With my birthday coming up this weekend (and with me leaving for the weekend), I've received a few early birthday presents in the form of DS games. I've been enjoying them both so far, which is hardly a surprise. The first game is Brain Age. It's not so much a game as a workout for my brain, which makes it puzzling why it's so fun. Perhaps it's just that it doesn't require but a few minutes of my time each day or perhaps it's because I just like mental challenges, but anyway I look at it, I've enjoyed my time with the game. Part of the addictiveness for me is my need to surpass my best times and scores in each minigame. I'm simply to competitive to not want to try and push low times and high scores lower and higher, respectively. And of course, the sudoku puzzles are also a plus! The other game I've gotten is Mario Kart DS. Having experience with every Mario Kart game that has been released, I'm finding that this one is very well done. There are a good number of characters (though I'm guessing not as many as in Double Dash), and each one has three different karts to choose from, which makes things interesting. I was delighted to find that the karts actually [i]feel[/i] differently when you get them on the track; other than the main speed, acceleration, and weight differences, previous versions didn't have that for me. The mission mode is a pleasant surprise as well; the change from just straight racing to other challenges is a good change-of-pace, and they can really test your skills! However, one thing has me really annoyed: when you finish a race in Grand Prix mode, the computer races finish in the order they are in when you cross the finish line, even if they're a half of a lap behind! So if I drop a fake item box on Luigi right behind me as I'm finishing and Donkey Kong is hard on Luigi's tail, Luigi still takes second because that's where he was when I crossed the finish line even though Donkey Kong would've easily beaten him to the finish if they had to play it out. Now, it doesn't matter on lower levels, but when I'm racing on 150cc and I'm trying to make up some ground in the standings, this kind of thing is crucial. Add to that the enormous amount (I see three or four a race, on average) of blue shells, a.k.a. leader-killers, especially when I'm in the lead, and it kind of brings down the experience for me. Grabbing a half-lap lead, only to be brought to a screeching halt by three blue shells, one being right before the finish on the last lap, landing me in third place, is very frustrating.