Handheld
(DS) Brain Buster Puzzle Pak
By George Damidas
Jul 12, 2007, 7 :02 am

It’s hard being a compilation puzzle title these days, what with Nintendo sewing the genre up with Brain Age and Big Brain Academy. Like most DS owners though, I’ve played through Nintendo’s offerings more times than I can remember – I only missed a day, Dr.! Just one day! Don’t look at me like that! – and am ready to spread my logic puzzle wings. Enter: a ton of titles. More specifically, Midway’s Brain Buster Puzzle Pack, a compilation of four puzzles built around the foundation of Sudoku.

Instead of being a mere collection of menus, Brain Buster attempts to add a bit more character by allowing gamers to create custom avatars. After entering in a name and selecting a face, it’s off to a campus setting that acts as the game’s world map. Each building on campus corresponds with a mode, with one for training and one for each of the five different puzzles: Sudoku, Kakuro, Slitherlink, Light On, and Nurikabe. Each game has an initial set of 50 puzzles with another unlockable set. There are also unnamed buildings on the campus that house Board Puzzles, which are puzzles that involve putting together pieces received from beating certain puzzles throughout the various games and unlocking the scenes as wallpaper when put together properly. There is also the hidden bonus Color Therapy as well.

Each puzzle is given tutorials, two of which are very similar, that involve learning the basics of the games and then going through while a non-playable character details what is going on. The tutorials were desperately needed in my case - I’m wasn’t terribly familiar with any of the puzzles here – and, despite being slightly stiff and basic, did an adequate job of acclimating me to the various games very quickly.

As far as the games themselves go, Sudoku, the immense popularity of which continues to escape me, involves filling in 3x3 cells with numbers 1-9 without repeating the numbers in either column or row; in the end there can only be one representative number out of the nine in all rows and columns. It’s a tricky game, there’s no doubt about that, but it’s already readily available in other titles (e.g. Brain Age) and I still don’t find it all that enjoyable.

Slitherlink is said to be the next hot ticket. This puzzle involves a grid punctuated with dots at intervals with numbers in some of the blank squares formed by the formation of the dots. The game is won by connecting the dots and making a giant loop, but the trick is that there can only be as many lines near the number on the grid as its numerical value. So, for instance, if there is a 3 a blank and then a 2, there can only be two lines near the 2, then run a line across the blank, then try to make 3 lines around the 3. This can be extremely difficult and is one of the trickier games in the pack. It’s a pretty addictive puzzle, that’s for sure.

Kakuro is another puzzle that can be a little difficult and it involves matching up numbers within a grid to equal the numbers on surrounding blocks, without repeating the numbers. It might seem easy to put 3 and 1 as 4, since 2 and 2 would be repeating it isn’t a viable option, but that can interfere a row that is running horizontal that has to equal 20. It’s easy to get stuck on this one, but a pattern tends to emerge fairly quickly, and there’s a chart showing combinations for some of the numbers to give a little assistance.

The last two puzzles, Light On and Nurikabe are ridiculously easy. Light On involves lighting up a grid by putting orbs around squares equal to the number on the square, but without having more than one light on the same line. Nurikabe is similar in that you have to place black squares around white squares equal to the number on the white squares, but this one requires that the black squares both form a continuous line and not be bunched together; if four squares are placed with on top of another and the pair side by side, the formation with turn red and you cannot win. Now with the rest of the games, there tends to be some easy part to start off, normally but putting really obvious chunks on the board – e.g. a 4 on a square means you have a nice chunk of that board accounted for – but it really goes overboard here. I blew through these in no time.

During a round, small objects will make their way onto the screen, be it an asteroid or a fish or whathaveyou. The destruction of these will result in answer balls. Choosing an answer ball and then a spot on any of the puzzles will show what that tile should be. It takes three objects to be destroyed (touched with the stylus) for one answer ball, and it’s tempting to blow through them all on a tricky puzzle, so luckily there are plenty of opportunities to earn more.

The main problem with Brain Buster is that it ends too quickly. There are a handful of different games to choose from, but a lot of the boards are very easy. I’m a self-proclaimed novice and had little trouble chewing my way through them in no time. Granted, there are randomly generated puzzles in training mode, but those don't go towards your point total or towards earning goodies. There were also recognition problems, with my taps on icons often not being recognized, and that is even more of a hassle considering that the score is based on time.

Overall: 6/10