New brain training game uses phone's camera to test your smarts

Another week, another mobile brain training game. We don't think there'll be space on our phones for many more at this rate, particularly given they're stuffed with the excellent Brain Challenge that we reviewed earlier this week.

However, Glu's Brain Genius could have that something special that sneaks it onto our handset.

On the surface, it looks a slick and well-presented brain trainer. The game features a donnish-looking prof called Dr Lababidi, who puts your grey cells through their paces. You play daily exercises to increase your overall brain rating, testing four different skills: Visual, Memory, Calculation and Logic.

Our hands-on test threw up one challenge where you have to judge which of five balls is bouncing highest, another where you have to memorise sequences of farm animals, and a regular calculation one. There certainly looks to be plenty of variety, anyway.

However, the big deal with Brain Genius is that it brings your phone's camera – assuming you have a handset capable of it – into the game.

For example, the Picture Slider exercise lets you take a photo using your cameraphone, and then jumbles it up into a nine-piece puzzle for you to rearrange.

It looks a precocious young upstart, but we'll let you know if Brain Genius' innovative features set it apart from the competition when we get our hands (or synapses) on a final version.