Big Brain Academy Review (5 out of 10)

March 9, 2008 ... Review by Mike

I rented this “long ago” Wii title in hopes that it might be something that my parents would like being that they are really enjoying the stuffing out of Wii Bowling. (I used that analogy in honor of their ages ... which are their early 60s) As it turns out ... Big Brain Academy is a little much for them beyond the Easy difficultly. But parents aside ... the question is ... how is it for the 15 to 40-something crowd? The answer is average.

This game has some decent fundamentals ... Big Brain lumps all of the mini-games into 5 different categories based on their attributes. Only 5 categories wouldn’t be a problem at all if there was a little more variety ... but there are only about 3 games per category with 5 extra “bonus games.”For all of you math majors ... that brings the total to 20 ... not exactly a number to wet your pants about.

The games range in difficultly from popping balloons with values written on them in acceding order to figuring out which of the 4 picture frames are different from the others. Not bad ... but the lack of variety in these games was almost nonexistent. It gets really old trying to determine which cup the ball in under after the 50th time.

As a single player game ... this game is barely worth 30 minutes of your time. The brain games on the DS are much better ... even though I’m not the biggest fan of those either. As a multiplayer game ... Big Brain wasn’t bad at all.

There were 3 multiplayer modes ... and 2 of them were a lot of fun. The speed round matches you against an opponent to see who can preform 12 tasks the fastest and there was a game-show round where you won points based on the difficulty of the challenge. This game also makes good use of your Mii characters ... and it's always fun to watch Jesus win.

Unfortunately ... I didn’t have much competition and I wiped the floor with my parents ... but hey ... they’re old. At least they’re playing right?

Hardcore gamers aren’t going to find a lot of value or excitement with Big Brain ... but overall this game is a rental for those starved for a good party game on the Wii. If you’re one of those people who “NEED” a brain game because the man says you do ... it’s probably your best bet for the Wii. As a game experience ... I can’t say I was higher than a C or C-.

Big Brain Academy At A Glance
	5.0	The Good	Good party game / great use of the Miis / mini-games are fun for awhile
		The Bad	Too repeatitive / not enough variety of games / single player node not all that fun / still $50 new
	Average	The Verdict	This game is a rental at best for the typical gamer ... better brain games are to be had on the DS.

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