Genius DS – Equal Cards promises more brain training

At the rate that brain training games are emerging, in two years' time we'll probably be lamenting the over-subscription of a genre that, just 12 months ago, felt so wonderfully fresh.

Then again, if we continue to buy and use the IQ-boosting software available to us, in two years' time we'll probably be too concerned with winning a physics Nobel Prize or working out the correct diplomatic solution to the conflict in the Middle East to care about such trivial matters.

Hoping to help us get to that stage, then, is Genius DS – Equal Cards. The premise, which should sound simple even to our currently semi-trained minds, revolves around a stack of colourful numbered cards that must be sorted in order to arrive at the correct sum displayed on the screen.

So it's primarily a maths-based venture, a notion that is reinforced once you learn that the four different game modes on offer include formulae and towers built out of numbers, to name 50 per cent of the types of complex puzzles you can expect.

The publisher's marketing team is pushing the 'good for school' angle, and while it's hardly providing scientific backing for such a claim, it's difficult to see how children wouldn't benefit from playing around with numbers, not least when they can engage in the included versus multiplayer mode to enhance their mental dexterity.

Genius DS – Equal Cards is currently expected this summer. It could be just the thing to keep your neurones active while the rest of your body is on holiday.