Game Review: Brain Voyage for 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.