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Big Brain Academy Review
Written by Robert Falcon on Wednesday, June 7, 2006
Great premise; fun mini-games; multiplayer rocks.
Can't track your progress thoroughly; rating system's open-and-shut.
So how many of you have actually sat down and played a round of Brain Age? Nintendo really had a great idea going here with this game release, a simulation exercise that actually made you feel smarter as you played it, even if you brain age sat in the stone age section in terms of ratings. Hey, that's why you keep playing, to get smarter. Now, Nintendo continues upon the theme with a completely different kind of brain-stretching exercise, Big Brain Academy, and although it does have some merits to justify its $20 price tag, there's a couple of snags that keep it from being an all-out graduate.
The main game is divided into three modes- practice, test, and versus. Practice lets you take on a number of mini-games in five different categories, being Think, Identify, Computer, Analyze, and Memorize, each made up of things such as weighing animals to see who's the heaviest or even counting change. Then you can begin to learn how smart you are by taking part in tests, and seeing where you rank high and low in each category. Upon completion, the teacher, a strangely animated figure who seems to have some kind of liking to weighing things, will determine your brain ranking and the areas you need to improve. Then there's versus, a mode where you can challenge another player to a few of these challenges and see if they're smarter (or dumber) than you.
The game has some nice components working with it, and, like Brain Age, lets you work out your smarts through a series of tests that actually make you feel smarter at first. However, unlike Brain Age, Big Brain Academy makes the tremendous mistake of not really helping gamers keep track of their progress. They can save profiles but there's nothing that shows too much progress over time, unlike Brain Age and its stamping system. Worse yet, the judgments that are passed off in "brain weight" lead to a weird ranking system, giving you a grade and then some kind of profession that ties into it, instead of a more detailed analysis. Some might enjoy this, but, to me, it seems like a bit of an easy way out.
The multiplayer can actually be quite fun, as you can challenge a friend to a series of mini-games that show your competitive side, without you needing to get super-smart in a hurry. The abundance of mini-games available are also stacked pretty high, although chances are you'll discover them all after just a few plays. That's another thing lacking in Big Brain's favor, a progressive cycle that challenges you to even harder games over a period of time. A few days and you'll find yourself graduated, and without any kind of degree to hang upon the wall. Bummer.
The presentation also seems to be pretty basic, although it has its moments of quirkiness and smarts to keep up with the theme. There's sound effects that balance out with the pictures at hand, like puzzles that involve rockets, cars, and boats that add their corresponding effects. There's also little background music that's not annoying, but you can tell how basically it was put together. It lacks the push of a title in the Wario Ware variety, and while looks wasn't the point, it could've used something more to give it the ol' college try.
Big Brain Academy's not bad, really. It's got a number of activities available for you and a friend for two-player head-to-head, and its inventiveness is something we just don't see in games anymore. A $20 price doesn't hurt either. But one can't help but find a slight disappointment in comparison to Brain Age, as it doesn't really allow us to expand our smarts like we want it to. This Academy's graduated a bit too early, leaving you looking for more to feed your mind. It's worth taking a look, though, if only to find a bee weighing more than a lion. Really?
