From Healthcare Administration Degree:

Stay on top of your game mentally and slow the effects of aging on your brain by keeping it in excellent shape. It’s easy to do and costs little to no money with all the resources available on the Internet. The following tools, exercises, and games will stimulate your brain and give it the exercise it needs to stay in top form.

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Online Brain Games

The online games listed here are designed specially for working out your brain.

1. Strategy Games. These seven games will require you use strategy, which is an excellent way to exercise your brain.
2. HAPPYneuron. Try the fun games and activities here to build your brain fitness. Join for a fee to have access to fitness programs and personal coaches.
3. Braingle. Some of the fun brain activities here include brain teasers, riddles, trivia, and brain exercises.
4. Sharp Brains Brain Teasers and Games. Give these 50 games designed just for exercising your brain a try.
5. Games for the Brain. Your brain will get a boost with games like Mastermind, chess, and Sudoku here.
6. BrainCurls. Try your hand at jigsaw puzzles, memory games, and games that sharpen your observation skills.
7. Brain Bashers. Find plenty of video games at this site that are meant to sharpen your mental prowess.
8. Fit Brains. These games are designed by scientists to develop your brain power.
9. BrainTraining 101. Logic, puzzle, memory, classic, and action games are the focus of this website’s brain games.

Read the rest of the list here.

From Joystiq:

The first semester of New York City’s Quest to Learn began last week on the 9th, with an inaugural class of around 75 sixth graders in NYC’s Chelsea neighborhood taking classes that employ games (of all types) in learning. "One thing I want to emphasize: this is not a school about just playing video games … this is a school that uses the system of games to deliver rich discussion," the school’s principal, Aaron Schwartz, told Joystiq over the phone this morning. "We use games as a medium here." Education at Quest to Learn is delivered through a variety of means other than games, though game systems are a focus for teaching the specific subset of student that Q2L targets: "digital kids."

From Times of India (via Joystiq):

Is that why you play war games on your play station because many might say it’s inappropriate for a Buddhist monk dedicated to peace to play war games?

Well, I view video games as something of an emotional therapy, a mundane level of emotional therapy for me. We all have emotions whether we’re Buddhist practitioners or not, all of us have emotions, happy emotions, sad emotions, displeased emotions and we need to figure out a way to deal with them when they arise.

So, for me sometimes it can be a relief, a kind of decompression to just play some video games. If I’m having some negative thoughts or negative feelings, video games are one way in which I can release that energy in the context of the illusion of the game. I feel better afterwards.

The aggression that comes out in the video game satiates whatever desire I might have to express that feeling. For me, that’s very skilful because when I do that I don’t have to go and hit anyone over the head.

From Wired:

Playing Tetris actually gives you more brain to work with, says a new study to be published later this week.

The study, funded by Tetris’ makers and authored by investigators at the Mind Research Network in New Mexico, shows that playing the classic puzzle game had two distinct effects on the brains of research subjects: some areas in the brain showed greater efficiency (the blue areas in the diagram above), and different areas showed thicker cortexes, which is a sign of more grey matter (red).

This, says the doctors who undertook the study, shows that focusing on a "challenging visuospatial task" like a videogame can actually alter the structure of the brain, not just increase brain activity.

From Joystiq:

Why doesn’t Wii Fit include an estimate of the calories you burn during exercises? That would be really useful. Nintendo seems to agree, at least — it has created a Flash application that does just that.

The Wii Fit Calorie Meter couldn’t be easier to use, unless it were in English! Push the big green button in the middle to start, then enter your weight (in kilograms). You can then click on each exercise you’ve done (or plan to do) and tell the calculator the number of sets you’ve done of each. The app will add up your calories as you go!

From TechDigest:

With the Wii Fit proving to be bigger than Jesus right now, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise to see more Nintendo controller accessories thrust into the market, but somehow it is, especially when we’re talking dumbbells, a step and a skateboard.

You can fit the WiiMote straight into the 1.7lb WiDums and use them to tone your triceps in WiiFit, Jillian Michaels, Golds Gym Cardio, EA Sports Active and Fitness Ultimatum 2005. What fun they all sound like. In three months time, they also double as very handy paperweights.

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The unfortunately named WiSkab attaches directly to the Balance Board and allows you to tilt and pump in all kinds of directions as if you were gliding on wheels or snow. It’s the size of a full size skate deck and will work with Skate it, Shaun White Snowboarding and We Ski and Snowboard.