Game Review: More Brain Exercise

More Brain Exercise is simply a Brain Age game for your Windows Phone!

Overall Score: 2/5

While the brain-challenging puzzles and activities are pretty good, the controls and visuals disappoint. The game is still able to serve its purpose as a Brain Age game, but it definitely doesn’t feel as polished as most WP7 games are.

Gameplay: 4/5

More Brain Exercise gives you three modes to play: Brain Training, Brain Age, and Quickplay. The first two can only be played once a day, but the Quickplay mode can be played anytime. You’ll unlock different Quickplay modes as you play the Brain Training and Brain Age modes each day. The thinking puzzles you are challenged to are a good difficulty to get you mentally sweating, and after completing each activity, you are rated on how well you did, which gives you great feedback that will motivate you to try harder. The only complaint I found is that the controls in the menu screen (not in actual gameplay) are very touchy; scrolling is jittery and makes selecting things tough, but once you’re past the menu screen, that won’t matter. However, the game has some oddities, like it thinks a balloon is a form of transportation!? Alrighty then, where’s my broomstick.

Presentation: 1/5

From the moment you open the game, the developer’s laziness is clear. The graphics are visibly scaled to WP7’s resolution, which means that every image in the game is pixelated. The lack of effort is really disappointing. The sounds simply consist of “Ding-dong” noises when you get a question right, or “Buzzzz” if you get something wrong. That’s okay, since you don’t want annoying background tunes distracting your thinking. It is the visuals that bring the presentation down.

Lasting Value 2/5

The game suggests that you play once a day to check in with your brain skills, but there are only about 15 different puzzles, so you’ll probably start to see repeats soon. There is a Sudoku game you can unlock and play, but I personally think the game could use more puzzles, so you don’t see the same ones too often.

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Title: More Brain Exercise
Price: $4.99
Developer: Namco Bandai Games