Touch4 for the iPod Touch is a free version of Connect Four. The game is simple to learn - but lots of fun to play! You can choose your color, choose the level of your opponent or even play with a friend.



If you haven't played connect 4 before, you have a grid that sits vertically. You drop circular game pieces into a given horizontal chute. It either goes to the bottom of the grid if it's the first piece in that chute, or it sits on top of the previous chip if there was another one sent in before. Your aim is to get four pieces in a row either vertically, horizontally or diagonally.

This is a great logic puzzle. Each person takes turns putting in their pieces, blocking each other, trying to wait until they can finally get that fourth piece in place. In a way it's like tic-tac-toe, but with far more challenge and variety.

I like that you can set the difficulty of your enemy, and that you can use an unusual board size. I do wish you could have multiple colors or grid colors. It couldn't be that hard to add the customization, and it would add fun just like customizing your chess pieces or mahjongg tiles in other games adds to the fun.

You can either drag your circle pieces to their chosen channel or you can just click on the channel itself, so either way works well. There isn't a lot of dexterity required here. The challenge is all mental - testing your brain, watching the entire board.

With all the specialized brain-training games that exist, sometimes it's important to look back at classic games that help keep your brain sharp without having to shout about it. Touch4 - just like Connect 4 - is a great game to play daily and get your brain tuned and active in a logical way.

The sound is a basic "click click" so that could have been fun too - to have gongs, or chimes, or other types of noises.

Still, it's free! If you pay you can have the ads stop, but they only come up in between games and really aren't trouble at all.

Highly recommended!

Buy the iPod Touch 8 gig from Amazon.com