Children's Video Game Review:

The delivery of Big Brain Academy, essentially a sequel to the handheld Nintendo games for the Wii, is simple yet appealing as a family or party game. It's not going to truly build young brains, but children are required to think as they play.

Players can go solo and accumulate points, or they can play with others individually or in teams. There are three main choices of gameplay: Mind Sprint, Mental Marathon, and Brain Quiz. Kids select (or are given, depending on the mode of play) mini-games from the categories, Identify, Memorize, Analyze, Visualize, and Compute. The game keeps track of players' progress in each category. Each mini-game offers Easy, Medium, Hard, and Expert levels. Players race against a timer to answer questions.

Examples of activities include moving the hands of a clock in order to spring forward 150 minutes, filling in the missing piece of a picture, arranging sequences, getting a train to an exit using the left and right arrows or straight ahead button, taking an order on the "phone" (kids put the Wii remote to their ear to listen) and then filling that order, finding the "odd one out" with moving pictures, keeping track of birds in cages as they are shuffled around, determining the "point of view" of a spinning object, and more.

The order-taking activity makes use of the Wii remote creatively, and we wish there were more activities that did the same.

Kids enroll characters into the academy, using their Mii avatars (see our review of the Wii console if you're unfamiliar with the Mii character avatars). Players can join forces with others and play in teams, play alone, or go head to head.

 

Pros:

• Non-violent gameplay that requires drawing upon thinking skills.
• Enjoyable and interactive, fun for groups of kids and families to play together.

Cons:

• The game is very simple and not especially creative in terms of making full use of the Wii's capabilities.

 

Our Rating:

B

more information:

For more information, user reviews, or to buy (affiliate link): Big Brain Academy

Reviewed: June 2007

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