E3 Disclaimer: AMN’s E3 previews are designed to inform you of what each game at E3 plays like, and what we think of what’s shown. These previews are not reviews, and we reserve final judgment of each game until it is finished and released. These previews offer an honest opinion of what a publisher chose to demo at E3. So, without further ado, read on.

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What the Game’s About
Dr. Kawashima is back for more mental maneuvers in Brain Age 2: More Training In Minutes A Day for the Nintendo DS. Picking up where the original brain builder left off, Brain Age 2 includes a bundle of new exercises designed to strengthen one’s mental prowess. One of the demos on the E3 2007 show floor features three sample challenges: a rock, paper, scissors game, a word scramble puzzle exercise, and another helping of sudoku, this time with one hundred new puzzles.

The rock, paper, scissors portion of the demo is simple enough in that it’s a game of rock, paper, scissors. The catch is that before each play Dr. Kawashima orders the player to either win the match (scissors beats paper, rock beats scissors, and so on) or purposefully lose. This objective flips back and forth, keeping players on their toes. Making things more of a challenge, instead of merely choosing a move from a menu, players must shout out which symbol they want to choose. For instance, if the objective is to lose and Dr. Kawashima attacks with “rock”, one must shout “scissors” at the DS’s microphone. This goes on and on until at the end the game tabulates the score and adds that data to one’s profile.

The word scramble portion of the demo presents players with a cloud of letters that spin in a circle. The object of the challenge is to organize the letters into a word and then spell out that word one letter at a time on the touchscreen. The words are short at first, merely clocking in at a few letters long. As the exercise progresses, however, the words become six and seven letter beasts. Think of it as casual Internet gaming favorite Text Twist except that all of the letters must be used when forming a word.

What's Hot
Fans of the original Brain Age will most likely get a kick out of this new installment. Purposely losing at rock, paper, scissors can be quite a stumper, while forming words out of scrambled letters gives one a warm sense of accomplishment at higher levels.

What's Not
The game has a few quirks that are especially apparent on the E3 show floor. Maybe it’s because of the loud surroundings at Barker Hanger, but we found that the rock, paper, scissors exercise had trouble hearing us shout “rock!”, “paper!”, etc. Often times it took several shouts until the game registered the response, and by then precious seconds had elapsed, bringing down our score. Moreover, some of the words used in later levels of the word scramble puzzle can be a bit on the obscure side. How quickly can one recognize “tempest” from PSETTME? That’s part of the challenge, of course, but playing this portion of the demo as it was broadcasted on to a large screen for all to see made us feel especially dim.

Outlook
As another heavy-hitter in Nintendo’s casual gaming initiative, Brain Age 2 will probably do very well for itself. On the whole it seems to be on the right track, but there’s little about which to be excited here. More of the same, yes, but why tamper with a successful formula? Brain Age 2 hits stores in North America in August 2007.