Brain training games are a relatively new creation, often promising to enhance the user’s cognitive skills by playing through a variety of games designed to test skills such as mathematics and memory. The majority of such games can be found online or through smart phone devices, but it makes sense, at a glance, to include one on a handheld gaming device that has several functions that could easily be implemented to an assortment of mini-games. What results in all of this is a collection of hit-and-miss “brain training” games and an unsurprisingly scanty amount of features to toy around with.
Unlike most actual games, Smart as… isn’t something meant to be picked up and played for several hours at a time. Instead, it starts out with but a few of its 20 games unlocked and available to play in Free Mode. The rest must be progressively unlocked by playing through Daily Training. This Daily Training mode takes a game from each category, or “lobe”, (Arithmetic, Language, Logic, and Observation) for the player to complete in the fastest time possible, scoring a percentage for each category and averaging them out for a “Brain Power Score”. Since each day only unlocks one more game to play in Free Mode, it takes at least a couple of weeks to unlock every mini-game, provided the user doesn’t skip the data ahead on their system. Although it requires some patience, unlocking each game is one of the more rewarding portions of the game.
The mini-games themselves range from fun to frustrating, with the worst part being that much of the frustration in certain games is entirely avoidable. Every game implements one feature of the Vita or another, though it’s usually just the touch screen. But even that leads to some of this aforementioned avoidable frustration. For instance, there are a couple of games where the user must quickly fill in a missing digit or letter, yet for some reason it was decided that it would be a great idea to take advantage of the Vita’s touch screen and have the user draw these letters or numbers out. Unsurprisingly, this results in the game misreading what the player wrote out quite often, robbing them of precious time. Another game makes forced use of the Vita’s rarely used gyroscope feature, leading to some extreme annoyance since the game requires moving blocks on certain spots. Oftentimes, the block or blocks will roll more than intended, ruining the entire run as a result. A final example is a game in which the player is given a bunch of letters of a word jumbled up, and they must be put in the correct order. Problematically, the letters are placed in a circle in which the player must spin around to view each letter, creating seriously unneeded issues in what should be a much simpler game.
Of course, not all of the games are annoying and/or frustrating. Nor are all the usage of the Vita’s features poorly executed. Smart as… is one of very few games to actually make use of the Vita’s AR Card, making for a couple of fairly interesting virtual reality-esque games. A handful of other games also make use of the camera, with one of the more unique ones being Live Jigsaw, where the player solves a puzzle of whatever the front or rear camera is viewing in real time. Even with the less desirable games, it’s worth it to play each game every day over a lengthy course of time to improve times and attempt to unlock the next difficulty, which occurs when earning three stars on the current level. Fortunately, five failed attempts on five different days will unlock the next level automatically. This slow, yet non time-consuming progression, actually makes for a great incentive to return to the game each day, even if for just a half of an hour or so.
A minor downfall of Smart as… is its feeble attempt to integrate social media into the game. Options to post results of a Daily Training session to Facebook or Twitter will be seen every time it is played. However, there are better online features, such as The Smart as World, which tries to gather data from people all over the world and compare their scores to yours. It’s definitely much more interesting than the social media garbage, but there’s also not a whole lot of data out there to collect as this isn’t exactly a popular game. Then there’s Street Smart, which is a weekly challenge that can be completed once per week for every city the player happens to be in. It’s as simple as playing three random games and earning up to nine stars based off performance, but it’s something to do once a week or just when there isn’t much left to do in the core game. Still, it’s odd that the game seems to be targeted towards an audience that regularly uses social media and travels frequently, which only further proves that Smart as… is simply a glorified mobile game.
In all, Smart as… isn’t exactly a deep brain exercising game, but seeing yourself improve in each game over time is enjoyable and somewhat rewarding. Much of the improvements will likely be a result of getting accustomed to some of the awkward design choices of a number of the games. While a good game overall because it’s something to look forward to playing for a brief duration each day, it still feels more like a tech demo for the Playstation Vita, especially given that it’s one of its earliest games. For those wanting to mess around with brain training games and wanting a more in-depth experience in that regard, there are likely better sources to fit suit what you’re looking for. At the least, there’s little reason to drop more than a few dollars on something that befits being an app on a mobile device.