Review
Release Date: 06.05.2006
Platform:
Nintendo DSDeveloper:
Nintendo Co., Ltd.Publisher:
Nintendo of America, Inc.Reviewed by
Josh Freund on 6.14.2006
| Review Rating: 8/10 | User Rating: 7.2/10 |
Big Brain Academy is the second of
Nintendo's much-talked-about
Brain Training titles (though it's not what's referred to as
Brain Training 2; that hasn't made it to the US yet). Unlike the first,
Brain Age,
Big Brain Academy is not meant to be a simple 15-minute daily training tool. Though it still features plenty of exercises that will stimulate your brain, it's more of a "game" than
Brain Age and is not unlike the
WarioWare titles in its cute look and "pick up and play for a few minutes" nature.
First, I'll explain the structure of the academy. After registering your name and being greeted by a cute little guy named Dr. Lobe (no Prof. Kawashima in this one, folks), you'll have access to a few different modes. The first is Practice. Practice features 5 categories of activities - Compute, Identify, Think, Memorize, and Analyze. Each category features 3 activities, so that's 15 different activities. And each activity has 3 difficulty levels, so in a way that's like 45 different things to do, which certainly isn't too shabby. For those wanting to compare this to
Brain Age -- that's more than
BA's 15 or so activities (though that does feature Sudoku as well).
All of the academy's activities are 60 seconds long. During this time, you'll try to complete whatever the activity's goal is as many times as you can. Once the timer hits 0, Dr. Lobe will show your score and tell you how you did. The game keeps track of your high scores for all 45 activities, and if you do well enough to meet certain score thresholds, you can get Bronze, Silver, Gold, or even Platinum medals. To give you an idea of what kinds of things you'll be doing, here is one example from each category:
Compute - The bottom screen is split in two, with coins on both sides. You have to touch the side that contains the larger value.
Identify - Shadows of various objects float around on the top screen. You have to touch the images on the bottom that match the shadows on top.
Think - A dog is located somewhere on a grid. You are given a sequence of directions and have to touch the square where the dog will end up.
Memorize - A sequence of numbers is displayed, then disappears. You have to tap the numbers back in on a little calculator display.
Analyze - Stacks of cubes are shown. You have to tap in how many there are on a little calculator display.
There's a wider variety than that, but that should give you an idea of the kind of things to expect.
Like
Brain Age,
Academy also features a main Test. This time, you're not seeing how "old" your brain is; rather, you're seeing how much it weighs. The more it weighs, the more intelligent you (supposedly) are. The test will give you one randomly selected activity from each of the game's 5 categories. At the end of the test, Dr. Lobe will add up the scores you got on each activity and give you your final result. Depending on your weight, you'll receive different letter grades. You'll also be shown a graph displaying how well you did on each category. Dr. Lobe will then give you a title such as "Museum curator" or "Michelangelo" based on what you did best at. While
Brain Age only records your first test result of each day, you can take the test as many times as you want in
Academy, and the game will still keep track of your best weight. Unfortunately, because you can do the activities and tests as many times as you want each day, there are no progress graphs to look at like there are in
Brain Age. But again,
Academy is not really meant to be a daily training tool like
Brain Age; it's meant to be a "play anytime" kind of game.
Academy's third and final mode is Versus. In this, up to 8 players can play wirelessly using a single card to see who's the smartest of the bunch. Everyone gets the same problems in whatever activity you're doing. After each activity, the player with the lowest score gets to choose the next one. The first player to reach a set total score wins. It may sound basic, but it's reportedly a lot of fun. Why do I say "reportedly?" Unfortunately, I haven't gotten a chance to try out the multiplayer yet, so I can't tell you how it is first-hand (that's kind of how it is when only one of your friends owns a DS). All the multiplayer impressions I've seen are postive, though. I'll be sure to update once I try it out for myself.
Unlike
Brain Age,
Big Brain Academy features lots of color and cute visuals (some say too cute, but I don't think so). The music consists of a few fittingly simple, quirky tunes (a couple of which sound like songs you'd hear in
Animal Crossing).
There's a good amount of content in
Academy. Though it features more than
Brain Age, some people feel that it won't last as long, since you can play it as much as you want (unlike
Brain Age, which has an artificially lengthened lifespan due to unlockables and playing it just for a little bit each day). But, for the fun it offers, and at the low price of $20, I feel
Big Brain Academy certainly contains enough to warrant a purchase. This is especially true for people like me who love trying to improve their high scores, since you'll have 45 activities with which to do so.
