Ow. First time trying Brain Age that a colleague brought, and I got my “brain age” tested: I’m 33. Which is…Okay, considering the rest of them are registering far older brain-ages, but considering that that’s a decade older than I really am already, that’s a smidgeon depressing.

I compulsively tried all the games and did all the training applets (those available to me) after. Being anal and competitive very often works against you; I feel a headache coming.

The game does a little bit of Sciencey mumbojumbo at the start, telling you which cortex of your brain is activated in a range of everyday activities, like watching TV and sitting idle (also known in Singapore as stoning—not to be confused with pot-smoking, though people who stone are often referred to as stoners). Then it tells you that during quick mathematical drills and in reading aloud, far more of your brain is activated. “In fact,” it says, “your front cerebral cortex is worked out.”

Surely now you feel you’ve purchased the right game, since your lazy front cerebral cortex is going to get a walloping. I say, if the customer has bought the game, he’s bought it; no need to continue selling it, right? He obviously knows why he bought it. It’s almost as if the makers of Brain Age were made fun of at Nintendo Academy and felt the irrepressible need to continually justify their making of the game.

And worse still, like the bully in school (whom psychiatrists tell you was really the most insecure one, secretly), they taunt you and laugh at you when you score badly, with pitying remarks like, “You must be tired today!”

This, all in the name of you continually playing it to improve your score. Not only do they have to convince you that you bought the right game, they need to have you play it all the time and bully you into worrying that your brain starts to rot as soon as you put it down.

But you know what? It works. After half an hour with it, I’m exhausted. But I really want to pick it up again.