Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day [DS]

You've probably heard the rumblings by now: Nintendo's DS-based series of mental stimulators, collectively known as "Brain Training," has taken Japan by storm. Brain Training has contributed to yet another DS sales frenzy, to the point that the recent launch of the DS Lite looked more like a new system launch than a mere hardware refresh. (Meanwhile, Microsoft Japan's executives are crying.) The really crazy thing, though, is how the Brain Training software seems to appeal to a broad swath of the population, much of which doesn't normally play games. A few weeks ago we saw grandmas and grandpas lining up in the early morning cold to snag DS Lites -- has Nintendo created a whole new demographic of hardcore gamers?

Who knows? (Besides omniscient Nintendo mastermind Hiroshi Yamauchi, that is.) What we do know is that Brain Training is finally coming to the States, so perhaps we can halt the decline of our public education system and eradicate senility among the elderly. At the very least, we'll be able to have some fun while flexing our gray matter. Here at GDC, a demo of the US version, called Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day, showed us just how that's done.

Mental Gymnastics

Unlike other games, Brain Age is played with the DS rotated 90 degrees to the right, such that the system more closely resembles a book. All input comes via the touch screen, stylus, and occasionally the microphone. After all, this is brain training, not finger training. If you play regularly, the game purports to lower your "mental age," which should ideally be in the 20s. The game tracks your performance over time so you can see if this is actually happening... or at least, if you're getting better at the various mini-games.

While Brain Age will include a variety of brain-sharpening challenges, the demo version here at GDC featured only a small subset of the full version's activities. When I first walked up, I found the demo in the middle of a Sudoku puzzle. If you're unfamiliar with Sudoku, it's a type of number-based logic puzzle that originated in Japan and that's proven quite popular in recent times. Brain Age's Sudoku implementation seemed quite solid and easy to play -- you can even write little guesses in unmarked squares to help keep track of the logical possibilities. However, I didn't feel like flexing my brain quite enough to finish a Sudoku puzzle in the middle of GDC, so I exited out to the main menu to look for gentler ways to exercise my noggin.

The demo offered only two other options. The first is called Stroop Test, in which colored words appear on screen (for example, "Blue") and you have to call out the color of the actual text, not the color that's spelled out. Perhaps you can see how that is tricky. Input is achieved via the microphone, which proved a bit embarrassing, not to mention inaccurate, out on the GDC show floor. As a result of the less than ideal conditions, the game assessed my brain age to be in the 80s. At least, I hope it was the less than ideal conditions.