Big Brain Academy

Rating ESRB: Everyone Genre puzzle Publisher Nintendo External Links Official Nintendo Website

It is incredibly tempting to call this game Brain Age 2; or Brain Age - Now with Color! If I were naming it, I would go for the simple-but-effective Brain Weight, because it perfectly encapsulates the differences between this and its pseudo-predecessor. However, Big Brain Academy is intended to be a game of its own, thus explaining the modified moniker. The basic premise here remains the same: play a handful of mini-games that test your brain power, and then be judged by the all-knowing dual-screened device. Instead of being told how old your brain is, you are instead given a brain weight, a rare category in which being heavy is a benefit.

Still, the similarities are quite evident, starting with the general format of the game. Fifteen basic mini-games are available to test your skills in five areas: Think, Memorize, Analyze, Compute, and Identify. The key gametype in Big Brain Academy is the Test mode, which has you play one mini-game from each category, culminating in the assignment of a brain weight in grams. As noted earlier, bigger is better, so you will need to push past the triple-digit mark to get even a decent rating. After learning your brain weight, Dr. Lobe will suggest a potential occupation, such as "a fashion stylist." This is oddly reminiscent of the Brain Massage mode in Point Blank DS, but Big Brain Academy was actually released prior to that game in Japan.

Each mini-game can be practiced at any time, and unlike Brain Age, all fifteen are available from the start. Sixty seconds are provided for you to perform a variety of tasks, such as solving written math problems ("fourteen times three is") or finding matching images on the screen. These simplistic exercises are fun in short bursts, but there's no long-term appeal here. The general appeal of this title has been slightly dulled by its quick release just two months after Brain Age hit stores. There are some differences worth noting, though: Big Brain Academy is a much more colorful game, and it does not try to take itself too seriously (unlike Brain Age). Also, the system is to be held normally, not at the book-like vertical angle of Brain Age.

While Big Brain Academy feels less like an experiment than Brain Age, it does not collect enough interesting gameplay to make much of a splash. If I had to choose between the titles, I would rather have Big Brain Academy, but the mere existence of Brain Age lessens the impact of this title. With the market being saturated with mini-game collections, only the eccentric and odd ones are making much of a mark. By comparison, Big Brain Academy is just standard; good enough. For twenty dollars, it's not a bad way to kill some time, but don't expect much beyond a heftier Brain Age.