Development
At a Nintendo press conference in Tokyo, Japan on October 5, 2005, the company announced several games that it would be releasing in 2006 in Japan. The list included Brain Age 2, with a release date set for December 29, 2005. Nintendo later announced that the game would be released in Europe on June 29, 2007 for €30, and in Australia on July 5, 2007 for A$49.95. The American version of Brain Age 2 was first revealed in May 2007. The game is targeted to casual gamers, similar to its predecessor; its basic concepts stay the same as in Brain Age, along with the graphics, menu, and presentation. Brain Age 2 also uses the same Sudoku engine, an addition in the original Brain Age that has been applauded for being one of the best handheld Sudoku games available; Brain Age 2's rendition of Sudoku introduces 100 new puzzles. All of the minigames in the game are new to the series; however, some of them are derived from exercises in Brain Age. One of the challenges in the first game, Head Count, requires that the player count how many people are shown on the screen; after a few seconds, a house falls on top of them, and then several people leave and enter the house. Afterward, the player must write down how many people they think are still in the house. A variation of this game is available in Brain Age 2, called Memory Sprint, which asks the player to observe a specific sprinter in a race as they pass other sprinters and are passed themselves, and then determine which place they finished in after they cross the finish line. The game's voice recognition technology has improved since the last game. The only challenge that uses the feature, Rock, Paper, Scissors, requires that the player speak the correct answer into the microphone as soon as possible.
Nintendo's advertising campaign for Brain Age 2 featured several celebrities. The company announced on June 25, 2007 that Australian actress Nicole Kidman would appear in European television and newspaper advertisements to promote the game. Nintendo chose to feature her because of "her universal appeal to mainsteam audiences of all ages and backgrounds, as well as her reputation for being intelligent, entertaining and genuine". Kidman praised Nintendo's desire to reach out to new audiences with self-improvement products, and found that playing the game made her feel young. Nintendo also chose professional swimmer Kieren Perkins to promote Brain Age 2 in his native Australia, who commented, "Having used the original Dr Kawashima's Brain Training game for a while now, I was genuinely looking forward to all of the new ways I could exercise my mind. More Brain Training is the perfect way for me to continue my Brain Training workout, while keeping the activities fresh and interesting." In the United States, print advertisements and television commercials for the game featured American actress Liv Tyler.
Read more about this topic: Brain Age 2: More Training In Minutes A Day!
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—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
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—L. P. Wandersman (20th century)
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—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)