We can credit the game Brain Age for the Nintendo DS with bringing a new demographic into handheld gaming. That group is previously non-gaming adults. That is good but the best thing is what Brain Age can do for everyone. Brain Age is a mind training game.

Developed in Japan by renound neuroscientist Dr. Ryuta Kawashima, Brain Age is designed to stimulate your brain for minutes a day. Activities include color comprehension, simple math, reading, and even sudoku puzzles. These tasks may sound a bit to close to the likes of homework but sometime they can be suprisingly fun and almost always engaging.

Brain Age forces the player to hold th DS vertically (turn 90 degrees couter-clockwise), implements the touchscreen and has great voice recognition by means of the DS’s microphone.

In order to stay physically fit our bodies need excerice as do our minds. That is Brain Age’s draw. Work out your brain for minutes-a-day, strive for the perfect 20 year-old brain, and your mind will surely benefit.

Other perks include the pixelated version of Dr. Kawashima as he serves as our host, a customized brain age profile for each user, and the fact that this is the first game that my dad bought. Yeah, the latter is enough to get me excited about this new genre of gaming.