Recent studies have shown that keeping the brain stimulated with cognitive tasks helps insulate it from the impact of advancing age and may help prevent Alzheimer's Disease. Of course, WE all knew that gaming kept your on your toes, but now the medical profession is recognizing it as well. Check out this link:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/54927.php

I absolutely think that playing the games keeps the brain functioning. Wouldn't it be great if they could write us prescriptions for games and we could get them for just a copay.

Ana

Hey, I am going to suggest that to my HMO tomorrow!

Let me know how that goes. You can bring a preorder list of upcoming games. I wonder if they would recommend a differemt genre for a specific ailment too. Anger management and stressed patients gets shooters, ADHD gets RPG's or Sims for the longevity and attention required. I think this is doable.

Ana

We can start a movement! What shall we call it?

Oh My! I've gone braindead trying to come up with something creative. I really must play more.

I believe that an active mind keeps you on your toes and is good for you.Even as you slow down as you get older if you have some thing to think about and some thing to do it keeps you going /I am 53 soon and even though at times I feel it most say I don t look that old and that I am young in my ways .So maybe there is some thing in the gaming at least my head is always thinking about some thing and just not mondane every day living lol

Well,well, all that money on research that we could have told them for free :/ I think games on the National Health Service is a great idea. As I'm over 60 I would get them free.

A GREAT idea in theory, but a snowball would make it through Hades faster!

Wow what a breakthrough :LOL: they must have been a gamer to come up with that. Not long ago they thought that we were all addicted and needed therapy :LOL: How cool is this.

I agree it should be prescribed!!!!


Nan

However. there could be another side to this. How high does one's blood pressure go when you reach this stage in a game and don't you worry about deminishing gray cells when you finally give in and look at the w/t and realise how simple the answer is?

about time some things changed for the better .I don t know about where any one else lives I cant see why they cant give us a free game now and then on the NHS they give all the other addicts what they need free lol

Amen! Sometimes the adrenalin really gets racing during a timed sequence, too.

Also kudos to the other comment made about resorting to a WT.

And isn't it amusing how the general population can already have determined something significant through experience that so-called scientists have to go out and spend umpteen thousands of dollars "proving" for us? So many folk remedies have been "proven" to be effective when we already knew it through centuries of use. Sigh. Our tax dollars at work . . .

One thing I have noticed is how my performance in a game drops drastically when I am feeling ill, like with a cold or flu. Shows how much brain power you lose when faced with illness.

The main thing, though, is that we keep stimulating our brains by playing a game rather than going numb before a TV set. That will keep us young and sassy!

Amen to that, Reenie! I try to avoid pharmaceutical meds if there is a natural remedy that will be just as effective.

That was a neat article. And I was excited to see that it mentioned Music Therapy (they called it musical therapy but that's incorrect). That's what my BA is in. Nice to see that it's continuing to grow.

I think it's pretty amazing Celtic that you found that article. I don't think I've ever read a medical journal. Not even in a doctor's office. Just proves a point - I'm not crazy.

I too agree about games keeping us mentally active, I even mentioned that my first night in Stress Mananagment class! I even have different types of games, like the Sims2 is more calming for me but like Lights Out was more intense and challenging.

Hi Kraken! I didn't find the article, Reenie did. I just read it. I had to read that kind of stuff in college. I wouldn't say it's my reading material of choice, but I'm used to the jargon.

MysteryLover - I think Lights Out may have increased stress for me. LOL Talk about putting one on edge at every little sound!

Like the song says: It's all right,I'm just a little crazy!

When I was working and living in London with stress and violence all around I used my adventure games as a way to chill out and get away from it all. In the game I had control and could solve a puzzle with the help of a bit of string and a rubber chicken- quite different from my job.

Now I am retired and living in a peaceful small town in Cornwall and my adventure games are just that - an adventure. A stimulation for the gray cells that might otherwise rot from daytime TV.

Hip hip hurray for the games that solve different needs in different ways

And I'm proud and happy to see that I'm no longer a shy boomer but a settled one

This is so true, especially with games that work your reflexes and the memory games are good for the mind as well.

Treat life as on great adventure!
Just a shame you can't save frequently and replay all the best bits whenever you want to.

Wait a minute here, the thing about reflexes is that they do NOT use the mind, at least not the conscious, thinking mind. Reflexes are part of the autonomic nervous system that governs involuntary actions! Which is probably why I find action scenes requiring reflexes to be so BORING.

Welcome back Gordon24 I take it you are out of plaster and back home. Good for you
I agree serriamindy and I think I'm getting Repeditive Strain in my wrist playing Dead reefs on WASD.
I've ordered the Carol Reed games eastside story + the 3 previous games - I may have got the names wrong - they promise depatch in 24 hous, 4 games including shipping for £30 or $60 that is amazing. The only problem is the post office workers have gone on strike What can I say - I used to work for a trade union so I can't complain

Me, too! Isn't it odd how action games can be boring and, at the same time, so stressful?

My interpretation of the article is that it is not the reflexive activity that counts. It is the cognitive process involved in puzzle games that is the important factor: developing a longer attention span, following along with a mental thought, assessing information and correlating facts, etc. That is the stimulus the brain needs. Probably why music therapy is also effective: you follow the line of music and have to concentrate to some extent in order to appreciate what the composer is doing.

Glad the medical profession is finally acknowledging that computer games stimulate a variety of our un- & under-used grey cells. Can't wait for my adventure game RX.

Hi gordon24,
I took too long writing my post so you snuck in there without my seeing your post first.
Yes, life is like an adventure which may account for the reason why I like adventure games which satisfy my curiosity and not those where you fight enemies or pesky mechanical puzzles (I'm not an engineer) and also why I prefer third person. Who wants to go through life alone?
As for the SAVE feature, that's what my memories are all about and I visit them often. I also edit them so only the best part remains, right?

Love that thinking SM. Super idea!

Thanks very much for the article Reenie - that appears to have some initial results that are encouraging.
I have to disagree with some of you though - just because action is required in a game doesn't make it a reflexive action. Even in a fast paced shooter game, there is still assessment, correlation and response.

I wouldn't know about shooters, I'm an adventurer! Shooting is a boring activity as far as I'm concerned.

Okkkk, what I was saying is that action - even in an adventure game - is not reflexive action. Just because you find it boring doesn't make it any less a cognitive action.

Hi

I don't play "Shooters" so I can't comment on those but I do play some Action RPGs and quite a lot of the gameplay in those requires organising your team "strategically" in order to win a fight.

There is a "pause" button which gives you the time to do this.
Reflex speed alone will certainly not guarantee you victory.

So, you have to think and not just merrily keep pressing the "fire" button

Cheers.

Mad

Oops, I meant shooting is boring for me, it can be very exciting and challenging for others.
I suspect liking the challenge of shooting something has to do with an adrenaline rush rather than any cognitive action. A feeling of power maybe, the high of victory, whatever. It isn't there for me though so it's boring.

I was answering a previous post, as for RPG's they are boring in yet another way, speaking for me only. Strategy requires thought but on a subject that I do not find interesting because I'm not into the fighting action. In role-playing games one gets better at the action, magic spell casting, or stealth by repeating and repeating the same old thing. Okay, one learns to do it better, I guess, but why bother is my reaction. Where is the curiosity here, the surprise of something new and unexpected?

Hi sierramindy --

Although I don't play shooters, I've watched others play them, and (at least for the ones I've watched) there is often a strategy involved. Succeeding because of the strategy is (from my observation) as satisfying or more so than succeeding by running around blasting randomly at everything. I think what I'm trying to say is that the games can be cerebral, though certainly in a different way than solving a slider puzzle (for instance).

We all enjoy different things -- shooters don't appeal to me personally because I don't like (even virtual) violence with bodies falling everywhere as you shoot them.

All games require some degree of repetition. Adventure gamers become better at distinguishing small but significant visual differences (pixel hunting, you could say). This drives other gamers crazy. We often have to go back and forth, retracing our steps from location to location. With practice, we get better at thinking of how items can be creatively combined. We encounter jigsaw puzzles, Towers of Hanoi (I remember one of these that required more than 100 moves), sequencing puzzles, and so on. And we (hopefully) get a little better at them each time we do them.

I think that adventures do bring a wide variety of challenges, and that's one of the reasons I like them.

Granted we all have our own reasons for playing adventure games, that's a given. I do not like the puzzles you mentioned, that's why I use a walkthrough to get past them. The reason why I sound so against shooters and RPG's is that I feel they are infiltrating adventure games and I don't think that is fair, even though I can see it is a good commercial move with so many gamers playing ALL these types of games. Maybe I'm too old for all this as so far those who have mentioned their age have never yet posted an age older than I am!

I agree. I have played games with mixed adventure/action, and enjoyed them. The disagreements expressed herein may be arise only from gradation.

My impression is that, when people say they don't like action games, they are referring to ones like Doom or Wolfenstein or other "splatterfests." Those don't generally involve much strategy, although I have watched hubbie play them, and he does have to think about his approach to a battle, which weapon to use, when to amp up his health, etc. But the chatter around those games seems to center on the cool weapons above all else.

Other games that are more RPG-like in content involve significant strategy: long-term planning, designing your characters and adjusting attributes in order to progress in the game, husbanding resources, and lots of other "cognitive work." Diablo, for one, has had significant staying power and has generated a devoted and extensive fan community because it tests a gamer in a wide range of ways. Chatter about those games encompasses a much wide range of issues, and clearly the game's complexity (and graphic beauty) accounts for its longevity and replay value.

When you get to the Adventure Game category, weapons and timed combat are (thankfully, in my opinion) generally not relevant issues. The focus is almost entirely upon reasoning. Adventure gamers get upset when an adventure game inserts adrenalin-based scenarios. (On the other side, my hubbie would be irritated if one of his action or RPG games inserted a puzzle of almost any kind. lol)

As for repetition, the "Action" genre certainly holds no monopoly, in terms of game play. One need only play Broken Sword 3 to know that! (the endless shoving around of crates...)

So, I think we all have to be conscious of how we define these genre and our reaction to them, clarifying what we mean when we say we like one form and not the other. Whatever challenges you mentally is good, and if that is seeing how many monsters you can blow to smithereens, well that is still better than zoning out to prime time reruns or reality TV shows.

The title of this thread is "ANOTHER great reason to play Adventure Games!" I'm detail minded and I'm zoned in on that word ADVENTURE in the title! I have no quarrel with other games and yes, they are fine for others to play, but count me out. It is when these other games start crowding out the adventure in ADVENTURE games that I cry "Foul!" and "Uncle!" I am very happy to read that there is "ANOTHER reason" for playing ADVENTURE games besides the reason that I have for playing them. Mine is simple, I play for the fun of it.