Brain Tester 24 Pack: Vol 2

In the (slightly altered) words of Frank Sinatra: brain training games, we've had a few, but then again, too few to mention.

And it's all Nintendo's fault. Since Dr Kawashima's Brain Training sold about 20 billion copies on DS, every other publisher on earth has tried to get in on the act.

But at least Brain Tester 24 Pack: Vol 2 (we previously reviewed the original Brain Tester 24 Pack) tries to present its particular brand of intelligence-bolstering mini-games in a different way to the rest. Instead of giving you games to play through in order to determine your brain age, or IQ level, Brain Tester has you evolving your own creature by doing well. So, the better you do in observational games for instance, the more your creature's eyes will evolve.

It's a far more satisfying system than the norm – after all, there are only so many times you can be told you have the brain age of a 50-year-old. And besides, any belief you might have once held that these results are in any way scientifically accurate was probably dispelled when one game diagnosed a brain age of 35 and another of 70.

That said, there's still some disparity between Brain Tester's 24 different games. While some genuinely feel like a struggle on the ageing grey matter, others feel more like a test of how quickly you can work the keypad on your phone.

Games such as Explosion for instance, where you just have to move a cursor over the red speaker that's closest to more red or orange speakers and press '5' hardly feel like they're a test of your brain functionality. Perhaps they test the speed of your reactions, but, in practice, they're more about how quick you can navigate using your phone.

However, there are still lots of good mini-games included, and a huge variety too.

Some are similar to the kind you might have seen before in other titles. There's a shape selecting one, where you're shown the outline of a shape and have to select the same shape to fit through it from a selection, except these are often rotated to make it more difficult. There are maths offerings containing simple sums to solve against the clock, and there's a memory game where you look at a group of objects then have to identify which one has been subsequently removed.

But there are also entries that seem to be completely original. A great robot mini-game has you guiding a robot across a grid to a battery by putting instructions such as down x 2, up x 3 and right into the correct order, making sure you don't guide him off the edge of the grid.

There's also a fishing affair in which you rapidly have to decide whether a series of shapes on the screen match or don't match in order to lure a fish close to your hook, then press '5' when it's close enough to catch it.

In between the brain games, there's the usual selection of stat screens, which show how advanced your creature is becoming in line with your results. Pleasingly, he soon evolves from an egg with an eye peering from a hole in the shell, to an appealing ball of fluff. One that's hopefully intelligent enough to solve pure maths theories while juggling balls.

With the line-up of brain training games already so lengthy, Brain Tester 24 Pack: Vol 2 can only wedge itself in and hope for the best. However, with such a high standard of content, presentation and ideas, it deserves fast-tracking to the front of the queue. If you're after a brain training title with a bit of a twist, it's a no-brainer that this is for you.

Brain Tester 24 Pack: Vol 2

A well-presented brain training game with the twist of getting to evolve a little virtual pet. Brain Tester 24 Pack: Vol 2 joins the top of the heap of IQ games
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Kath Brice
Kath Brice
Kath gave up a job working with animals five years ago to join the world of video game journalism, which now sees her running our DS section. With so many male work colleagues, many have asked if she notices any difference.