Day 78, Game 78 - Smart As...

Well, I think I found it. I think I found my game to play daily, just to keep my brain refreshed and engaged in an actual educational exercise. I wrote about how I tried the Brain Age game on the original DS, and it sparked my interest in finding a good game like that, only modernized. Well, mission complete, as they say ... whoever "they" is.

I got Smart As... from Gamefly, the PS Vita's answer to the Brain Age series. And while I've had my doubts, especially with the tagline of "the socially networked brain game," I wanted to do my due diligence and give it a fair shake. I played it for the first time Sunday, and now two days later, I am still playing it daily.

Sure, it is only two days later, but with my ADD and the massive amount of games I am trying to get through, the fact that I was actually compelled to pick it up for the daily evaluation game, and not just for the prerequisite to make this blog post tonight, says a lot about the game. Also, I find myself exploring the new training games as I unlock them, not just ignoring them, which is refreshing. To me, that shows me that I am playing it because I am enjoying it, not because I feel obligated to.

It feels weird to admit, but some of these mini-games are actually pretty hard, especially when you start upping the difficulty levels. I suppose that's what it's intended to do, and the more you practice them, the better you become. I'm also fascinated by stats that show which games and categories I am best at, which ones I need improvement on and even my progress in my training, especially in the ones I struggled with at first.

Also, it has trophies, and they basically pop for just playing the game. Each mini-game has three stars and personal high scores as well as Near capabilities to grab other people's high scores. Oh, and the game legitimately is attached to social media, as they have options to post to Facebook or Twitter to brag about your training or your scores to all your friends and followers. Of course, I don't want to be that guy to spam my feeds with video game accomplishments that are auto-generated. I like my people too much than to make them suffer from that.

So yeah, we will see how long it goes. I'll keep it a while, especially while I am on vacation and see how dedicated I stay to the routine. If I keep it up past that, maybe I will just have to buy it, if only to keep my sharp and focused as I slip farther and deeper into madness from writing this blog. Wish me luck!

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