Brain Training
A Third Age Fun & Games feature
by our Interests, Hobbies & Pastimes Editor

Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain? is the Japanese phenomenon on Nintendo DS that’s taken the world by storm in recent years. If you’re bored with playing games that don’t stretch your brain cells and you’d like to give your grey matter an extensive workout, you simply have to try this amazing program.

The tests have been devised in cooperation with renowned neuroscientist Dr Kawashima. With Brain Training you can train both your mental awareness and your memory.

Hold the DS vertically like a book and write your answers with the stylus on the touch screen. The exercises are quick challenges that help stimulate your brain. There’s a combination of arithmetic, reading and memory tests, and the program calculates your score in the form of a ‘brain age’ by assessing the speed and accuracy by which you perform these simple tasks.

Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain? has sold millions and millions of copies throughout the world and is hugely popular with young and old alike. And that’s hardly surprising, because playing regularly for just a few minutes a day has been found to stimulate parts of the brain related to thinking, creativity and concentration. So if you want to tone your Third Age intellectual muscle, Brain Training is a fine way to get started!

And now there’s also More Brain Training. Are you ready for More Brain Training? More than 10 million people worldwide have made Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training for Nintendo DS a part of their lives. The good doctor is back with even more exercises to continue stimulating the different parts of the brain!

More Brain Training from Dr Kawashima: How Old Is Your Brain? features all-new exercises and DS Brain Age Checks that will challenge even the most trained brains!

People young and old will enjoy the new training exercises that test a person’s memory, math and perception skills. All a person needs is a few minutes a day to give his or her brain a proper workout.

Lead a busy lifestyle? The portability of the Nintendo DS lets users take on a challenge during any downtime when they’re on the go. The DS Brain Age Check measures the speed and accuracy with which the tasks are performed, and users can see their progress to stimulate their skills on a daily basis.

Can you spare a few minutes to exercise your mind? Testing oneself in More Brain Training from Dr Kawashima: How Old Is Your Brain? is as easy as 1-2-3. Users hold the DS like they would a book and use the stylus to mark their answers on the intuitive DS Touch Screen. Anyone who’s jotted down a note or read a book will feel at home with More Brain Training from Dr Kawashima: How Old Is Your Brain? right away.

This follow-up is designed to complement the original game, not replace it, and contains seventeen new mini-games, each designed to stimulate your brain in a different way – enhancing memory, improving concentration and generally giving your ‘noggin’ a tune up.

As before the game is meant to be played in short, five to ten minute sessions each day, the mental equivalent of a quick jog round the block. The game tracks your progress from day-to-day and you can also play any of the mini-games against other people, whether they have a copy or not.

The Nintendo DS Lite Handheld Console includes a variety of distinctive capabilities which truly sets it apart from other handheld consoles. Amongst other things, it boasts advanced touch screen technology, allowing players to control software with a stylus or even their finger, as well as dual screens, voice recognition and and Wi-Fi capabilities.

The Nintendo DS Lite is a lighter and brighter version of the highly successful Nintendo DS. Dual Screens open up new possibilities – use the touch screen as an inventory reference for role-playing games, to view maps for your favourite strategy game, or see racing action from two perspectives at once. Navigate menus or access inventory items simply by touching the screen with stylus or fingertip. A tough film over the touchscreen protects it. Advanced 3D graphics engine and 16-channel audio, for graphics and sound that are superior to other portable game systems. All-new PictoChat feature allows DS users to write messages with an on-screen Keyboard or the stylus and send them wirelessly. It also has a built-in Microphone port for voice control of games, or for voice chat with other DS players.

It has adjustable brightness levels to extend the battery life and is available in 3 cool colours.

The Nintendo DSi Handheld Console (White) is the second upgrade to the hugely popular DS console. Featuring larger, brighter screens, an SD card slot and two motion sensing cameras.

The Nintendo DSi is a high-powered handheld video game system in a sleek, folding design, loaded with features designed to create a unique gaming experience. Like the DS and DS Lite before it, the DSi features Nintendo’s trademark stylus-driven touchscreen technology, but determined to make portable gaming simultaneously larger and smaller in all the right places, Nintendo has also created the DSi with significantly larger screens and an even slimmer body design than its earlier cousins. Other features include the ability to snap photos with built-in cameras, edit and send them to friends, play back your music with Nintendo DSi Sound, or browse the Internet with the Nintendo DSi Browser. From playing games to just playing around, the Nintendo DSi does it all.

Nintendo DS Lite Turquoise Console with Brain Training (Nintendo DS)
Independent review: “I’m 65 and retired and as I’m wheelchair-bound due to MND I thought that I would ask for the Nintendo DS Lite and a couple of games for my recent birthday. There are only so many books you can read during one day and I felt my brain was turning to mush without the stimulus of my job and the company of a great set of colleagues. I have to say that I’ve been converted to this gadget and am now having to limit myself to no more than an hour or two a day – otherwise I’d never come off the thing! I was a bit disconcerted to be told that I had a brain age of 80 – but I’m working on it! Good fun, though I’m not sure if my brain is actually trainable!”