Nintendo Media Summit: Brain Age 2 hands-on (DS)
After the monumental success of the first Brain Age on the Nintendo DS, it's no surprise that Nintendo would revisit the Brain Age series again. At this week's Media Summit, the press got to play around with their sequel, the cleverly named Brain Age 2. Upon powering on the DS, we are visited by the floating, disembodied head of Professor Kawashima, who is back to once again help us train our small and unhealthy brains with a variety of tricky minigames. One of the immediate things that I noticed was that the hand-writing recognition has gotten way better. My writing is pretty horrible, so I was stoked to see that feature improved upon. The developers mentioned they put a lot of time into refining the recognition engine The minigames themselves were the variety of mathematical and word-based tests that you'd expect out of a Brain Age title but seemed a little more entertaining than the ones included in the previous game. The best part in my opinion though, had nothing to do with training your brain. As you complete tasks, you earn tickets that you can then use to play a Brain Age version of the NES classic, Dr. Mario. Now that's what I call a reward!
Look for Brain Age 2 on the Nintendo DS on August 20th and check out some new screenshots below.












Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
BPM @ May 25th 2007 2:51AM
Return of the only worthwhile "brain game." Can't wait!
fox @ May 25th 2007 5:59AM
Nice. I played a ton of the first game. And it's good to hear they're tweaking the recognition. That was probably people's biggest complaint.
Gabriel Radic @ May 25th 2007 6:02AM
Does it _have_ to be ugly too? I wish they'd spice it up a little bit and make it more pleasing on the eye, on the lines of BBA.
JodyAnthony @ May 25th 2007 8:30AM
I'm with Gabriel Radic on the looks thing, but I'll still pick this one up. I really liked the first one, "baroo" and all. Heres hoping its $20.
hell if it's 30 I'll buy it just for dr. mario.
Ichidou @ May 25th 2007 8:48AM
improved handwriting recognition? swell.
But can you say "blue" this time around?
Roddie @ May 25th 2007 9:21AM
What's the point of the music game if it tells you the notes on the sheet music and keys?
TravistyOJ @ May 25th 2007 11:12AM
@Roddie
Maybe it was just showing you a sequence to memorize.
steve @ May 25th 2007 2:41PM
Yeah! More of the best sudoku on the DS!!
AssemblyLineHuman @ May 25th 2007 2:40PM
Needs online play.
darklink @ May 26th 2007 10:22AM
will it recognize the word blue?