Brain Voyage for the Nintendo DS
Brain Voyage by Dr. Reiner Knizia is an average mini game puzzle set that uses tried and sometimes true games and puzzles to entertain and stimulate those brain cells.
Ratings: Graphics & Audio: 15/25, Gameplay: 10/25, Creativity 8/25, Fun 16/25
Total: 49/100
Although Dr Reiner Knizia is a professor of mathematics and a game developer he has not really come up with anything new or creative with Brain Voyage. Brain Voyage by publisher Eidos is a collection of puzzle games designed by others in the past and redone a bit to make them their own. The same tried and true games such as minesweeper, Mastermind and Yahtzee are redone and given a makeover for this collection of mini games.
Brain Voyage does a campaign style mini game using cash earned from solved puzzles to earn higher levels of the same puzzles as well as opening up new puzzles. The game starts you off in a World Tour mode, Random Puzzle or Puzzle Bank; the first two are sort of self explanatory while the Puzzle Bank allows you to play games you have already done and saved.
The World Tour has you selecting locations around the world and giving you a themed puzzle according to this location. The puzzles themselves are just knockoffs of world famous ones like mine sweeper and Mastermind with a twist. They have changed the puzzles enough to call them their own and not get into legal trouble but if you own a computer you probably have seen many of these on the list of free games that usually come with a new PC.
All the games are short and are not all that challenging and one is just plain math with a time limit, not much fun to me. You can say that Brain Voyage is a collection of mini games developed to keep your brain working and challenged but in fact the game is just not that fun, a quick game of solitaire on your PC would be better.
The World Tour starts off with four available locations and puzzles and when you earn enough money you can unlock others. You can also earn awards that don’t amount to anything as well as high score to brag about the to those who have played against you. The entire game is okay and to play through all of it will take some time but the game is not that interesting to bother playing for more than an hour or so.
Once you have played all the games once you will be pretty much set on how to play and the difficulty levels simply introduce more to each puzzle for things like how many objects in the ice for the mine sweeper game type. The games difficulty introduces more things to do, find or be bothered with like the card matching game where they simply add four more pairs of cards to match instead of the six you start out with.
The Brain Voyage graphics are fine for the handheld system but the top screen always has a cartoon drawing of Dr. Knizia on it that adds to the rather silly gaming. Several times in the introductions and the gaming he applauds himself on the new games he has devised and created to tax your minds but they are simply remakes of other games. This back patting does not make a better game but simply adds to the confusion when you are searching for these great puzzles and mind exercises.
Although the games are fine and play well they are simply remakes of others and for someone to go over the same gaming ground and make such a fuss over the new games he has created is silly. This is a collection of mini games that have been around for awhile, some even before computers, and just reinvents them.
Brain Voyage is really not worth bothering with as you can find the better brain teasing games for the same cost on the Nintendo DS.