For quite a while now, Nintendo has been doing their best to disrupt the videogame market by releasing games that appeal to all ages. This is their plan for going above and beyond what their competitors already offer, in making software that are intuitive and easy to play for the average game buyer, as represented best by their growing library of stellar software on the Nintendo DS. Now, we’ve all heard about the Brain Age fiasco that has devoured the Japanese sales charts week and week out, with little signs of it letting up. In fact, the sequel to the original Japanese release is on tops of the sales charts right now, as Nintendo’s “Touch Generations” slogan continues to show its effectiveness. With only a few days away until its debut into North American stores, Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day! is already destined to take over millions of gaming minds as we know it.



Facts and Features

• First portable video-game to measure brain activity
  
• Four main game modes
  
• Single-card multiplayer and download play
  
• Enhanced microphone voice recognition
  
• Unlockable content

Practice! Practice! Practice!
Inspired by the work of prominent Japanese neuroscientist Dr. Ryuta Kawashima, this software features activities designed to help stimulate your brain and give it the workout it needs. The basis of the game relies on a series of consistent brain exercises that have been designed to strengthen your prefrontal cortex, which is your brain’s “control tower”. Ultimately, these exercises will increase your “practical intelligence”, or ability to apply stored knowledge to your everyday reality. Supported by actual tests showing blood flow to the brain, Brain Age can actually make you smarter and more reactive to everyday situations.

As the slogan states, each set of exercises are most effective when done on a daily regimen – in consistent, yet short game sessions daily. Containing four different modes including Quick Play, Daily Training, Sudoku and Download, Brain Age has numerous options for quick-plays on-the-go, daily exercise, or even sending to other DS owners. In the Quick Play mode, a trial version of the game becomes available in three short exercises for friends and family. However, it’s in the Daily Training mode that really entices the gamer to fully grasp all of what the game has to offer.


What Exactly Calculates Brain Age?
After setting up the date and time, the game prompts the user to confirm handedness to better increase comfortability for right or left-handed players. In fact, Brain Age is the first DS title to fully implement holding the system sideways (like a book) throughout the entirety of the gameplay. In Daily Training, you’ll immediately take notice of the three main options: Brain Age Check, Training, and Graph. Probably one of the most unique features of the game, and certainly its most addictive, Brain Age Check makes you go through three different brain exercises in succession, all in varying flavor and mental challenge. When you’re all done, the game calculates your “brain age,” a generated indicator of your mental capability for the day. The resulted number ranges from the 20s (best) to the 90s (worst), which are calculated by Dr. Kawashima’s very-own distribution curve that he evaluated by the usage of an imaging technology called near-infrared spectroscopy. It may sound like stuff only Einstein is able to interpret, but Kawashima’s work actually allows the game to compare the workings of the prefrontal cortex in a person who is playing Brain Age, measuring blood flow and all that.


You hold the DS sideways!

To determine all of this, Brain Age includes numerous “brain mini-games” including quick math calculations in which you must write an answer on the DS touch-screen pertaining to the correct answer. Of course, these aren’t overly difficult, as they’re simple arithmetic, but they’re great, simple tests of measuring your brain’s reaction speed. Later on, these can be done on a separate test using the briskness of your own voice. Also included to measure your brain age is a stroop test, in which the player must say the color of the words that you see into the DS’ microphone –not the word itself. There’s even a word memory test that requires the player to memorize a maximum of 30 words within several minutes, only to write them down from memory before a fixed time limit. Other memorization tests include counting syllables of alternating passages (Syllable Count) and tapping numbers from lowest to highest as they increase in quantity (Low To High). All in all, Brain Age Check relies on a player’s ability to perform the tests accurately, effectively, and most of all, quickly. Each of the tests is used in factors of determining your brain age, and it’s clearly evident in working the player’s brain.


Do those calculations as fast as you can!

Train That Brain. Get Smarter.
Besides from being able to calculate your brain age everyday, the game features other fun exercises that work your brain and actually make you smarter with daily repetition. One of my favorites was a training program called Head Count that required your attention to detail as you watch people go into and out of a stationary house. After each of the five rounds is over, you’re required to write down the number of people left inside the house on the touch screen. Eventually as you get better at it, the game will enable a hard mode where you’ll have to count people flying in and out of the house’s chimney, back-door, and front-door at the same time. It’s an experience that’s so simple in principle, but actually satisfying considering the fact that you’re working your brain in the confusion. Ever actually read to a handheld gaming system? The Reading Aloud training program gives your prefrontal cortex a workout in presenting several pages of a particular passage that must be read [honestly] in determining syllable speed at its conclusion. Another innovative program called Number Cruncher displays numbers of various types scattered across the display screen. Whether it be color, the way they move, or the actual quantity of the same number, you’ll have to be “on top of your brain” when writing the answers for each situation. Luckily, the game features an “erase” option under each answer box to increase accuracy if the user believes that the answer is either incorrectly written or unrecognized. The plethoras of activities are as enjoyable as one would think, and surprising in the different ways that each must be completed.

Brain Age is edutainment at its finest, even when it’s just simple techniques that, when used for just a few minutes a day, can make your brain feel fresh and sharp. And you’ll want to resume training every day, since completing three tasks puts a stamp on that particular date, sometimes resulting in unlocking even more training programs.



Brain Age keeps track of your daily progress.