Review Conditions
SPB Brain Evolution was installed on a Nokia E71, an S60 3rd edition FP1 device.
Installation
Installation of the .sis file is straightforward, using the Nokia Application Installer in the Nokia PC Suite.
First View
Its not often that we get the rude shock of being reminded that we actually are not as smart as we think we are? SPB Brain Evolution lets you know that and also helps you get better with this engaging game. On the way, you can learn some interesting facts of the world too. Read on.
Main Review
Brain Marking
To begin with, Brain Evolution will evaluate or ‘mark’ your brain skills using a few games and show a progress chart that ranges from school boy to PhD. You have to go through 5 simple tests to set your brain status at a particular level. You can revisit the Brain Marking capsule and take the tests again to check how much you have improved with the training. The Marking History shows your progress and the number of times you have taken the test. 
Brain Training
Then Brain Evolution trains your brain using 10 mini-games of memory, logic, arithmetic and puzzle-solving challengers which increase in difficulty levels. Not all of these mini-games are available for you to train from day one. Except 4 of them, all are locked. You can open them up for training once you raise your difficulty level in the unlocked games. Getting a high score raises your difficulty level and , it automatically opens up the new games. The tough part is that there is a time penalty (for being slow) and you also lose points if you make mistakes. The mini-games care grouped under 3 different categories as:
1. Logic
- Sudoku – the usual, but with very little blank spaces; is easy but to score well, you need to solve this very fast;
- Quadronica – Find four corners of a square, all with the same colors – was a tough one for me; but am slowly getting the hang of it.
- Matches – haven’t unlocked it yet
2. Orientation and Pattern
- Minesweeper – haven’t unlocked it yet – must be the classic from Windows
- Balltracker – haven’t unlocked it yet
- Guess Who – haven’t unlocked it yet
3. Memory and Calculation
- Numbers – Tough to figure it out in the beginning but enjoyed it later on; was easy after playing it a few times;
- Memorics – Can’t understand what this word means
You have to remember shapes on specific cells on a grid and its gets complicated when some of the the shapes are colored and animated;
- Encyclopedia – haven’t unlocked it yet
- Arithmetic – simple addition and subtraction but you can make mistakes easily
The four games that are not locked are Arithmetic, Quadronica, Memorics and Sudoku. Brain Training limits training to only a few games a day. So if you play more games on the same day, the results of the games have no effect on the training process. This is probably designed to ensure that you don’t get through to a higher difficulty levels because of you intimate familiarity of the game because of playing it over and over on a single day but actually because your skill has improved over many days of practice.
At the end of training, you get game statistics and some cool facts. You could get a ‘Nobel Prize’ in Brain Marking and a ‘Training Complete’ certificate for completing Brain Training. You can also track the number of days you trained, (Training History) and check your improvements using Marking History.
Though Brain Evolution is not a multi-player game, many profiles are allowed. Thus you can let your friends and partners play the game and compare your skills and intelligence.
Handling
Brain Evolution has a simple and easy to use interface. But it looks so un-S60 like. It seems like you are running it on an emulator. Every menu can be activated using a number or the special character #.
Weaknesses
The application occupies a 5 MB of memory when its running. But with nearly 60 mega bytes of memory available at startup, this is not something to bother about. Exiting the application sometimes freezes the screen for a few seconds. More so when there are many applications open. The typical S60 look and feel isn’t there and this may put off a few people. But these are very minor issues and I do not see them as weaknesses.
Conclusion
Its obvious that each mini-game by itself wouldn’t interest the average game-lover. But putting together many similar puzzle and logic games and creating a goal-oriented a game for improving the brain skills along with training plans, unlocking of games with improved skills, progress charts, etc make for a very engaging game play. Brain Evolution is a highly recommended. I’ll give it a 4 of 5. It can be downloaded for trail or purchased here.
