Consolation Prize

Since the success of Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training on the Nintendo DS there has been a noticeable increase both in the number of games dedicated to training the grey matter and the publishers / developers jumping on the proverbial bandwagon in an effort to cash in on its success.

This effort comes courtesy of
GameLoft and according to the game blurb should:

Boost brain activity, help you develop stress management skills and develop your own creativity

This all sounds good in principle and the full game features 20 mini-games based around one of five different categories designed to enhance that squishy stuff inside your noggin (logic, math, memory, visual and focus).

The trial lets you try out the single player daily brain test using five different mini-games.

• Balance - A visual / logic puzzle showing a set of scales and objects where the heaviest object must be found.
• Calculate route - An arithmetic based puzzle using a numbered grid whereby the correct sequence, derived using a specified figure, has to be inputted. E.g. starting at 21 and given the figure +3 the route would be 21, 24, 27, and 30.
• Travelling - A memory game featuring a disappearing route on a 9×9 grid which requires the route to be repeated.
• Ascending - A visual arithmetic test showing a number of coloured blocks which have to be sorted by colour from the least to the highest number.
• Bouncing Ball - A visual test with different coloured bouncing balls where the ball that bounces the highest must be selected.

At the end of the test you’re given an overall score, which presumably is derived from the number of correct answers given and the speed of each answer, and congratulated or berated on your performance. As is usual with these games the results are recorded so you can see your progress and feel happy in the knowledge that a few more neurons have been roused from their slumber.

Overall I find these types of games quite playable and Brain Challenge is entertaining enough in small doses, but apart from Balance and Calculate Route I didn’t really have to put too much thought into the games. One could argue that that’s the purpose of the visual games in Brain Challenge, no thought required, just pattern and object recognition, but aren’t we using similar skills when playing video games anyway making these types of mini-games redundant?

Brain Challenge isn’t of course a visual tour-de-force. There really isn’t much scope with these types of games for a graphics artist to sink there teeth into and things are usually kept pretty basic, but a few more polygons wouldn’t have gone amiss here.

I’m unfortunately not dedicated enough to play games like this for weeks, months, or years on end and so personally I’m not sure if there’s a net benefit to be gained from frequent play. However, at 800 points this is probably one of the cheapest training games around and is worth a look if you ever wondered what all the Brain Training fuss was about in the last couple of years.