Are there ANY decent educational games on DS?

My kids (7 and 5) both have the leapster educational game system and it has been fantastic. We live in Japan however and every man and his dog has DS-We are yet to find any remotely educational games available for the DS though.

After witnessing the thousands of dopey-zombie DS playing kids here there doesn't seem to be much benefit of getting our kids a DS system, which is a shame-as they can feel left out.

Can anyone recommend anything educational for DS that may change our mind?

Thanks in advance.

My kids (7 and 5) both have the leapster educational game system and it has been fantastic. We live in Japan however and every man and his dog has DS-We are yet to find any remotely educational games available for the DS though.

After witnessing the thousands of dopey-zombie DS playing kids here there doesn't seem to be much benefit of getting our kids a DS system, which is a shame-as they can feel left out.

Can anyone recommend anything educational for DS that may change our mind?

Thanks in advance.

biscuit_chucker

Thanks, yeah I had that one in mind. Does it have lasting appeal you think? You can replay each puzzle anyway you choose right? biscuit_chucker

Thanks, yeah I had that one in mind. Does it have lasting appeal you think? You can replay each puzzle anyway you choose right? biscuit_chucker

With a DS, instead of traditional educational games you should try to get more "thinking outside the square" educational games, i.e. games that teach your kids to think differentally when solving a problem. Try a puzzle game or something.

Proffesor Layton seems like a good puzzel game it has over a hundred puzzels, and downloadable puzzels as well. I would suggest going to the "top DS games"list and search puzzel games.

Proffesor Layton seems like a good puzzel game it has over a hundred puzzels, and downloadable puzzels as well. I would suggest going to the "top DS games"list and search puzzel games.

baytown91

Proffesor Layton seems like a good puzzel game it has over a hundred puzzels, and downloadable puzzels as well. I would suggest going to the "top DS games"list and search puzzel games.

baytown91

Thanks for your reply. I agree with you, we would like them to enjoy some games also, and we are lucky that they love books and educational toys that they have-we were pleasantly suprised how much they learnt while playing games on the leapster. They are outgrowing that now though, I was hoping for more of the same on DS for a slightly higher age bracket. They love Mario on the Wii when they are allowed to play games, it would be great to have something they enjoy as much as that with the added benefit of learning at the same time. We are going on an international trip soon also, thought it might be a good back up when the weather is poor. biscuit_chucker

Animal Crossing, although it is not highly educational, would be worth looking into. It has an innocent look, and play to it -- and yet is rather enjoyable for all ages.

Animal Crossing, although it is not highly educational, would be worth looking into. It has an innocent look, and play to it -- and yet is rather enjoyable for all ages.

Backlash24

Professor Layton games are extremely logic based. They may be a bit too hard for that age, but if not, it's surely an excellent game with a lot of learning packed into it.

Thanks everyone, I will check out all of your recommendations/links.

:)

Maybe you could try titles from the " My Coach " series from Ubisoft? They're supposed to be educational for learning really basic language, although I admitedly wouldn't call them much 'fun'...

How about game's like Cooking/Gardening Mama? though it isn't educational,but its worth a shot! assasian_1337

I think Cooking Mama is agreat game for kids to get interested in cooking, which is a good thingin my opinion ;P It's educational in the sense of well...cooking ...

Don't know if that's too young to learn a new language, but MY SPANISH COACH has helped me learn Spanish more than anything else I've tried.

Zelda is educational 8) In the DS ones you need to remember what stuff is at what islands/stations. And theres money managment. I could go all day listing the educational values Zelda contains

I have a DS, and I have quite a few educational titles to point out:

UbiSoft does make the "My Coach" series and it is fantastic. I have "My Word Coach" which has a variety of really fun mini-games centered around expanding your vocabulary. The system learns how much you know already and then begins to run you through courses and games, making things a little more difficult as it goes along, keeping records and progress reports. The presentation is nice with an onscreen instructor and there are parameters to try and meet each day, prompting the user to come back to it with subtle motivators and "rewards", if you will... and suprise suprise, it really works!

Also in the same series, I have "My Japanese Coach" which takes the user through the basics of the language and even gets a little advanced after awhile, again with fun mini-games designed to get the lesson into your head. There is a great function on the program where you can say the word and the system then matches your vocal recording so that you can hear how you are pronouncing the words or phrases along with the instructor's voice. I was astounded at how well the feature works (I'm a sound engineer for a living so listening to things, I'm very picky about the quality... if it didn't work properly, I'd tell ya). All lessons are re-visitable at the student's whim so it's very flexible.

Based on my experiences with these two games in the series, I would imagine that all the rest of the games (they even make one for quiting smoking!) would be worth the money and time.

I also have one of the "My Trainer" titles, for learning how to cook. The title has recipes catagorized in a variety of ways for combining or cross-referencing and can be used as a shopping list as well as a how-to instruction program which is amazingly helpful. My girlfriend and I would take the DS to the store with us, call up a recipe, and there's the shopping list all laid out for you. It's a great learning tool as well as a nice spark for finding new dishes you might never have heard of or considered, and again the quality of the presentation/ wealth of information makes me think that others in the "My Trainer" series would also be excellent.

Hope this helps, and don't worry... DS game systems don't turn you into a zombie ALL the time! Just when it's really GOOOOOD!!!

:D

Cheers!

UFO Interactive Games has mostly educational games for DS. they have games split up for boys and girls.

here's their website with the DS games they have publishedhttp://ufointeractivegames.com/platform.asp?p=nds

the newest game they put out is Chuck e Cheese party games. its more of a arcade mini-games type of game.