Reviews// Big Brain Academy (DS)

Big Brain Academy calculates correct and wrong answers in terms of ‘brain weight’. The more clever you are, the heavier your brain is. Simple. Apparently the average brain weighs around 1000 grams, and this is the size to aspire to when you are taking the big test. On single practice challenges, if you get over 250 grams you earn the gold award for top dog.

When you’re done practising, a nice little graph will appear on the bottom screen to show you your progress – and more importantly, your strong and weak points. The only thing to do next is to move onto the Test mode. Gulp! You take on each of the five categories one by one, but the challenge you do within each is random. Once you have done that 60 second challenge, you move onto the next category and repeat until all five are complete. Your scores in each of the sections are added up and a total brain weight is given. Just for fun, Dr. Lobe even tells you what your brain is comparable to (we got a Doctor! Woo!), and what sections you really need to improve in… “What’s this? Need to improve in the Calculate section? You’re jive talking, Lobe! I’ll show you!” – needless to say we went straight back into Practice mode and continued to fail miserably at that very category. We’re still trying to this day. How this reviewer ever managed to get a B in his GCSE Maths is a mystery in itself.

The only thing fun in school was avoiding getting beaten up. That, and making friends. That, and showing your friends that you’re better than them at every little thing they do. Big Brain Academy caters for this in a Versus mode for up to eight players over wireless LAN, and it’s hilarious to see your opponents raising their fist at you (or other appendage that can be found on the hand) when you’ve nobbled them at being clever. There is also a ‘Demo’ mode in the game to send a small copy of the game to other DS units – this being a part of the Touch! Generations set of games to get a broader range of people playing, this is a pretty cool idea to show people games before they invest in playing them.

The great thing about Big Brain Academy is, despite the fact that it’s pulling power isn’t perhaps as fine-tuned as Kawashima’s Brain Training (which quite cannily only allows you to test yourself once a day, encouraging you to replay the game), it still has that lastability factor. Its simple, cheeky design is charming enough to goad you into doing better, while the pleasant Dr. Lobe eggs you on to improve yourself. We would do some rather long-shot joke about peer pressure here, but he is a teacher, his profession is to get you to do these tasks. And strangely, you have no problem tending to his wishes. Maybe it’s because he symbolises the inner lobe within all of us (ahem).

You will keep coming back to it every now and then, just out of curiosity, to see how well your brain has coped. You might never touch Big Brain Academy for weeks and decide “Hold on, I think I’m quite smart still”. Then bam, Dr. Lobe smacks you on the ass with a big fat ‘D’. You’ll constantly try and get a gold in the mini-games you suck at (and believe me, there will be a category that ‘sets you up the bomb’) and give that ‘Lobey’ git a piece of your mind. Literally. It’s undeniably addictive, brain-healthy fun. School’s out, but Big Brain Academy is in!


SPOnG Score: B+
[i]
This isn’t some one-trick pony Nintendo have cottoned onto here. Training your brain can actually be fun and hilarious – Big Brain Academy is the second title to fully prove that. It can wear thin after a while, in which case you may leave it for a bit. But you are guaranteed to come back, just to test that brain (and ego) of yours, and each time you do come back to it, it’ll be another week-long stint of trying to get those poxy gold medals in the ‘Compute’ category.[/i]