a much higher level than the training exercises and are pretty challenging - at least for me.

Each day, you are given "Today's Training Recommendations", which consists of 4 games - either core or sports training - or a combination of each. Instead of having 10 segments for each exercise, you have 5 and the difficulty level is determined by the results of your last Eye Age Check. I've found this to be very challenging and difficult, as they start out far faster than the core and sports training exercises.

What I've really enjoyed is the "Record Challenge" available under "Other" that becomes available after something like 15 days of playing. Instead of having a pre-determined length of each sports exercise game, you play until you make a mistake and then the game ends. The system records your top 3 results, so you're essentially competing against yourself.

As another reviewer mentioned, the "canned" phrases and comments get a bit tiresome after a while, but that's a very minor issue.

Overall, I've very much enjoyed both the fun of the sporting games and the challenges they and the core exercises present. I've found this to be quite addictive and it's been a great source of fun to keep me entertained during the winter. The best part is I don't have to feel guilty - I'm training!!

I don't know if it really "trains your eyes" that being said... it's fun. That's all that should matter when you buy a game anyway, right? It's great when you have a few minutes and nothing to do. What's nice about it is that, like the BrainAge games, it is "ageless". I'm a 21 year old female and I was never really a "gammer" but the DS brought me into it... this game is enjoyable but I think that it would also work for younger ages too. It doesn't have the rpg thing that many people are looking for so it might not work for some for that reason. I only took off a star for the fact that certain things get a little tedious. (Why can't you "skip" the lessons for example?... you can FF but only page at a time) If you like BrainAge you'll like this.

I purchased this game for my son. He is 10 and spent a year going to weekly "Vision Therapy" sessions at the eye doctor. ($$$$$) He LOVES this game and can't wait to do his daily practice sessions to improve his score. His sister (13) loves to use it as well.
AS A PARENT ... this was a great investment! He likes to play it and rather than it being a mindless waist of time ... he is continuing to sharpen his vision skills doing many activities that are very similar to those that he practiced in his weekly therapy sessions. We could have saved thousands if this product had been around two years ago.

As a senior citizen, I am concerned about retaining my "quick vision," memory, etc. Flas Focus is a fabulous tool in exercise for the eyes, and in my opinion, also helps in maintaining our alertness. I felt reluctant to get it as I thought of it as a "kid" game, but I did get it, and I really enjoy it. It is helping to improve my alertness. "If we don't use it, we lose it!"
I will be buying more of these exercises, games, etc. for my Nintendo DS!

I bought this "game" for my husband for Christmas and we have both been using it. It really isn't a game, but more of a training tool, similar to Brain Age, in that it is meant to test your eye age and help to improve it. It takes you through various different exercises, which get more challenging as you go. As you get better, more exercises are unlocked and added to your training. It is really quite interesting to be able to see how well you really focus and how much you improve as you use it. It's great for us older folk, but even my 10 year old grandson enjoys playing it when he is here. Even though kids would enjoy using it once in awhile, I wouldn't recommend getting it for a child because it is not a game.

My husband is an optometrist who does vision therapy. These games are similar to some of the things he would have patients do to increase their focusing ability. These games are fun and on top of that will help with focus, reading comprehension and even hand eye coordination. Might as well improve yourself while having fun.