Brain Challenge Vol 2: Stress Management

Brain Challenge Vol 2 begins by asserting that we use just six per cent of our brain. Which doesn't sound like a lot, but we get the rating 'mama's pride' alongside it, so apparently our mums should be proud of that achievement.

It's quite typical of Brain Challenge to offer encouragement throughout along with the bad news. Your white-coated virtual coach pops up after each test to tell you how you've done in the language of a primary school teacher. "I see you have good logic skills but you could do with practising your memory skills in the Training Room." Yes, Miss.

This game actually doesn't feel too much like a brain training game, which will be good news to anyone who's had their fill of the things. The new Stress Management part of the title is actually more like a series of mini-games, albeit ones that require more concentration than your average examples.

The rest, meanwhile, is a bit more traditional, with fractions to solve against the clock and pipes to follow and quickly guess where they'll come out, but there's enough variation and incentives to keep you playing. Not only can you work at increasing your brain usage (and let's face it, who wants it to stay at a piddling 6 per cent?) but new exercises – of which there are 20 in total – are unlocked as you advance.

Gameplay is divided into two sections. There's the Daily Test, which gives you one exercise from each of the five skill sets (memory, visual, focus, logic and maths) to have a go at, and there's the Training Room, where you can either practise in a normal or 'stressful' way.

The stressful games are further divided into Physical and Authority stress. Luckily, the Physical section doesn't involve anything like having to play while balancing on our heads as we first feared, but instead includes games based more on endurance and concentration. Authority tests, on the other hand, have you following certain rules against a time limit.

With the exception of a ball bouncing game, which is supposed to test our visual skills, but proves to be more of a test of our eyesight due to our having to squint to make out the numbers written on the tiny balls, the exercises are all rather enjoyable.

And their presentation is superb, too. It all looks very bright and cheery, while breaking up the dull fractions and matchstick counting games are affairs using frogs and moving cars to make the IQ tasks feel more like fun than hard work.

Amidst the tests, you also have the option to check out your progress from a variety of charts, stats and high scores. An icon of a head with your current percentage of brain usage written across it is found on the main menu to remind you how much work is yet to be done, but it's not the only incentive in the game. Doing well at the various challenges unlocks higher difficulty levels, which takes them from mildly taxing to something more difficult than studying quantum physics while reciting Shakespeare. More importantly, it also unlocks even more games to play.

Even our six per cent mind realises that brain training games are hardly few and far between, but Brain Challenge 2 is up there with the best of them. The extra stress training features take it a step on from its predecessor and, for the most part, you'll almost forget this is a training game and simply enjoy playing it.