A lot of media outlets did a cursory look at Brain Age: Train Your Brain In Minutes A Day! They threw up a review, and moved on to a new one. We did something a little different: we took a test subject, me, and put the game to work. Do the tests really improve your “brain age?” Do you have noticeable improvements in mental functions from using the game? How many syllables are in the phrase, “Thank you, Mario, but the Princess is in another castle?”

In 1994, Kawashima wrote a book entitled Train Your Brain: 60 Days To A Better Brain. The book met with some success in Japan, and garnered the attention of Nintendo, who reportedly was looking for an educational title to release with the DS. In the game, a polygon version of Kawashima guides you as you do your daily training or play Sudoku. The doctor is an interesting MC that livens up the game with Yoda-like advice after each exercise. You can also get him to glare at you or laugh out loud by talking into the DS’s microphone. And if you missed some of Kawashima’s saint-like advice, each tidbit is saved in the options menu for later viewing.

At first I thought Brain Age would be a burden to add to my day-to-day activities. The thought of having to play a game every day for a possible pay-off was not appealing. But now I can’t go a day without picking it up and doing some training. And that is the beauty of Brain Age. It doesn’t require a time commitment, and you can pick how much time you want to spend playing it. This game also has you covered both ways, if you like instant gratification, you can try to top the best record in an exercise, or if you stick with it for the long haul, you can chart your progress on graphs and open up new features such as Triangle Math, Voice Calculations, and Time Lapse.