Pocket Gamer for all you younger dudes.
September 4th 2008 01:01
Signature Tune
We at Pocket Gamer are all too happy to bask in the ever-flowing rivers of content that the digital entertainment world has to offer. Forever ingesting the good and spewing out the bad along the lay-bys of the digital highway, we don't often have to stop to consider how much of it we actually remember. Now that everyday stimulation is constantly renewing itself with a shiny new face, almost daily in fact, we're in danger of forgetting to remember any of it.
We could suggest a return to old values, where 'you'll get what you're given, it won't be much, and you'll damn well like it', but that doesn't sound like much fun. Instead, we'll give AMA's memory training game a go.
It may be a brain training game at heart, but Memory Booster takes a different tack from other luminaries of the genre like Brain Genius and Brain Challenge. Sure, it still features a selection of mini-games, but a significant proportion of the game is text-based, offering tips on both abstract and contextualised uses for memory techniques, such as in exams. Most of it will appear obvious to anyone who has briefly looked into these techniques before, but it's all sound stuff based on visualisation and the breaking-down of information.
You can read up on this in the 'Learn' section, accessible from the main menu. However, juicy memory tips are also unlocked as you play through the games. The first of these is 'Figures'. Here, you need to remember a series of numbers or letters. To start with, it's just a series of three you need to remember, but the sequence increases with each round.
Similarly 'Objects' asks you to remember a series of objects, from stilletos to red chillis. Both games are played against a time limit, and finishing a round quickly will get you extra points. Points are reasonably important too as you need to collect a certain number to unlock the final game, 'Pairs'. This is a familiar game of matching similar symbols, which you turn over and uncover two at a time.
One to remember?
Product: Memory Booster
Developer: AMA
Publisher: AMA
Format: Mobile
Genre: Casual, Puzzle
Players: 1
Format: J2ME
File size: 473KB
Version: Europe
by Simon Briggs
The games are hardly imaginitive, but they are helped along a little by the relative seriousness of Memory Booster. As the various sequences get longer, trying out some of the suggested techniques does begin to pay off with some satisfying and contemplative 'Ah!'-inducing moments. As such, although the gameplay doesn't match the better brain training games on mobile, Memory Booster still has an unusual educational quality.
The presentation is rather unusual too, as the game appears to be set in some sort of sci-fi airport, while your memory mentors look like trolley dollies pinched straight out of a trailer from the Fifth Element. It's all seems a little odd to begin with, but at least Memory Booster manages to distinguish itself from the colourful cartoon avatars we're all used to.
If you're genuinely serious about learning advanced memory techniques, we're not entirely convinced a mobile game is the best place to go for tutoring. However, if this appeals and you're a beginner, you could probably learn a thing or two from Memory Booster. More rounded and longer-lasting brain training games are available, though.
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