Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln. Quick! Place them in the order they appear on Mt. Rushmore from left to right!

That's the sort of thing that Brain Quest expects sixth graders to just rattle off the answer to. Apparently, sixth graders also know the symbols of the elements on the periodic table, what antonyms and homophones are, and the spelling of the medical term that refers to a low red blood cell count. All in all the games will offer more than 6000 questions in the categories of English, Math, History, Science, Geography, and Grab Bag. It's almost enough to renew one's faith in our educational standards!

The actual Brain Quest products are vertical flash cards with trivia questions (and answers) in several categories, and after playing EA's software incarnation of the property I can say that it's a surprising translation of the source material. Brain Quest, at its heart, is a pure trivia game aimed at specific grade levels (I played the 5th and 6th grade version of the DS game, but there's also a 3rd to 4th grade version). The trivia questions aren't all your standard issue multiple choice though. Some are, but the game quickly introduces you to multiple choice via images instead of words, matching four entries on the left to four entries on the right, re-arranging a list in order, or typing out a word or number answer. The game gives a brief tutorial on each method of answering a question if it's the first time your profile (one of four) has encountered it.

The video game threw these questions at me in rounds which never lasted more than five questions each, meaning that the play remained fast pace and well suited for a car ride or quick play session. But I rarely got all five questions right in a single round, and the game times players so that they can score anywhere from a maximum of 1000 points for a right answer to a minimum of 500 points for a slower, but still correct, answer. Players can jump right into questions, choosing any of the six categories and anywhere from one to five rounds.

They can also tackle the game competitively or cooperatively with another player! The competitive mode allows two players use the same DS and compare scores over several rounds: One player will answer a set of questions, then hand the DS to their opponent so they can tackle the very same questions. When I played this mode, my opponent and I got all the same answers correct, but I won by 100 points because I had taken slightly less time on one question and thus had scored slightly higher on that one instance. There's also a cooperative mode in which the players pass the DS between them, answering different sets of questions and getting their scores combined between the two of them. The points gained from answering questions are all saved on the game's profiles unless you opt to play as a guest.

Believe it or not, there's even a story mode! The single-player campaign gives each category a youthful theme. (Cars and auto-repair represent Science, but what surfing has to do with History is beyond me.) Players can easily switch between the six categories and the three characters (all kids) that each category features. Talking to a story character means answering a couple rounds of Brain Quest questions and getting a set score or number of questions right. Some characters actually send you on quests to talk to and complete the challenges of other characters in other categories. Admittedly, this is a thin layer of story that merely directs the player to different challenges on top of the trivia gameplay, but it works.

The themes that EA uses for each category can also be chosen as the player's personal theme, and players can use the points they earn from answering questions to purchase additional decals to place on the theme, which often shows up on the top screen and as the background in various modes. These decals aren't all available from the start though, they must first be unlocked by achieving certain goals like answering a certain number of questions from a category, answering five questions that are spelling or multiple-choice or some other specific type, or simply getting a certain number of points. The decals are also featured in the game's Sudoku mode.

Yes, Brain Quest has Sudoku as well. In fact, it plays 4X4 and 6X6 Sudoku, meaning that instead of having nine large squares, each with all of the numbers from one to nine in them, Brain Quest also offers simplified versions of the game where there's four large squares, each of which have only the numbers one to four. This easier, less daunting mode of Sudoku was ostensibly included for kids discovering the game for the first time, but I secretly harbor the suspicion that it's the parents of the target market who'll discover some use out of the mode as well. Surprisingly, this Sudoku mode doesn't use handwriting recognition, but instead pops up a number pad. Strangely enough, this felt really good, and quite convenient: why write a number physically when you can just tap it out on the screen? Even writing down notes in Sudoku felt natural using this method.

All in all, I was quite impressed: this really felt like the Brain Quest I remembered from my childhood, and was just as addictive. I'm not afraid to admit that even though I'm far beyond the sixth grade, I was still engrossed. I actually learned a few things too (I didn't know that apiology was the study of bees, did you?).

Just in case you were wondering, anemia often refers to a low red blood cell count, antonyms are words that mean the opposite thing, homophones are words that sound the same but mean different things, and on the periodic table, He is the symbol for helium. Oh, and the carvings on Mt. Rushmore are, from left to right, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. I'll admit, I had to look that last one up.