Brain Games for The DS and Educational Software Games by Geek Woman

Perhaps it was because America’s best and brightest Dubyah was claiming that the Japanese prime minister is his “closest buddy in the international community.” Perhaps that is why Nintendo’s latest series of non – game games that are making an invasion are educational. Games like Brain Age, Big Brain Academy, and Sudoku are designed to sharpen up our dull, over fed American brains. The brain game fad was well underway when Nintendo actually presented Bush with a Nintendo DS and Brain Age. I wonder if his scores are classified information?

I test many puzzle games. I suppose that someone read a statistic that said that women love puzzle games. For the most part the ones I test are inane and not well planned. The level designs are redundant. There is a difference between a game that has addicting game play and one that is merely repetitive. There is a certain rush to an addictive puzzle game that is similar to the tingle of gambling. Next someone will want to hook me up to electrodes to measure when I am having a good time.

The severed head of the game’s mad scientist creator Dr. Ryuta Kawashima gives you encouragement, and instructs you to turn your DS on its side. You use the touch pad vertically in this anything but basic game that teaches you practical skills. You are asked things like “What was the first thing you said today?” Then weeks or months later he expects you to remember what you had for breakfast on Wednesday the 23rd. He also suggests that you should go out to lunch and tells you to try to have a new experience every week. Pretty soon you feel like you are having a relationship with the guy.

What is it that makes a game like Brain Age such a hit? There must be a cliff hanger element, some part of the level design that is tantalizing without being frustrating. In comparison an essential oil has a million constituents, and no synthetic chemical can ever quite capture the true scent of a real flower. In the same way, really great games can’t always be reproduced by knock offs that attempt to be copy cats.

Nintendo continues to put out really crazy and innovative games. Believe it or not learning can be fun. I hadn’t seen fun educational games since the old titles for the Mac. Once I started to play Brain Age for the Nintendo DS, I couldn’t stop. What is it about simple things that can be so challenging?

In Brain Age the game – play is reading, writing and arithmetic. No guns, no zombies, it’s just you playing against yourself. The puzzles are timed. The game calculates your speed and accuracy and then it tells you how old your brain is. The theory is that the brain of a twenty year old is the most fertile and desirable.

The connect maze offers an eye watering connect the dots puzzle. I excelled at reading out loud and syllable count. It took me a while to get my math scores up there. Random numbers float across the screen and try to trick you into giving the wrong answer to the questions. Head count challenges you to keep track of how many stick figures are moving in and out of a house. Even a neighborhood busy body that watches everyone’s houses would find this game to be no easy task. At times the Professor will ask you to draw something. The pictures he chooses aren’t simple. Draw an armadillo, a fire truck or a hippo. Oh – kay.

Other games like Big Brain Academy have appeared with several more to come before the holidays. Big Brain Academy is a more colorful. It asks you rather strange questions. In one game there are several animals on balance scales and you are asked which ones weigh more. You are expected to figure out if two frogs weigh more than a monkey, and other weird puzzles like it. In another mini game you need to pair up ice cream sundaes with their matching shadows. Ah Nintendo, gotta love it. All this is making me “smarter”. Thanks. I think.

Experts as well as gamers have pounced upon these out there titles, touting them to be a cure all for everything from Alzheimer’s to Drug Abuse. Keeping your prefrontal cortex busy and working the gray cells can improve your concentration. The beginnings of language training games will be coming soon. So far only Japanese to English language training has been developed for the DS. What’s my Brain Age? I am not ashamed to say my average is 22.

Brain Games, a little bit like yogurt was in the ’70′s. Quirky but good for you.