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In the inaugural edition of DS Casual, we dissected a pair of brain games from Nintendo, Big Brain Academy and Brain Age. Taking different approaches to neurological stimulation, both are winners in their own unique hemispheres.
Now Majesco is seeking to capture our brainwaves with its own pair of head games -- Brain Boost: Beta Wave and Brain Boost: Gamma Wave.
Designed to improve memory, concentration and judgment, these brain-power boosters are based on the "right brain development theory" espoused by the well-known (at least in his own field) researcher Makoto Shichida. According to his theory, the right brain normally dominates in areas of recognition of images, shapes, spatial patterns, illustrations, music, intuition and emotions. You know, the more intuitive, subjective, holistic kinda stuff. As such, this pair of grey-matter massagers focuses on cerebral aerobics that stimulate the right side of your noggin.
Okay. But, who's Makoto Shichida? Well, for those interested, he's a prolific author, the chairman of the Shichida Educational Institute and founder of the Shichida Method of education which uses daily training of repeated drills to stimulate the right hemisphere of the brain. More than 400 schools in Japan have put his theory into practice employing the Shichida Child Academy for youngsters and printed materials for grownups. Now, we have the Wave games, as well.
Honestly, it's impossible to describe the Brain Boost titles without comparison to Big Brain Academy and Brain Age, since all four seek to increase your intellectual acuity, albeit in diverse ways. And, while Nintendo's brainy duo are vastly different from each other in their approach, Majesco's synapse strainers follow an identical method for developing mental muscle. In fact, they could have easily been packaged as a single game (and, probably should have been).
Brain Boost: Beta Wave expands your brain's capacity via two game modes, Training and Challenge, and five varied types of brain-training exercises in which both speed and accuracy count. Categories include Find a Match, Shape Recognition, Addition, Remember Sequence and Moving Dots. Each offers four progressively more difficult levels with 20 problems apiece. To progress from one to the next, you need to achieve a 50 percent success factor in Training levels and 60 percent in Challenge levels. Challenge, by the way, is a thinly-veiled, story-based mode of play.
Find a Match develops your field of view, the ability to grasp individual images as a whole and find pairs in a hurry. Shape Recognition trains you to quickly locate matching patterns by noting subtle differences. Addition challenges your ability to add numbers fast, transforming figures and calculations into images, while Remember Sequence taxes your cranium with recalling the chronological order in which information is displayed. And, last, Moving Dots teaches you to capture a still image of moving objects, interpreting a whole picture at a glance.
What are the exercises actually like? Well, Remember Sequence, for example, has a grid of 12 squares. At the start, three images (icon-like illustrations) are shown in sequence. You're then asked to identify which appeared as, say, image two in the chain (it's random each time). After a few three-image rounds, you move on to four, then five and finally six. With each addition to the total number of images the difficulty increases.
While it all sounds relatively simple at first glance, the included mini-games are quite challenging, especially as they progress in complexity and as you combat the ticking clock. Nonetheless, they're enjoyable brain-teasers one and all. But, don't expect to do exceptionally well come the end of a long day at the office (or managing the home and kids), or if you've just pulled an all-nighter. It really takes a fresh mind to excel.
As with its sibling, Brain Boost: Gamma Wave has the same pair of game modes, as well as another five exercise categories. Focusing on problem-solving and perception, the game types for this noodle-niggler include Remember Colors, Remember Numbers, Remember Circumstances, Remember Faces and Remember Images. Again, each offers four increasingly more taxing levels of 20 problems apiece, and identical achievement thresholds of 50 percent and 60 percent for Training and Challenge levels respectively.
All exercises in this quintet are memory-based. Remember Colors trains your brain to picture the shapes and colors in a pattern to aid in reproducing it, while Remember Numbers helps you develop the ability to memorize digits as an image for easy recall. Remember Circumstances, similar to Find a Match in Beta Wave, increases your field of vision and the ability to recall subtle differences by viewing objects as a whole. Remember Faces charges you with developing a keen sense of sight associated with recognition and intuition. And, finally, Remember Images enhances your sense of identification and difference, helping you quickly discern changes in information.
So, how do these brain-taxers stack up? With their cute graphics and catchy, but simple tunes, this quick-witted pair equals Nintendo's Brain Age and Big Brain Academy in presentation. Gameplay, overall, is quite good, too, but not as ganglia-filled as the former. In other words, what they do, they do well. They simply lack the variety and depth of their more well-rounded compatriots. For instance, the multiplayer support found in Big Brain Academy and an equivalent to the Sudoku games that make Brain Age such a bargain.
When all the neurons are counted, Brain Boost: Beta Wave and Brain Boost: Gamma Wave fall a bit shy in overall brain weight compared to Nintendo's "cortexual" combo. Still, they're enjoyable and challenging in their own rights and offer some solid fun -- especially if you're brain-starved for more cerebral training. Essentially, all four brain games have their place in the scheme of improving your mental dexterity, whether you're an egghead or not.