Brain Age 2 - Hands-on

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If this stuff is good for my brain, why is there smoke coming from my ears?

Talk about your deceptive advertising: we've been thinking that publisher Nintendo's upcoming IQ sharpener Brain Age 2 was going to make our skull-dwelling thinksponge sharper and more agile, like its math-and-logic-filled predecessor did. But Nintendo biggy-wig Reggie Fils-Aime just told us that the game's take on the classic three-sided power stuggle, Rock, Paper, Scissors, "will melt your brain." Melt our brains? Is that really a good thing?

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What's that? You want to know how Rock, Paper, Scissors can possibly be anything other than blind luck? Simple: in Brain Age 2's version, you sometimes (but not always) need to choose the weapon that will lose instead of win. Thus, the random strategy becomes a split-second reaction that you can hone to a knife point.

Eric Bratcher
Eric Bratcher
I was the founding Executive Editor/Editor in Chief here at GR, charged with making sure we published great stories every day without burning down the building or getting sued. Which isn't nearly as easy as you might imagine. I don't work for GR any longer, but I still come here - why wouldn't I? It's awesome. I'm a fairly average person who has nursed an above average love of video games since I first played Pong just over 30 years ago. I entered the games journalism world as a freelancer and have since been on staff at the magazines Next Generation and PSM before coming over to GamesRadar. Outside of gaming, I also love music (especially classic metal and hard rock), my lovely wife, my pet pig Bacon, Japanese monster movies, and my dented, now dearly departed '89 Ranger pickup truck. I pray sincerely. I cheer for the Bears, Bulls, and White Sox. And behind Tyler Nagata, I am probably the GR staffer least likely to get arrested... again.