Older players need not limit themselves to hand held video poker or solitaire any longer. Brain Age 2 is to the rescue!
There is an excellent exception out for the Nintendo DS: Brain Age 2. As a sequel to the first Brain Age (but think of it as more of an upgrade than a sequel), the game is based on the research of the Japanese neurologist Dr. Ryuta Kawashima that finds doing various mental exercises each day promotes a younger brain.
Brain Age 2 (and Kawashima's research) bases itself around finding a person's actual age of his/her brain. According to Kawashima, the age of twenty is when the average person is at his/her mental sharpest. The daily "training" that consists of various sequences, such as serial subtraction, sign finder, piano player, word blend, word scramble, math recall, calendar count, change maker, and more, helps bring down one's brain age. The daily training leads to a daily brain age check, which consists of three similar sequences picked at random.
A player's progress (or regress) is charted out, and one can check it for all exercises. If more than one person has an account on the same cartridge, they can compare results, but it is not all about competition. It is also about communicatioin. For example, the multiple players will be asked to identify pictures the others have drawn. Although the game does not support internet wi-fi, it does encourage the use of the wireless DS single-card download play, which enables everyone in a room with DS consoles to play with each other with only one Brain Age 2 game in use.
There are two features that are often overlooked in the average DS game that Brain Age 2 takes full advantage of; namely, the styler and the built in mic. After pressing the power button on the DS, one can say good bye to pressing buttons at all. The styler---a small, plastic pen shaped tool---is used for entering personal data, such as age and time of day (for accurate training results), navigation, drawing, and completely games. Very few DS games have abandoned the buttons so absolutely as Brain Age 2, and this fact promotes the attendance of people who may not be familiar with gaming. Players will also be asked to vocally complete exercises using the built in mic feature of the DS console. The "paper, rock, scissors" sequence uses the feature the most.
Brain Age 2 is chalk full of unlockable features. As a person records more daily training days, more training exercises are unlocked. A person is given hints about other goodies such as a hidden Dr. Mario "relax training" and voice reactions on the title screen. Such Easter Eggs promote repeated game play without expecting players to dedicate a large chunk of time during each sitting.
The Sudoku fans are not left out. There are plenty of puzzles with three general levels of difficulty available on Brain Age 2. The game is presented very well via the options given to players, and it feels far from a mere add-on feature.
Brain Age 2 is an excellent answer to the older players who feel that the only games left for them after all the Kirbys and the God of Wars are hand-held poker and video solitaire.