Mind Games 2

Just why does everyone obsess over the 'age' of their brain these days? It's like we jump from one fad to another, signing up for bacon fat diets one week, before buying the latest facial cream that claims it'll knock years off our appearance with a compendium of made up chemicals the next.

Of course, Brain Training is squarely to blame for our current fixation with the supposed youth (or not, as the case may be) of our brains, but there are plenty of mobile titles out there intent on showing us new ways to test our noggins.

Player X's Mind Games 2 doesn't come with any cute, cuddly characters or friendly mentors to guide you through each stage, but it is a solid way of serving up tricky tests for your brain.

It's an incredibly stripped-back, minimalist manner of doing it, too. Mind Games 2 is almost like taking part in a pub quiz, but on your own, without any beer.

But if that puts you off, then you might need to adjust your expectations. Mind Games 2 plays out more like The Krypton Factor than it does a party game, splitting its tests into five set categories; analytical, computational, memory, perception and attention, each one coming with three separate games that have to be unlocked as you play.

The actual games themselves are fairly standard stuff, with the first challenge available in the memory category, for instance, charging you with remembering and replicating a pattern of squares. There's plenty of diversity, with having a crack in the perception section seeing you having to count the number of cubes falling from the sky in quick time, using the number pad. All of the games are similarly snappy, meaning you can have a quick go whenever you have a few spare minutes.

And Mind Games 2 positively encourages that approach, sectioning off it's actual brain test from an arena that lets you practice all of the games on offer, individually and with complete instructions.

Instructions that are a tad weighty with words, however. Taking the form of a big block of text that dominates the screen before each game kicks off, they tend to overcomplicate matters. Their dictatorial use of language will no doubt leaving many players feeling cold after just one or two sentences.

Considering every game can be tapped into in practice mode as many times as you wish, though, the best way to learn play is to, well, play.

The controls themselves take some getting used to, too. While the tests that require number inputs are fairly straightforward, a lot of the games focus on you picking out shapes and so forth by moving a cursor around or picking the right answer from a selection. Given each challenge comes with a ticking clock, it's frustrating that many a second can be lost simply dealing with Mind Games 2's sluggish response to your key inputs.

It's less of an issue the more you play, however, and the game is designed for repeated use. The idea is to take what you've picked up from your numerous practice sessions into the Test section, where Mind Games 2 tests your newfound skill-set and gives you a final rating.

It’s a little unclear exactly which areas you’ll be tested on each time, however, with the game occasionally seeming to get stuck in a cycle of the same tasks.

It all leads to an affair that's a genuine brain teaser, pushing your neurons further than many other Brain Training wannabes by taking familiar concepts to a much higher level. But confusing menu set-ups, instructions and a seemingly scatty testing section mean this doesn't feel like the finished article.

You might just wish you had that beer on hand after all.