Get Ready for a Brain Strain

This game is definitely a strain on your brain. Especially if you're like me - the very mention of the words "brain" and "strain" gets me all psyched up to determine how quickly I can win any game where expert thinking is required.

But if you do decide to play Brain Strain from CleverMedia, be prepared in advance for a difficult game that takes time to catch on to. Here's the deal:

You're witnessing the creation of thoughts in a brain. They form piece by piece, in a variety of shapes and patterns. Your goal is to pull some thoughts together to form a chain. Once you've completed a thought, it disappears, making room for more partially completed thoughts to enter.

The tough part is that most of the thoughts require some serious manipulating to create a chain. You can't move a thought from one place to another, but you can rotate it in four directions. It's not too difficult to create a little square thought or two, but you'll quickly lose the game if you can't find a place for all of those big misshapen thoughts. It pays to ignore the little ones and focus on putting together the big ones.

As you put together thoughts, you score points. When the brain is completely full, the game ends.

This game is a little bit like one of those brain teasers where you have to arrange matches or toothpicks to form a specific pattern. The difference is that it goes much faster, and you have no idea what kinds of patterns you need to form.

Despite its difficulty, I really liked Brain Strain, and most of the games from CleverMedia, for that matter. This game isn't mindless and dull - it's a real challenge! And as usual with CleverMedia games, the graphics and sounds are good.