SPB Brain Evolution 2 for Windows Mobile Review

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A couple of years ago I got hooked on the original SPB Brain Evolution. It is a “brain training” game that helps you improve your brain skills in a variety of areas.

The original Brain Evolution was fun and had a lot of different games, but the graphics were very simplistic, and the overall look left something to be desired.  Still, the game received a lot of awards and was a bestseller in 2008!

Now we have SPB Brain Evolution 2. Improvements in appearance and usability have clearly been made. How does it do? Let’s take a look!

Let’s start off with a little review. Brain training games are designed to improve your mental prowess. In the case of Brain Evolution 2, they focus on 5 areas: short term memory, pattern recognition, mathematical skills (calculation), logic, and path-finding. Brain Evolution 2 has 12 games designed to strengthen your skills in these areas.  For those that aren’t familiar with the original Brain Evolution, I should point out that BE includes a Sudoku game and a Minesweeper game – both excellent parts of the package!

So now let’s look at what’s new.

Main-Menu

First – the overall look and feel of the game is improved. The menus are smoother, more finger friendly. The game has a much more refined and polished look to it. The trend toward finger-friendly devices is evident in the way the interface of this game works. Some games, like Quadronica, still play a little better with a stylus, but overall Brain Evolution 2 has dramatically improved it’s look and feel over BE 1.

Pairs

Geometry

Next – there are two new games added to the mix, Pairs and Geometry. Pairs is just as you expect – you flip over tiles, two at a time, until you find all the matches.  Geometry focused on pattern recognition.

Publish

Lastly – they have focused a bit on the online aspects of the game. Building on the idea of user profiles, you can same your high scores online, and there is even Twitter support built into the game now! I’m personally not a big user of twitter, but for many people this will add a new depth of play and sharing to the mix.

Intresting-Facts1

The game still presents you with interesting trivia as you successfully reach your goals.

Guess-Who

What I Liked: I really like the new interface. The game now seems highly polished and professional. The previous version was fun, but it felt like and educational game in that many educational games feel like not enough time or effort is spent on the user interface. In BE2, they clearly spent time on this and the results are excellent, in my opinion.

Quadronica

What could use Improvement: Not much, but if I had to pick something, now I might try to make a few games themselves a little more finger friendly, but don’t misunderstand – the games are playable by finger – but some play better using a stylus. Maybe having an option that turns on/off that changes the focus from stylus-firendly to finger-friendly. I don’t know – it’s hard to offer improvements to a great game like this!

Statistics

Overall: The newly updated Brain Evolution 2 is an updated version of the original Brain Evolution – SPB didn’t mess with the formula. This is an excellent thing since the original was so good! They really improved things that were originally a little rough and they recognized the trend toward finger-friendliness. The overall result is that the game has a nicer, more polished feeling. They did an excellent job and made one of my favorite games even more fun to play! I highly recommend it!

SPB Brain Evolution is available from the SPB website for $19.95, or you can get it for 15% off in the Gear Diary Software store with the code GDFallTweets.

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About the Author

Christopher Gavula
Chris has been a COBOL programmer, a desktop support technician, network engineer, telecommunications manager, and even a professional musician. Currently, he is focused on deploying Voice over IP technologies in a large, corporate setting. He started working full-time at the tender age of 14, even before there were PCs, and will probably be working and trying to finish “just one more project” as he’s lowered into the grave.

1 Comment on "SPB Brain Evolution 2 for Windows Mobile Review"

  1. Gadget Freaks | September 28, 2009 at 3:53 am |

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