It’s always struck me as odd how certain types of activity are supposed to help keep the brain from getting stale when we don’t even have a ‘map’ of the brain to know what we’re looking for in regards to actual, visible improvement.
Still, despite the lack of hard evidence to support them, WP7 seems to be attracting the brain training genre with aplomb at the moment, with Namco’s More Brain Exercises being forcefully shown the door to the review clinic last week.
Now it’s Gameloft’s positively ancient Brain Challenge popping its head round the corner to say ‘remember me?’, in an overly serious tone and with a concerned look on its face.
You need to rememberBrain Challenge may not have the official endorsement of Dr. Kawashima to stick on its loading screen, but it does have the familiar Gameloft sheen about it, where each subject-coded background radiates with bright colours.
As with every brain training game ever made (bar the genuinely enjoyable Big Brain Academy on the DS), Brain Challenge lays down the gauntlet to the player of completing a set amount of small tasks a day, all in the name of healthy living.
It starts with a simple selection of tasks taken from each of the five categories - Logic, Memory, Math(s), Visual, and Focus - with your results contributing towards how much of your brain you use (I doubt its authenticity, for some reason).
This writer is suffering from acute stressReal science or not, Brain Challenge’s series of micro-games are pleasantly diverting to play, thanks to the smart presentation and large boxes, meaning missed touches are few and far between.
The games aren’t particularly original in themselves, ranging from finding the heaviest of a certain type of object to doing simple math(s) problems and tracing simple routes through a maze.
The Stress Test section of the game, however, is a breath of fresh amidst the stuffy confines of the genre, adding a number of distracting or downright vicious obstacles to deal with.
My personal favourite is the variation on Ascending, in which the normal ‘touch the coloured blocks in order of least to most’ is made more difficult thanks to a flashing screen, stuff flying around, or just everything fading to black every two seconds. Stressful.
ChargingDespite the simplicity of the games on offer, Brain Challenge doesn’t half take its time to load up, sticking on the loading screen for a good five to ten seconds before you can start playing every single game.
There’s also less of an incentive to keep returning than other titles in the genre due to the pace at which the game hands out modes for the free-play Training section. The lack of any logic puzzlers to distract in-between raising your ‘percentage’ of brain power utilised also feels like a missed opportunity.
In the five years since its original release on Java, Brain Challenge hasn’t aged a day, still looking like one of more attractive of the genre, and still providing some good distraction from un-brainy activities like reading a book, or thinking about stuff.
Whether it actually does any good is debatable, but in terms of the genre it’s not bad medicine.
Brain Challenge HD
Brain Challenge is a well-presented series of micro-games, but is saddled with long loading times and lacks incentives
Will Wilson
Will's obsession with gaming started off with sketching Laser Squad levels on pads of paper, but recently grew into violently shouting "Tango Down!" at random strangers on the street. He now directs that positive energy into his writing (due in no small part to a binding court order).