With the aging of the baby boomers comes a renewed interest in youth-oriented products like wrinkle creams, hair-restoration lotions, and fad diets.

While boomers seek out these "look-better" solutions, they are also quickly realizing that keeping their brains in tip-top condition is just as, if not more, important as keeping their bodies in good shape. Smart manufacturers such as Nintendo are giving boomers the tools they need to do just that.

A few months ago, when the PR person for Nintendo contacted me about a game it was targeting at the over-35 crowd, she thought I would be surprised since up to this point all the major game manufacturer's have focused only on the teeny-boopers and 20-somethings. Instead, my response -- "What took you so long?" -- took her by surprise.

The game is called Brain Age. It is played on the portable, handheld Nintendo DS game system. Nintendo released the game in Japan where it became wildly popular, and now it is available in the U. S.

This game actually is nothing like a traditional video game. There are no guns or fast-moving targets. Instead, the game is a series of quick mental exercises that were devised by a neurologist.

Brain Age takes advantage of the Nintendo DS touch screen and built-in microphone, so it is very easy to play.

Although there are reading, writing, logic, memory, analysis and math, the exercises are not boring. In fact, they are very fast-paced.

When you finish the first short series of mental challenges, your "Brain Age" is given. I haven't found any persons whose first brain age score wasn't older than they wanted it to be. Yet, with daily use of the game, your brain age will improve. That fact alone makes it addictive.

You want to play every day just to improve your brain age. After several months' use, I am still trying to master the game that shows you the name of a color written in a different color. You are to say the color of the word rather than the word itself, which is the name of a different color. It may sound easy, but it is really quite tricky.

Brain Age includes a few sudoku games as well. These were so popular that Nintendo has already released a new title, Sudoku Gridmaster that focuses on only on sudoku.

If you haven't heard of sudoku yet, you are really out of the loop, because sudoku is currently one of the most popular puzzle games in the world. While it looks like a crossword puzzle, sudoku is a number-crunching game.

The Nintendo DS with its touch-screen makes this game more fun to play than the paper-and-pencil version.

Also, the Nintendo unit lets you highlight the area of the puzzle you are working on, which is a big help, especially for a beginner.

Sudoku Gridmaster has more than 400 puzzles, all of which were selected by the original creators of sudoku. There are four levels of difficulty: practice, easy, normal, and hard. The practice puzzles tell you when you make a mistake, again very useful for those new to sudoku.

While I like jigsaw puzzles, I have never gotten hooked on crossword puzzles, so I didn't think I would like sudoku, but I was wrong. I was immediately addicted. It really makes you think.

In fact, both of these new games are like treadmills for the mind. Games like this aren't just for kids. They are for everyone who wants to sharpen mental abilities. So get out there and give them a try!