“Personal Trainer: Math”
Genre: Educational, puzzle game
Developer: Jupiter
Publisher: Nintendo
Platform: Nintendo DS
ESRB rating: “E,” for everyone
Price: $19.99
Grade: B-

Math never was Game Guy’s strong suit. I have tried all the games, theories and gimmicks that promise improvement but they only made my mushy mind more so.

Nowadays, I’m just confused in general — math or no math. But that hasn’t stopped me from continuing to seek knowledge in numbers. And that’s why when “Personal Trainer: Math” for Nintendo DS appeared recently, I cleared some space on my overloaded game-playing calendar and opened my mind to yet another computation challenge.

Plus, I’m a sucker for anything that has “personal trainer” in its title.

“Personal Trainer: Math” employs what’s called the “Hundred Cell Calculation Method,” in which the goal is to fill a 10-by-10 grid of squares by performing functions on numbers marked along the top and down the left side of the grid. Players hold DS like a book and write in the answers with the stylus, after which a little animation of Prof. Hideo Kageyama, the man behind the method, strolls out to either praise or pity you.

Speed counts with “Personal Trainer” as well as accuracy. Over the course of the game, however, speed counts even more and the mini Kageyama is likely to admonish more frequently. Questions become somewhat more complex, but really it’s your recall that gets the workout in this game.

Thus, “Personal Trainer: Math” is more like jumping jacks for one’s head; your form and execution improve after a short while, but in well under an hour you’re ready to move on to something else. Like the Pythagorean theorem.

The game allows up to 16 people to challenge each other at once wirelessly and, of course, the ESRB rating includes everyone who can count (read: It’s mainly for kids). Because the only bad language or violence with “Personal Trainer” will come from players who keep getting the answers wrong.

I know at least one of them.