Hot Brain

by Midway

Product Features

• Voiced by Fred Willard (Best in Show, Anchorman) will guide, tutor and encourage the player throughout the game
• Five challenging categories with hundreds of timed challenges in each that test your brain powers in logic, memory, math, language and concentration
• Fire up your mind with four main game modes including two multiplayer modes (Brain Race and Think Tank) and two single player modes (Test Mode and Practice)
• Controls are simple and intuitive, and are geared toward fast-reaction gameplay. Each potential answer to a given Challenge is mapped to a controller button, allowing even a novice PSP system user to start playing immediately
• Think Tank is a cooperative multiplayer event where 2-4 players work together to solve Challenges and raise the temperature of the 3D brain onscreen, until it reaches critical mass

Product Details

• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B000O5DRJ2
• Item Weight: 1.6 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: June 18, 2007
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #17,954 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #8 in Video Games > Sony PSP > Puzzle
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Hot Brain: Fire Up Your Mind is guaranteed to raise the activity and temperature of your brain. Challenging, fun mental activities help ignite your mind in areas like logic, memory, math, language and concentration. Test your skills in several single player modes or you can play with up to three people via ad-hoc connection. Whether you're an expert or a beginner, a robust tutorial mode makes the game accessible and enjoyable to people of all ages. Test Mode quizzes the player in each of the fi ve categories. The player is given a score for each category and an overall performance score. Players try to get their brain to be On Fire

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great Intentions - but Bad Navigation, September 18, 2007

By 

Lisa Shea "medieval swordfighting enthusiast" - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

= Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Hot Brain (Video Game)

Hot Brain for the PSP falls into the category of Brain Age and other puzzle / brain testing games. You practice with a bunch of mini-games, then you take a test to see just how hot your brain really is. While it can be fun, there isn't enough variety to make it the long term draw that Brain Age is.

First, the basics. You're in a brain lab where testing has shown that the more you use your brain, the more blood flow that goes through it. It makes sense, and I like this concept MUCH more than the bizarre ideal that "everyone should want to have a 20-year-old brain" that Brain Age supports. A well exercised brain is a healthy, happy and functional brain.

There are five categories of brain tests and exercises for you to play with. You can play with logic, memory, math, language and concentration. The types of games you play are pretty typical for this type of game. You play Simon type remember-the-sequence games. You look at a series of shapes and figure out what comes next. You choose numbers in order of low to high. You alphabetize words.

I think we have really been spoiled by the Brain Age series, though. Many of the Brain Age games are really fun to play. I admit some I dislike, but most are good. Here, though, they are all pretty boring. I like the shape assembly game, and the yarn following game is fun enough, but many of the others just aren't fun. In fact, one - the "what rhymes with this shape" - provides shapes that are completely unrecognizable! How can I tell what rhymes with an object I can't identify?

Another problem, oddly enough, is the graphics. At first I was really impressed by the graphics and was thinking I would love the game because of it. Brain Age is notoriously poor on graphics. But after playing for a while, it became clear that in many cases the graphics are just there for the sake of being there - and added a LOT of loading time that was completely unnecessary.

Let's say I wanted to work on concentration games. So I'd go through a sequence of clicks and loading screens to see the elevator going down to that "floor" - and images of rotating brains and so on to get to a game. Once I finish the game, it sends me back to the main level - and I have to do the entire sequence again to get to another test! I looked for ways to turn off these cut scene sequences and couldn't find any. You're just stuck with them.

Also, Brain Age really encourages you to come back daily. It has daily charts and graphs, welcome messages, and more. There are fun, random, creative daily puzzles that you want to come back and see the results of. You can compare your results with friends playing on the same machine, which encourages a friendly competition.

You don't have any of that here. You do have a graph of your overall brain heat over time, but that's it. The most you can do is retake a given mini-game to try to better your score in it. But it's not easy to scan them to see what you want to work on. Never mind that you'd have to trudge through various loading screens to get there.

There was a huge amount of potential here. If they'd tested some more, they might have realized how old those loading screens get after a while, added more multi-person comparisons, and jazzed up the games a bit. I suppose if you have a PSP and not a DS, this is certainly better than nothing. Maybe with luck they'll come out with a sequel that builds on this base and adds in the other functionality.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars PSP Hot Brain Game, June 6, 2009

By 

Steve A. Pelon "Madbosn" (Illinois) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Hot Brain (Video Game)

Great game. Had to learn how to maneuver around the long introductions to get to the game but overall fun, educational, and great to play.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Just what I expected, or maybe more., January 29, 2008

By 

Alion Levkin (Mexico D.F.) - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Hot Brain (Video Game)

I was serching for a game that could keep me hours playing it, and that also made me feel like something in my mind was getting better.

Obviously, it has no story, and the 3D graphics aren't shown all the time you play, but it gets your brain to work, and if you have the chance to let someone else to play, you start comparing yourself and working hard to makeit better.