Advocates of hard line parenting strategies that preclude video games are starting to loosen the ban in the face of entertaining, family oriented titles for the Wii. A story from the online version of Halifax News tells the tale of one Canadian mother who never thought she would enjoy video games, especially with her kids.

Kelly Bearne, wife and mother of two, now enjoys Wii games on family night with her children and husband. The new gamers are responding to easy to learn titles that have caused the console to become so popular among non-traditional gamers.

The Big Brain Academy series focuses on math and cognitive skills, and it’s also been released for Nintendo’s portable system, the DS. Alzheimer patients have even reported that playing these kinds of games have helped to delay the degenerative effects of the disease.

Inspired by the successes of Big Brain Academy and Brain Age, other companies are apparently less afraid to get into the adult edugaming, er, game. Midway is releasing Hot Brain for the PSP in June 2007, featuring a weird professor voiced by actor Fred Willard. Games will be of the casual genre, include various memory more »