Having had no experience with brain training programs other than Brain Age, I have often wondered how such a genre would translate to a system, portable or otherwise, that did not have integral Nintendo DS features such as a touch screen to increase the software's accessibility factor. Midway Studios San Diego's Hot Brain for the PSP has set its aims to be the PSP's premiere brain training application by combining colorful graphics, a friendlier mentor character, and a wider variety of exercises.
It is Hot Brain's presentation that immediately distinguishes itself from Nintendo's sterile looking Brain Age program. Where Nintendo's application relied heavily on black and white graphics so as to not distract users from the tasks at hand, Hot Brain presents a science lab environment with rich, colorful graphics that relays a playful atmosphere. The overt contrasts in appearance seem to convey that Hot Brain is not being marketed as just as brain training program, but an actual video game as well. This is the aspect of the game I find most interesting, because it seems Hot Brain's video game appearance will do one of two things--entice those who see brain training games as edutainment and perhaps aren't interested in that, or it could be a turn off to certain age groups who favored applications such as Brain Age simply because it did not have the appearance of a video game.
After being introduced to professor Ed Warmer, voiced by Fred Willard of Best in Show and Anchorman fame, I went into Practice mode and was given the option to explore the laboratory, which consists of five different floors, each with a distinct education lab--Logic, Memory, Math, Concentration, and Language. Each lab contains three different exercises relevant to the lab's overall theme. Being a huge fan of logic puzzles and video games, I chose the Logic lab as the place to begin my brainy journey.
Sequencer, Shape Logic, and Back Seat Driver options greeted me as I stepped out of the facility's virtual elevator and into the lab. Priding myself on knowing the difference between a circle and a square, I decided to try out Shape Logic. Essentially boiling down to shape arithmetic, this challenge consists of two white squares sitting side by side. In each square is part of a shape, and the player must add or subtract the pieces in order to create a whole. For example, say our first square contains a small triangle in its upper half, and the second square has its second half filled in to depict a rectangle. The problem becomes, what does square 1 plus square 2 equal? Four different answers, each mapped to the PSP's square, circle, triangle, and X face buttons, are shown at the bottom of the screen. The goal is to press the correct face button as quickly as possible due to each test starting with a certain amount of time and counting down.The key to Shape Logic is to look at the objects held in both squares and determine what they would look like in a combined or subtracted state. A vertical rectangle in the left half of square 1 plus a tiny square held in the bottom right of square 2 equals an L shape. If the equation is the same shape in square 1 minus a small square in the bottom left or square two, the difference would be a small square in the upper left corner. It is simple in design, but the challenge lies in pressing the correct button quickly enough to get your brain all hot and bothered.
Hot brains are what the game is all about, after all. At the conclusion of every practice round or test, players will be given a brain temperature representing how well they fared in their particular challenge. The hotter the temperature, the better, and continually achieving high scores in the same test unlocks harder difficulty levels.
Sequencer, an aforementioned Logic test, has players filling in the fourth and final part of sequences involving different designs. Beginning at the bottom and rotating clockwise, three pictures are shown, with the rightmost left blank. Again using the PSP's face buttons, players must choose the correct pattern conclusion as quickly as possible in order to achieve a high brain temperature. As an example, say the bottom picture portrays two horizontal lines, the left picture shows the same lines but now moving diagonally from the upper left to the lower right corner, the upper picture depicts two perfect vertical lines. The last shape would be... two diagonal lines running from upper right to lower left.
Moving down to the Memory lab, I decided to try my hand at Scene of the Crime, an exercise which shows the player a picture of an object--a blue balloon, for example--and then shows that object among three others. The PSP face button corresponding to the correct object must be pressed in order for the next picture to be shown. The challenge level started off painfully low, as I was often shown a picture of a man reading a newspaper, and then had to pick him out of a ball, a sun, and a playschool block. However, subtlety dramatically increases the challenge when a picture of a gold key is shown with a black square keychain among pictures of keys with a red square keychain, a black circular keychain and a black key with a gold keychain. Another example is a black mailbox with a raised red flag shown against a mailbox with a lowered red flag, a mailbox with a raised red flag and mail sticking out of the slot, and so on. A careful eye is needed as the exercise progresses, though even at harder difficulty levels, I feel the correct image is shown for a bit too much time.Musical Memory is a challenge that boils down to a game of Simon Says. A group of certain objects are shown, each corresponding to one of the PSP's four face buttons. Let's use a cat, dog, sheep, and horse linked to square, X, circle, and triangle, respectively. As the challenge starts, a number is shown on the screen indicating the number of sounds that will be played. The cat meows, then the dog barks. To repeat the sequence, players would press square, then X. The tempo of the sounds does not have to be precise, just the order. Predictably, the order of sounds to remember gets higher as the challenge progresses. In a group of musical instruments, players might have to remember--trumpet, piano, piano, trumpet, drums, guitar, drums, drums, guitar.
Upon entering the Math lab, I decided to embark upon Cruise Ship, an exercise that has players count the number of passengers remaining on board a cruise ship after gaggles of them rapidly enter and leave. Of course, the correct number is linked to one of the PSP face buttons. High and Low asks players to put a group of four numbers, each linked to a different face button, in either ascending or descending order.
Language and everything it entails is by far my favorite subject, so I made my way down to the Language lab to see what exercises awaited me. Spelling Bee gives players four words, one of which is spelled incorrectly. Some words require a bit of scrutiny, as the challenge does an incredible job of choosing phonetic spellings for words such as "folical" and "follicle." Picto Rhyme was perhaps my favorite challenge out of the Language bunch. A picture is shown along with a group of words, one of which rhymes with the picture. The challenge in the challenge lies in correctly guessing exactly what the picture is so that a rhyming word can be chosen to match it. A picture of a flame comes grouped with the words "dire," "shine," "mare," and "deak." None of those rhymes with flame, so I instead guessed the picture as "fire," and sure enough, "dire" was the correct answer.
After arriving in the Concentration lab, I started with the Untangle exercise. A group of four objects are illustrated on the left side of the screen, with another group on the right. Leading from each object on the left to one object on the right is string lost in a mass of strings in the screen's middle. An arrow pointing to one of the objects on the left signifies that the player must follow that object's string and determine which picture on the right is connected to it.
Hot Brain has a lot of potential, and I am eager to see what age group takes the most interest in the game. However, though I enjoyed the time I spent with the game, I began to notice a disturbing trend that might hamper Hot Brain's overall fun factor. Every exercise boils down to simple button presses. Some exercises have players are putting numbers in descending order; some times they are following a sequence of animal noises; other times they are trying to remember the number of passengers remaining on a ship. Regardless, everything boils down to simply pressing a button, with several exercises feeling like rehashed editions of Simon Says. True, every exercise has different stipulations that force players to think not about the buttons they will be pressing, but about solving different logic, mathematics, and language puzzles, among other types. However, I eventually grew tired of pressing buttons over and over, no matter the theme.Something else to think about in conjunction with my curiosity over the game's marketing is how older people will take to a game that revolves around pressing buttons. My mother is terrible at video games, yet she enjoyed the brief amount of time she spent with my copy of Brain Age due to the ease of writing answers with a pseudo-pencil, something she does every day.
Yes, it is a valid point to say that both Hot Brain and Brain Age are on different systems and therefore should not be pitted against each other, but I counter that point with this one--they belong to roughly the same genre, and for those gamers who have both a PSP and a DS and happen to be looking for a brain training program, the differences and most importantly, the accessibility factor, should be known and understood.
Hot Brain will be available for the PSP on June 18, 2007.
