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IGN Review of Big Brain Academy
The April release of Brain Age set the stage for Nintendo's Touch Generations series in the US and, with that established as a successful branding, Big Brain Academy can move onto the Nintendo DS scene. The two games are night and day with the same intention: strengthen the gray matter in that skull of yours. If Brain Age is an aerobics instructor, Big Brain Academy is a Boot Camp sergeant - Brain Age is a casual mind workout, but Big Brain Academy tells your mind to "Drop and give me fifty!" Each game has its place in the DS library and owning both isn't double-dipping into a duplicate production, but if there's has to be a choice between the two, Big Brain Academy is the one with much more immediate satisfaction.
Playing Big Brain Academy, I'm reminded of those class placement tests I had to take in elementary school. Checking out the fifteen different challenges is like opening up one of those aptitude booklets - the only things missing are the Scantron card and number 2 pencil. The game's segmented into five different categories of thought processes: think, memorize, analyze, compute, and identify, each with three different activities attached to them. In "think," players will perform brain-cell activating games like Heavyweight, a challenge where players look at the on-screen characters standing on scales and determine which of the characters is the heaviest. For "compute," players will have to do basic math problems spelled out in word sentences, or determine which set of coins has the highest value. "Memorize" focuses on remembering certain sounds or visuals, like a string of numbers or a grouping of animals. "Analyze" is focused on reasoning, requiring players to identify how many cubes are in a stack or matching a drawn line in a dot-to-dot diagram. "Identify" is much more visual oriented, requiring players to figure out items based on their spinning silhouettes, or tap out matching items in a grid.
Brain Age measured smartness in a gauge that determined how old your brain was - the better your performance, the "younger" your brain ranked on the game's scale. Big Brain Academy, however, scores in "weight." The better your performance, the heavier your brain weighs. It's nothing more than a benchmark, and there's no scientific basis for this measurement other than how quickly and accurately you've performed in each of the challenges -- but there's far more opportunities for "water cooler" moments with Big Brain Academy. "How big's your brain? What's your occupation? Librarian, huh? I got lawyer!"
Like Brain Age, Big Brain Academy doesn't take into account outside influences - where poor penmanship and incorrect voice recognition could adversely affect your Brain Age score, a bad touch-screen tap can have the same effect on the final weight of your brain. Goof-ups are far less common in Big Brain Academy due to a design that's less focused on system innovation, instead giving players a much more streamlined touch-screen interface.
The game's not all about gauging the overall performance of your brain in a test - you can enter each one of the 15 different games and try to acquire a bronze, silver, or gold medal in each of the three different difficulty levels. Playing for these accomplishments will definitely build that brain of yours and will certainly make your performance in the testing phase improve dramatically with every practice.
Big Brain Academy does stray a little too far away from the mass-market appealing presentation of Brain Age. The clean, sterile look of Brain Age was, at the very least, inoffensive, an experience that wouldn't whack non-gamers over the head with the fact that they're playing a videogame. Big Brain Academy doesn't just whack players over the head…it smacks them around. The game has this over-the-top "Hey look at me, I'm a videogame!" environment that's admittedly not all that bad for those that play games regularly or casually, but I honestly can't imagine my parents getting into the happy, upbeat squiggle-vision animated presentation as much as the calm and textbook-like Brain Age.
The other "not quite as good as Brain Age" element is Big Brain Academy's lack of progress tracking. The game does a fine job showing exactly where your smarts lay in an easy to follow graph that displays the weight of the players' performance in each of the five categories, and records up to four different registered players. But it doesn't show the difference between performances in testing - so, while you're rewarded with a brain weight, grade, and an occupation in relation to the brain weight and grade, the cart doesn't store the change from one result to the next. Granted, the two games' presentations are completely different - one's a daily trainer, the other's a compilation of brain-bending games - so it's understandable why the Brain Age progress graph isn't in Big Brain Academy. That doesn't mean I can't miss it.
On the other hand - er, brain hemisphere - Big Brain Academy has a much more fulfilling list of brain-breaking challenges that are just as fun to play as they are challenging to accomplish. Brain Age's "games" are more tasks to keep the mind alert - they still require a lot of thought process as well as brain power to complete, but Big Brain Academy's levels are more amusing and full of variety. Even better, the game really comes alive in multiplayer fashion since as many as eight players can compete in a grouping of games to determine the "smartest" of the Big Brain Academy. This is one multiplayer DS game you shouldn't miss, and the fact that you don't need multiple cartridges to compete removes the "I don't have the game" excuse from the equation.
©2006-06-02, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Playing Big Brain Academy, I'm reminded of those class placement tests I had to take in elementary school. Checking out the fifteen different challenges is like opening up one of those aptitude booklets - the only things missing are the Scantron card and number 2 pencil. The game's segmented into five different categories of thought processes: think, memorize, analyze, compute, and identify, each with three different activities attached to them. In "think," players will perform brain-cell activating games like Heavyweight, a challenge where players look at the on-screen characters standing on scales and determine which of the characters is the heaviest. For "compute," players will have to do basic math problems spelled out in word sentences, or determine which set of coins has the highest value. "Memorize" focuses on remembering certain sounds or visuals, like a string of numbers or a grouping of animals. "Analyze" is focused on reasoning, requiring players to identify how many cubes are in a stack or matching a drawn line in a dot-to-dot diagram. "Identify" is much more visual oriented, requiring players to figure out items based on their spinning silhouettes, or tap out matching items in a grid.
Brain Age measured smartness in a gauge that determined how old your brain was - the better your performance, the "younger" your brain ranked on the game's scale. Big Brain Academy, however, scores in "weight." The better your performance, the heavier your brain weighs. It's nothing more than a benchmark, and there's no scientific basis for this measurement other than how quickly and accurately you've performed in each of the challenges -- but there's far more opportunities for "water cooler" moments with Big Brain Academy. "How big's your brain? What's your occupation? Librarian, huh? I got lawyer!"
Like Brain Age, Big Brain Academy doesn't take into account outside influences - where poor penmanship and incorrect voice recognition could adversely affect your Brain Age score, a bad touch-screen tap can have the same effect on the final weight of your brain. Goof-ups are far less common in Big Brain Academy due to a design that's less focused on system innovation, instead giving players a much more streamlined touch-screen interface.
The game's not all about gauging the overall performance of your brain in a test - you can enter each one of the 15 different games and try to acquire a bronze, silver, or gold medal in each of the three different difficulty levels. Playing for these accomplishments will definitely build that brain of yours and will certainly make your performance in the testing phase improve dramatically with every practice.
Big Brain Academy does stray a little too far away from the mass-market appealing presentation of Brain Age. The clean, sterile look of Brain Age was, at the very least, inoffensive, an experience that wouldn't whack non-gamers over the head with the fact that they're playing a videogame. Big Brain Academy doesn't just whack players over the head…it smacks them around. The game has this over-the-top "Hey look at me, I'm a videogame!" environment that's admittedly not all that bad for those that play games regularly or casually, but I honestly can't imagine my parents getting into the happy, upbeat squiggle-vision animated presentation as much as the calm and textbook-like Brain Age.
The other "not quite as good as Brain Age" element is Big Brain Academy's lack of progress tracking. The game does a fine job showing exactly where your smarts lay in an easy to follow graph that displays the weight of the players' performance in each of the five categories, and records up to four different registered players. But it doesn't show the difference between performances in testing - so, while you're rewarded with a brain weight, grade, and an occupation in relation to the brain weight and grade, the cart doesn't store the change from one result to the next. Granted, the two games' presentations are completely different - one's a daily trainer, the other's a compilation of brain-bending games - so it's understandable why the Brain Age progress graph isn't in Big Brain Academy. That doesn't mean I can't miss it.
On the other hand - er, brain hemisphere - Big Brain Academy has a much more fulfilling list of brain-breaking challenges that are just as fun to play as they are challenging to accomplish. Brain Age's "games" are more tasks to keep the mind alert - they still require a lot of thought process as well as brain power to complete, but Big Brain Academy's levels are more amusing and full of variety. Even better, the game really comes alive in multiplayer fashion since as many as eight players can compete in a grouping of games to determine the "smartest" of the Big Brain Academy. This is one multiplayer DS game you shouldn't miss, and the fact that you don't need multiple cartridges to compete removes the "I don't have the game" excuse from the equation.
©2006-06-02, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved