On a continuing quest to sharpen my dull wits and activate those sleepy brain cells, I find the Brain Age-styled puzzle “games” to be a refreshing addition to the Nintendo DS lineup of titles. Unfortunately, the majority of the recently released “brain training” titles offer some educational value but no real challenge and very little creativity. The result is a title like Best of Tests DS, a collection of tedious memory and test puzzles that will surely insult your intelligence.

To be fair, though, Best of Tests DS has it’s heart in the right place despite the fact that it does very little to separate itself from the recent string of titles much like it. It set out to be a title about testing your memory while offering a number of verbal and puzzles you might find in a standardized grade school exam but seldom does it feel fresh or fun. Like other Brain Age imitator, Best of Tests even tries tallies up your overall score to calculate your I.Q. It does, but it’s sadly unimpressive.

The game is broken up into three segments: Intelligence Tests, Memory Tests and Practice. Each game type comes with three difficulty settings as well as a choice of length for each exam. The problem is that you are forced to start at the Easy difficult setting and work your way to the Medium setting. It’s tedious going thought the number of easy questions just to get to the more advanced exams.

Intelligence Tests contains a series of word-related puzzles such as anagrams and word association puzzles. Unscrambling words of names of birds or pick out the word that doesn’t go with a group of related words is fun but it never gets any better than what is featured here. There’s a virtual keyboard that pops up allows you to spell out the word with your Stylus. In the Medium difficulty setting the anagrams get longer and the word association questions offer a few more words to mix you up a bit but it’s hardly a huge difference from the Easy setting.

The Memory Tests are a tad more fun than the Intelligence Test questions. Here you’ll be attempting to match dominos by tapping on the appropriate number of dots on each domino piece as the sample that flashed on the screen. You’ll be shown a number of drawings and you’ll be asked to pick out the pair or the image that really sticks out. You’ll be rearranging images out of sequence by sliding said images with your Stylus as well as insert the missing image shape in a sequence. You’ll even have to memorize a string of numbers and type in each number on the virtual keyboard.

Practice mode gives you the best of both worlds - so to speak - in order to prepare you for the Intelligence and Memory Tests. This, of course, is unnecessary seeing as all the questions and puzzles are far too easy. Really, these puzzles wouldn’t even stump a first grader. Even the math questions (e.g. 5 X ? = 50) will hardly challenge a mathematic inept fool like me. There’s very little else to the game so if you’re expecting extra modes you are out of luck. There isn’t even an option to replay a favorite puzzle.

And what is up with the creepy disembodied head of the cartoon-like Professor (or so this is what the instruction manual calls him)? He doesn’t even offer any insight other than the text dialogue that explains each puzzle. He does give you an approving look when you give the right answer and what looks to be a disappointed look when you don’t.

The game does have a pretty interface, though, and it’s colorful enough to stand out better than those Left Brain training games. The Professor that floats above on the top screen rarely moves so don’t expect any animation and the drawings are Ok. There’s also something of a soundtrack and it’s all cheesy music best suited for a dentist’s office.

Best of Tests DS is a poorly conceived and unchallenging title that misses its mark completely in the I.Q. department. This handheld title rarely even accurately measures how well you did just like it says on the back of the packaging. That said, going through the puzzles the first time around in Easy mode is fine but going through them again just makes us wish we were running our Stylus pen for Nintendo’s Brain Age title instead. If you’re looking for challenging and fun puzzles to offer your young gamer, this is certainly not the title to buy.

Gameplay: 2.5
The memory and intelligence test puzzles never really change at all so don’t expect to see Sodoku or a variety of other nifty puzzles. At least the touch screen is utilized somewhat but not in a real creative way.

Graphics: 4.5
The colorful interface and puzzle pieces look pretty good on the DS screen. The floating Professor head only has two emotions: pleased and disapproving. That’s all there really is to the graphics.

Sound: 2.5
The elevator music is soothing at times and other times it will annoy anyone within earshot. People will ask: “Is that John Tesh you’re listening to on your DS?”

Difficulty: Easy
Letter sequence puzzles and matching dominos from memory is right up my alley in terms of puzzles that give your memory a workout but in Best of Tests DS they hardly ever really challenge. In fact, all the puzzles in the other difficulty setting never really advance in difficulty.

Concept: 2.0
One of the things that made Brain Age so good is that it not only challenged but also - in its own way - entertained the mind. One or two good puzzles don’t make a game and forcing players to go through the Easy level is a pain.

Overall: 2.5
Jumping on the bandwagon of the successful DS brain-twister games, Best of Tests DS is easily one of the most horrible attempts at making education fun. There’s very little here to challenge a first grader and the memory games are just way too insulting. Brain Age still the intelligent choice so avoid this one at all costs.