Disembodied brain expert Dr. Kawashima returns in a second Brain Age game for Nintendo DS packed with new mini-games designed to whip anyone's grey matter into shape.

Like the previous game, Brain Age 2 comes with Daily Training and Quick Play mode -- the first drops players directly into a series of mini-games and bases their "brain age" based on their performance (the best brain age is 20) and the second skips all of the vaguely ageist notions and lets everyone get to the business of playing games that don't require a huge time commitment. The bonus Sudoku mode also makes a happy return.

BA2 will feel familiar to anyone who played the first game, but will still be easy to pick up for anyone who didn't. Fresh new games like Rock, Paper, Scissors, Word Jumble and Piano Player deliver interesting new challenges and make this inspired sequel worthy of filling up a few minutes of someone's daily free time.

Just like the SATs, the Brain Age 2 contains a balance of math games, word games and image-based logic games. Many games look similar to their predecessor, but with an unexpected twist. Instead of solving math equations, new game Sign Finder displays a math equation without the call to action and then the brain trainee uses the stylus to fill in a plus, minus, times or division sign. Another timed math game shows a number, like 88, and then directs the player to divide it by eight until reaching zero.

For the math challenged -- word puzzles get bigger play this go-round (editorial types everywhere breathe a collective breath of relief). The new Word Scramble is basically a word jumble game -- a collection of letters sits on the top screen and players use the stylus to write out the word at the bottom of the screen. In Word Blend, several words are said aloud at the same time and then the player writes down what they heard. At first two voices say two words aloud, and then it ramps up to three. It's inventive, and seems like one of the more difficult in the new lineup, though it wasn't available to play during the demo.

As for the oral portion of Dr. K's exam, last year's color-based game gets replaced with a new take on the schoolyard fave Rock, Paper, Scissors. The top screen shows an image of a hand in one of the three modes and then ask the player to talk into the DS' built-in microphone and name which item (rock, paper or scissors) will beat the gesture onscreen. The game's developers tweaked the voice recognition, which makes this a much better experience the second time around. Even in a room crowded with people talking, the DS comprehended us saying "rock," "paper" or "scissors," and we only had to repeat words on several occasions. Devs also retooled the game's handwriting recognition -- it picked up both upper and lower-case letters with little problem, despite our chicken scratch handwriting.

Though Brain Age 2 won't inspire the same media sensation -- it's a sequel after all -- the 4 million copies that have already sold in Japan make it clear that this $20 game promises to be another hit in the make. Look for for it on August 20.