If you've played the Brain Age series or Namco's own Brain Challenge series of games, you're familiar with the concept: undertake a series of mental tests in order to determine how agile your melon is, and then keep testing yourself on a regular basis in order to track your progress. The difference here is that you're not only testing your mental acuity but also your brain/body coordination.
When you start the game, it puts you through a series of quick tests to determine your starting "age". In the demo I watched, there were three exercises. One asks you to look at a digital clock and use your arms to reproduce the time with your arms on an analog clock face. Another shows your Xbox Live Avatar in the center of the screen, with three different colored platforms to your right and left. When the exercise begins, cars start entering from the left side of the screen and you have to move your arms to form makeshift bridges to the other platforms. The color of the car must match the color of the platform, which makes things that much more difficult. The third exercise was called Math Jock and requires you to solve math problems, choose a soccer ball with the correct answer, and then kick it into a net. Whew. My brain feels old just thinking about it.
Once you have your brain age, it's time to begin testing yourself in order to get better. Body and Brain Challenge lets you track your trends, work on specific goals or just have fun with the individual exercises. There are three main modes. Brain Fitness Test sets your initial age and can be played alone or with a group. Today's Exercises is a mix of your favorite tests, the tests you need help with and a random test. And Custom Exercises lets you pick whatever you want to work on. I didn't see it in action, but as the menus flew by, I did notice an exercise that featured Pac-Man.
After Nishimoto put Body and Brain Connection through its paces, I had the chance to test it out myself, and I found it to be much, much harder than it looked (which is a good thing). The Kinect camera seemed to be picking my movements up well, and I didn't notice any lag or misreading as I moved my arms around. To me, Body & Brain Connection makes a lot of sense for the Kinect system, as it adds a new dimension to a genre that's gone completely stale. With no buttons or controllers to get in the way, I really did feel like I was interfacing directly with the program as it tested my brain's ability to solve problems with both my mind and my body.
Body and Brain Connection is set for a Spring 2011 release exclusively for Xbox 360 (there's not a PlayStation Move version planned). It not the type of game that will get traditional gamers in a frenzy, but it's a fun approach to the Brain Training genre, and it shows that there's a lot of potential in Microsoft's controller-less tech.
