The DS has been going from strength to strength ever since it’s release, thanks mainly to games such as Brain Training which helps it appeal to a wide range of people. Well it seems that Sega has now noticed this and decided that they want a piece of this educational pie as well, so will the release of Brain Assist help them steal some of the stylus tapping public from the dominance of Nintendo?

Brain Assist is a very simple game, it consists of ten mini-games that are designed to stimulate the right hemisphere of the brain. The game is presented by four nurses, who help guide you through each game, they are basically there to motivate you and should you be faltering will come out with quotes such as “Is that the best you can do?”, which of course is highly motivating stuff.

The game offers two modes of play for you to sink your teeth into, first off there is the classic evaluation mode, which much like Brain Training gives you a score based on your performance. The are two types of evaluation, first off there is the Panel and 3D evaluation which concentrates on your concentration and reflexes while the other concerns itself with Numbers & Shapes, giving you something to think about.

The other mode is single game mode, this gives you access to all of the 10 games available and they are quite varied, games such as Character Hunt where you must match the two characters, starts off quite simple with only three squares, two of which hold the same character and then gets a lot more difficult with the number of squares increasing substantially, other games include things like count mania, where the numbers 1 to 30 are scrambled across the screen and it is your task to find them, in order and as quickly as possible. Most of the games offer a decent challenge in the later levels, when a evil nurse pops up promising to give you more of a challenge, but there aren’t really enough of them.

Just to add some incentive for you to return, should your score reach the requirements you will then be given the choice of a icon and placed on the leaderboard, this obviously should then give you the motivation to return to the game at a later date and try to beat your score, which lets face it is usually the case with games such as these.

One of the good things to come out of Brain Assist is the compatibility mode, if you have access to another Nintendo DS, you are able to link the systems and play using only the one cartridge, in this way you can play a co-op evaluation test which comprises of four stages, the first two are played in turns, while the second two are played cooperatively, it’s a great feature and good competitive fun.

Graphically the game is certainly nothing special, the games all look quite basic and so do the characters which are included, the sound is also quite basic but does it’s job, after all this game is not about being flash, it’s more about focusing on challenging you and blowing a bit of the dust off your brain.

Brain Assist is nothing groundbreaking, but as someone said to me “it’s minigames are short and therefore fun to pick up and play”. If you are looking for a game that you can pick up and play occasionally just to give you a little bit of a challenge then this is an ideal title, however don’t expect it to grace your DS very often.