Dr Reiner Knizia's Brain Benders

Dr Reiner Knizia's Brain Benders - (DS)
Developer: Razorback
Format: DS
Genre: Puzzle

A world tour for your mind

Once you've got over the creepy realisation that in the top screen Dr Knizia guides and cajoles you looking like a slightly hungover Jimmy Carr, you'll be in for a relatively new spin on the brain game formula. The good doctor's aim is to take you on a dizzying world tour, taking in the big cities and their respective big problems and tutoring your grey mush up to the level of a Mensa genius. That's the theory anyway. Broken down, it means train spotting in Mumbai, carnival dancer loading in Rio, building an enigma machine in Berlin and sorting out the financial mess at the Bank of England.

Jolly good fun it is too. The graphics are cute rather than cringeworthy and the level of the game challenging rather than embarrassing. Each mini game awards medals and points and cash prizes; vital for unlocking further outings to allow you to try to increase your virtual intelligence. And there's enough shift in locations and novelty ideas (Vegas card games, a Parisian Louvre museum alarm system, a labyrinth at Knossos) to keep you interested, but rather less league table matching with your friends than you get on other well-known brain training titles.

And all the while the Dr tags along, sunbathing as you count fish in Cape Town or swigging cocktails as you play the stakes in a casino. He's like having an annoying but ultimately fun friend tugging at your shoulder.

Stylus control works fine here and if you're looking for a twist on a well-worn formula, then get your neurons around this. Just don't expect any huge leap of intellectual advancement in gameplay.

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