Eye Training

If games like Eye Training are anything to go by, soon we'll never need leave the house. Instead of going to the doctors, dentists or, in this case, opticians for our annual check-ups, we'll simply install an app on our mobile and monitor our health that way.

Except, Eye Training has about as much of a connection to an actual eye test as playing Track & Field does to running for gold in the Olympics. Yes, the only real link to eyes here is the fact all of the mini-games included require you to use them.

Then again, how many video games have you come across that don't?

Learning from the master

Despite a slightly tenuous setting, then, this is no disaster. Following the model laid down by the likes of Brain Training, the idea here is to take on the challenges in the game's four categories day by day, improving each time and unlocking further puzzles as you go.

Available as part of a daily test (which combines all the elements to determine your general progress) or individually, the games themselves range from the perfunctory to the slightly dodgy.

Simple challenges like finding the missing piece from a fragmented picture or looking out for a particular word in a whole chain are tainted slightly by odd and yawnworthy rounds like Spot the Difference (which seem to revolve around some particularly goofy looking basketball players) and a bizarre take on tennis, which is screwed up by a rather odd perspective.

In the case of the more successful challenges, there's reason for replay. Scoring big opens up an Expert mode which, in turn, unlocks further games when mastered, but it's hard to see Eye Training as much more than a bit of a cash-in, taking advantage of the current brain training craze.

Lacking the kind of finesse that's laced throughout Nintendo's now classic franchise, Eye Training isn't exactly anything special, but it's not without a few high points of its own nonetheless.