News - Health & Fitness Games

Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) patients will soon have a new tool available to them to help them improve their ability to focus. Entitled Play Attention, the system includes gaming software and a helmet loaded with electroencephalogram (EEG) sensors that interpret the player’s brain waves. Only used in laboratory settings until now the system is being introduced across the UK in January 2010 by Games for Life.

The system has a child playing a fun educational computer game and wearing the EEG helmet. Picking up the child’s brain activity waves related to attention, the game is played without physical controls. As long as the player concentrates they control the game, but drops in attention will make the game stop. More...

News - Health & Fitness Games

Two recent studies outline the power that video games can have to sharpen thinking and reasoning skills. Led by Dr. Rolf Nelson, psychology professor at Wheaton College in Norton, MA, the first study looked at 20 students to see the impact of playing either action or puzzle games on their performance of a spatial-location task.

The researcher found that playing action games for an hour largely increased cognitive speed while playing puzzle games improve cognitive accuracy in the participants. The findings appear in the December issue of the journal Perception. More...

Reviews - iPhone/iPod

Nurikabe Vault is one of the best executed independent iPhone/iPod Touch titles that Game Forward has come across in some time. Containing 500 hand-made puzzles and a highly polished presentation, the game was single-handedly developed by Rogers George.

Nurikabe is a Japanese number-based puzzle game created by Nikoli Corp., the inventors of Sudoku. It can best be described as a mixture of Go and Minesweeper, in which players are presented with a board containing various numbers. Each digit represents the number of spaces that make up the pieces of the puzzle. To complete the puzzle, you must build up each piece correctly so that they are separated by a continuous wall of blank spaces. More…

Reviews - Xbox 360

A barebones presentation and somewhat thin event roster detract from an otherwise fun, and often intense experience. Developed by veteran studio Eurocom, Vancouver 2010: The Official Video Game of the Olympic Winter Games allows you to compete in 14 events spread across eight categories while representing one of 24 countries.

The button-mashing gameplay elements of older Olympic video games are generally replaced with fluid mechanics, though a rather high difficulty level and a number of control schemes to master could scare away the casual audience that this game is intended for. More…

Features - Health & Fitness Games

Brain fitness is one of the fastest growing industries in North America whose value reached $265 million in 2008, according to industry market research leader SharpBrains. Neuroscience research has demonstrated that like your muscles, your brain can grow stronger and more agile through proper training and regular activity. Canadian-based Brain Center International (BCI) is making waves in the field by helping thousands of customers improve their brain performance each year.

BCI is the maker of NeuroActive Program, a brain training software which targets 16 specific brain functions. Unlike entertainment titles which claim to help your brain, BCI prides itself on its science-based, clinically-validated software. Through twenty-two different exercises users train a range of skills including various memory and visual-spatial functions, processing speed, selective attention and behaviour modification. More...