Previews

Gamescom '11: Hands-on with Smart As on PS Vita

Don't be such a Smart As

Gamescom '11: Hands-on with Smart As on PS Vita
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Remember when Brain Training first appeared on the Nintendo DS and we suddenly all found this incredible urge to do maths, literacy, and memory work for fun?

Were we mad? Was Dr Kawashima playing mind games with us?

As it turns out, taking things you'd generally associate with school work and putting them into a video game is surprisingly successful.

Smart As is very much striving for the same audience that Nintendo unearthed with Brain Training, but with a special trick up its sleeve - you can test yourself and then compare your results with everybody in the world.

What a smart ass

Exclusive to the PS Vita, Smart As packs 20 different brain puzzles that explore a wide range of ideas, from language and logic to arithmetic and observation.

Each of these 20 games has several tests to undertake, with hundreds of brainteasers to work your way through in total.

We managed to play several of the games you're going to be getting to grips with next year, and we'll tell you this: we don't half feel stupid.

These are tricky little puzzles, making full use of the Vita's capabilities. For example, the Visualiser game makes use of the Vita camera to project words onto your coffee table, whereupon you can then play around with them.

Head-scratcher

Roller Blocks sees you moving a series of cubes around a maze by tilting your console. Each cube must fall into the correct space, but inevitably they all move together, creating some rather difficult situations.

Another puzzle sees you pinching numbers together with your fingers so that the bubbles on screen join together and make the numbers in the background. This is made brain-scratchingly hard when x2 bubbles and negative value bubbles come into play.

Other games include a Generation Game-style exercise in which you have to memorise items as they travel along a conveyor belt, and some language games - these are the least entertaining of the mini-games we played.

Spread the head pain

Once you've completed your daily workout, you're assigned a percentage score to show your brain power - very much like Nintendo's Brain Training.

Here's where Smart As gets clever. Your score is uploaded online and adds to the global scores for your nearby area, your city, your entire country.

It's then possible to check how you compare to every area in the world. Are you cleverer than a Frenchman? You'll be able to find out next year. Are you cleverer than a German? You'll just have to wait and see. Are you cleverer than me?

Yes.

There are leaderboards for each area too, so you'll be able to see in detail how full your noggin really is.

You can then make your own challenges using the various games available, 'drop' them in specific locations, and wait for other people to find them.

You'll receive a notification if anyone manages to beat your challenge. This kind of feature makes us really excited for what the future holds for the Near functionality.

Get smart

The developers were quick to point out that Smart As may well sound like a collection of iPhone games rolled into one but for the price you're paying and the online features you're getting it's not a bad deal at all. But the developers would say that.

There's no release date yet, nor would the team reveal whether it would be available for the Vita's launch.

We'll definitely be keeping a lookout for more of Smart As over the coming months. It could be a real winner.

Mike Rose
Mike Rose
An expert in the indie games scene, Mike comes to Pocket Gamer as our handheld gaming correspondent. He is the author of 250 Indie Games You Must Play.