Garfield - Train Your Brain

It seems almost a recurring theme that everyone’s favourite childhood cartoon characters are being transferred to our mobile screens. Although Garfield’s been around for some time and has had quite a few different spin-off games made in his honour, it’s quite a cute idea having the furry feline training your brain.

In Garfield: Train Your Brain, you are given a number of different games to help challenge and develop your mental skills. In total there are over 20 fun games which fall into the categories of maths, logic, visual and memory tests.

If you do well at these tests, you are given not just a high score but you’re also going to be able to unlock mini-games which help keep the variety and interest flowing. Also if you want to test your brain against your friends or family you can in the ‘test mode’ which enables you to have a quick challenge to find the brainy one from the Odie of the group.

For me it’s a little bit funny having the sarcastic humoured cat, Garfield, giving you praise and more often than not, mock you for your mistakes. I actually liked this touch as with so many other mind-games out there which just say the pretty normal things; it injected some much needed fun which seems missing elsewhere.

This title doesn’t reinvent the wheel here, as the looks and indeed puzzles are all pretty standard stuff. The most refreshing thing to see is the appearance of Nermal, Odie, Pookie, John, Garfield and of course many others from the series.

The game’s broken into three zones, ‘training’ where you can improve your abilities in the above mentioned areas, ‘challenges’ where you are against the clock and can check your results with your friends and family, and ‘test’ where your training is tallied up to give you an overall total.

Despite these multiple modes, there’s no opportunity to review your progress achieved over time. Unlike other more serious games, you have to guess if you’re improving or holding steady in your mental skills. This is a bit of an oversight and for those of you looking to keep a record of your skills, but it’s not necessarily a total disaster – and perhaps it’s down to your mental powers you will be able to recall your progress anyway?!

On the plus side, you can set up four profiles – however, you can’t put info in such as age or gender (which can affect the IQ results etc.) Also you can’t upload and compare your scores with others online. Normally I’m not too keen on the option to upload scores but I feel it could have been a nice addition to the game.

Overall then, this is a brilliant game for fans of Garfield with his sarcastic humour and the cartoon graphics. The tests are pretty good and very fun to do. The downside is it’s not the most scientific and most thorough package.

Rating 82%

Positives

Quick to get into and addictive

Garfield’s wit and remarks are good as ever

The cartoon graphics captured perfectly

Unlockable levels for more fun

Negatives

You can’t compare your results with anyone but the 4 profiles

No option to track your progress