First Impression: Boring
Second, and third, impression: Intriguing
First off I apparently use 9 percent of my brain, while Matt and my sister only use 8 percent, so ipso facto I’m more intelligent than Matt Banks and my sister.
Now to the game– Brain Challenge by Gameloft, a 1000 point Wii Ware download. It’s fun, and definitely a great game for a large group of people who might want to embarrass themselves in front of friends (if only they had to spell words and do math problems). Playing this game by yourself is not only slightly depressing, but rather boring. But fighting to the death in brain challenges against your friends and family (mortal enemies) is invigorating. There are 5 different sections when you play single player; Logic, Math, Visual, Focus, and Memory. It’s pretty obvious what each section involves. Logic involves completing puzzles while the math section involves equations and cubes where you have to go around the cube adding, subtraction, dividing, or multiplying a specific number (this one is hard to describe so deal with it). The focus section tests you on which ball bounces higher; memory tests how well you remember different paths; and the visual section tests you on which items weigh more based on items on scales (sometimes a carrot weighs more than an airplane), as well as matching faces. Some of the specific tests are described poorly and are difficult to understand what they in fact want you to do, but after playing a little while it’s easy to eventually figure it all out.
The multiplayer section is the most fun part of the game. This is where the name calling can start. Here there are 3 different mini-game sections; time attack (points awarded for quickness of answers), card game (each player starts with 5 which ask different questions from different sections; points awarded for correct answers and a bonus for emptying your hand first–which ends the game), and snatch game (solve your quiz faster than others, points awarded for speed and correctness). The game is cool because it has different levels of challenge; idiot, normal, and difficult (thought these are not the levels in the game itself), and the range of questions is fun and offers a different array of how dumb you actually are. If you play the game, like all other brain challenge games, you will find yourself angry at some stupid things you can’t figure out.
For a cheap downloadable game the graphics are what you expect; nothing special. One thing you definitely may notice is that when playing in multiplayer some of the puzzles are very difficult to see, making it difficult to answer the questions and get awarded the points you may deserve. Also, the scoring seems very unjust at times. Every once in a while I felt as though I answered more questions correctly yet lost to my opponents; there doesn’t seem to be a coherent scoring system. But all in all this game from Gameloft is a much more respectable attempt at a fun family game then their last disgrace. So I say nice job, keep up the hard work, and I look forward to spending some more quality time on more downloadable games from your crew.
Overall: 7.5 out of 10.
