GregHowley.com

I'm a big fan of the original Brain Age game. I'd say it's second only to Mario Kart in the Nintendo DS's lineup of games. So when I heard that they were putting out a second Brain Age game, and that it was going to include Dr. Mario and a music sight-reading game, and that the game cost only twenty bucks, I was all about buying a copy.

It's still got Sudoku, and in fact the main menu is identical to the original game. Similarly, Training Mode has "Daily Training" and "Brain Age Check". Only the specific tests within have changed.

The first is Sign Finder, in which you're presented with a number of simple math problems, similarly to the original Brain Age. The catch? You see the two numbers and the answer, but not the operand. You must fill in +, -, x or ÷. Since there are only four possible answers, you'll tend to answer more quickly than the math problems, but it's still fun.

The second training exercise is Piano Player. You're given a simple song such as Home on the Range or Joy to the World, and while you watch the sheet music go past on the left screen, you tap the piano keys on the right in time with the music. It's the low-rent piano version of guitar hero that I've been waiting for, and it's the main reason I bought Brain Age 2.

Word scramble is a fun game, and one at which I'm absolutely terrible. You'll see between four and ten letters swirling around the screen, and you have to make them into a word. Linda blows through the scrambled words like nothing, and I end up giving up at more than half of them.

Memory Sprint feels very much like the original Brain Age's Head Count, except instead of bodies flying in and out of a house that obviously couldn't hold that many people, they race along the ground without moving their legs, and you need to keep track of our hero's position in the race. It's probably my least favorite of the tests.

Change Maker is kind of fun, and should come quite naturally if you've ever had a high school job as a cashier. You see the price, you see the bills that someone has handed you, and you have to hand out the correct change.

The next game you'll unlock is Word Blend, and it's hard. The first round is easy. A voice says a word out loud, and you write it down. It gets tougher. Next, two voices say two words simultaneously, and you have to write both down. You get to re-listen up to five times, but trust me - this is much harder than it sounds. When you hear "Poverty" and "Tornado" pronounced simultaneously, all you hear is "ThomasDoe". And a word I swore sounded like "Cumsidert" turned out to be "Computer" and "Incident". By the end, you're hearing three words simultaneously. I'm lucky if I get one.

Calendar Count is a neat little game where you're given questions like "What will be the date five days from now?" and "How many days until next Wednesday?" Better make sure you know what the date today is and how many days there are in the month before you start.

Math Recall gives you simple math problems similar to those in the original brain age, but after showing you the numbers, it crosses out one. Each successive problem retains one of the numbers from the previous problem, but doesn't let you see that number. It can actually get a bit tricky, as simple as it may seem. Clock Spin shows you digital and analog clocks in varying states of rotation, and sometimes in the mirror image, and asks you to write the time. Block Count shows you a tetris-like screen, with blocks being dropped into a container Connect-4 style, except that you can't see the blocks land, only where they fall in. At the end, it will ask you the height of one particular column.

The last item on the training list is Virus Buster, which is defined not as a brain training exercise, but rather as a means to relax. It's essentially a remake of the old NES game Dr. Mario, in which you match up yellow, red, and blue pills tetris-style. They're updated the graphics and music, and it's one of the finest direct remakes I've seen.

The tests included in Brain Age Check are also fairly cool. The first is Rock, Paper, Scissors, and I loathe this test. Largely because I suck at this test. You're shown an illustrated hand in the shape of a fist, flat-hand, or peace sign and alternately told to win or lose. Why on earth does it take me upwards of four or five seconds to figure out that when I'm shown paper and told to lose I should say "rock"? Anyway, good use of the microphone here.

Symbol Match shows you a list of digits (0-9) each with a symbol beside it. It then shows you digits, and you must enter the associated symbol. (& @ !) Number Memory shows you a 5x5 grid full of numbers 1-25. You get to look for 2 minutes, and then you must transcribe as many as you can in the correct positions from memory. I can usually manage 12 or 13. Linda got 23 on her first try.

Serial Subtraction is fun - you're given a high 2-digit number and told to repeatedly subtract a number from it. For example, you'll be given the number 83, and told to subtract 7, so you write 76, 69, 62, 55, 48, 41, 34, 27, 20, 13, 6. And in High Number, you're shown a screen full of jumbled and moving numbers, and you must tap the one with the highest value. It's easy to miss that tiny 17 when four 6's are scrolling in front of it and there's a big 14 over on the left.

All in all, Brain Age 2 is a great game. I bought it for the Dr. Mario and the Piano Player game, but it's really a solid game overall, and a good value at $20.