My DS's 3rd grade teacher recommended Times Attack last year when the kids were struggling to solve 100 multiplication problems in 7 minutes. DS played it one or two times and then never went back to it. It just did not have the amount of variation that he needed. Now as a qualifier to the above remark...We just downloaded the free trial from the web site. DS probably only saw a small fraction of the game. But that fraction did not hold his interest. <shrug>
The only way that I got DS through the timed math tests was to get him to divide the total number of problems into the amount of time alloted in seconds. Suddenly he saw that he had to do a problem every 4.2 seconds in order to finish all the problems in time. He came running home the next day saying that he had jumped from his previous record of 50% completion on his division test (while staring out the window, kicking the chair, drawing space battleships in the margins!) all the way up to 100% with time to spare. He was so, so, happy to have finally done it. He just didn't know how little time he had for each problem.
That may be different for other kids. It was a motivation issue (or a focusing issue) and not a learning issue. DS probably would have enjoyed the game more if he was still in the learning stage for multiplication. It didn't really help the motivation or focusing issue.
Since my son is a hugh star wars fan, he love the following game from the library more than Times Attack:
Star Wars� Math: Jabba's Game Galaxy�
http://www.lucaslearning.com/products/swmath.htmWe've also tried almost all of the other games here: Yoda's challenge, Gungan Frontier (science-habitats and food webs), DroidWorks (pure fun and not too educational), and Pit Droids (fun, maybe slightly educational from a problems solving point of view). But as an 8 year old, he has sadly outgrown most of these games.
