So, playing Starcraft 2 with its mental rigor helps keep your brain fit, and perhaps tunes it up a bit. Playing Starcraft, according to the study, “stresses rapid and simultaneous maintenance, assessment, and coordination between multiple information and action sources was sufficient to affect change.” The result of playing real-time strategy games such as Starcraft is “an underlying dimension of cognitive flexibility” across several laboratory tests. Those who played Starcraft instead of The Sims showed measurable improvements in certain mental functions following the period of gaming. All individuals that took part in the study were female, due to a “small number of non-gaming males” that might have been eligible. Some participants played The Sims, while others played the Starcraft titles, racking up 40 hours of gameplay over a period of one-and-a-half to two months. That conclusion was reached after running study participants through a controlled gaming environment, or Starcraft 1 and 2. According to a study published in August, brought to our attention by Red Bull’s gaming arm, “cognitive flexibility is a trainable skill.” The result is a gaming experience that involves planning, strategic thinking on the fly, and rapid mental and physical coordination (this is why I’m terrible at Starcraft, if you were curious). Starcraft 2 is a so-called “real-time strategy game,” a form of video game that involves resource management and military planning in parallel, while restricting the amount of information that each player has. This won’t come as a surprise if you’re familiar with the game’s genre, but playing Starcraft 2 might make you smarter.

Starcraft 2 game play