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Brain Age 2: More Training In Minutes A Day (DS)

• Developer:
• Publisher: Nintendo
• Genre: Puzzle
• Official Website: http://www.brainage.com
• Score: 4 of 5: Niche

Brain training games are very popular right now and are now available on most platforms. To capitalize on that momentum, Nintendo is back with another installment of the first brain-training game that started it all, Brain Age 2.

Brain Age 2 will seem very familiar to people who own its predecessor as the presentation is virtually indistinguishable from the first Brain Age. In fact, the only thing that sets Brain Age 2 apart is the different lineup of brain training exercises that are included. Not that this is a bad thing, but it would have been nice to see a little evolution in the presentation of the game.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with the Brain Age series, I'll give some background. Professor Ryuta Kawashima, a prominent Japanese neuroscientist, has evaluated the impact of certain exercise in the fields of reading and math on one's brain. His research inspired a game that made it easy to stimulate your brain through simple math problems or quick problem solving exercises. That game was Brain Age and the premise of the game is that you train your brain through various exercises on a daily basis as if it were a muscle. Each day you also complete a series of short tests that determine your "brain age". Your brain age is a number that represents the figurative strength of your brain. The ideal brain age is 20 and that represents performance on the tests in the ideal range. The higher your brain age, the more poorly you performed.

Your list of available exercises is dreadfully short when you start out, but as you train and test your brain age each day, new exercises are unlocked and you get to put a stamp on your calendar to see how frequently you are training. Brain Age 2 also keeps track of your overall brain age as well as your performance in each exercise so you can see a chart of your progress. Many exercises take lots of practice to become very proficient at them.

The first Brain Age seemed to be a little heavy on the reading skills and Brain Age 2 seems to have a slightly higher focus on math and logic, which is welcome news. As in the first game, a hefty number of Sudoku puzzles have been included. Another new feature that made it into Brain Age 2 as an exercise is an activity called Virus Buster, which is very similar to the Nintendo classic Dr. Mario.

For $20, you can't go wrong with Brain Age 2. Instead of rotting your brain why not give it a little work out. Brain Age 2 is yet another great game for the DS, even if it does feel like you are paying to be in elementary school again.

Aug 31, 2007 | 0 comments
Chris Rasco