Brain Challenge (XBLA)

6.3
Average

Gameplay	6.0	"No more than a Brain Training clone, but not as good."
Graphics	6.0
Sound	5.5
Value	7.5

By Daniel Needham

Brain training games have certainly exploded on to the market in the last couple of years, targeting gamers with the ability to further their IQ, or just the ability to switch off any game and make sure their minds are still sharp. The Xbox 360 now has its own title in the brain training category, available for download from Xbox Live Marketplace, aptly named Brain Challenge.

You’ll start the game with the mandatory IQ-like test. From that initial test, you will be able to track your progress across subsequent days and additional assessments. The tests of your mental development are organised across multiple areas and with 20 mini-games included it does provide a decent amount of variety.

Testing sessions result in a score for each criteria and a grade for the overall assessment, with your scores being measured according to brain capacity. The game makes the leap in logic to assume that full potential of your brain capacity is measurable across the predetermined kinds of test categories presented in the game.

Successful completion of different tests will unlock specific challenges for practice outside of the daily assessment, as well as comments by a ‘coach’ which you have chosen after the initial test. By unlocking certain tests you can now use them at your disposal if you are struggling with said test. Your coach also gives you pointers on how to achieve a higher score, although their advice isn’t overly helpful.

Multiplayer play, online and offline, lets you draw from a hand of cards to take your turn at one of the title's mini-games. Testing your mental ability with mates is possibly the most enjoyable part of Brain Challenge, as once everything is said and done a good laugh and the odd expletive may well have been spoken.

The graphics of the game really let it down, as somewhere when it was ported to the 360 things seemed to have gone pear-shaped. This is annoyingly noticeable in tests where you have to use logic to determine a series of coloured shapes, and in the stand-alone stress test which easily lives up to its own name.

While being the first brain training title for the 360, it does little to enhance the genre, or make itself stand out from the portable brain training crowd. However, it does provide a solid test of your mettle, and for the paltry price you could do much, much worse.

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