Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that this game requires kids to be able to read, understand money, and do math computation in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division; so this is not a good fit for kids under 8 years of age. When playing with younger children, you may need to help explain how to play the games listed under the "Think" category. Because this is played using a stylus on the DS touch-sensitive screen, it's an easy game for parents or other video game newbies to learn how to play. Overall, it's a terrific game for families to play together.
Families can talk about which of the 15 games they like best and why. Do you think you are getting smarter by playing these games? Here is a game in which you use math computations -– can you think of real-life jobs where math computations are a part of the job? Does the educational aspects of the games make you feel good about playing or does it make you feel like it's more like homework?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Jinny Gudmundsen
BIG BRAIN ACADEMY is Nintendo's second title that promotes "exercising" your brain by playing thinking games on the Nintendo DS. Before this game, Nintendo released Brain Age, a revolutionary video game that touted mini-games intended to "train" your brain. Now, Big Brain Academy expands this mental-workout-via-video-games category by providing 15 new mini-games that require players to use their critical-thinking, memory, and calculating skills.
The premise behind Big Brain Academy is that you are competing for the "Biggest Brain," a designation that is determined by how well you perform on tests provided in the software. A test is made up of five one-minute mini-games drawn from a pool of 15 possible games. Your test score is given in terms of grams -- the more grams your brain weighs, the smarter you are. You will also receive a letter grade and a designation of what type of job you would be good at.
The 15 games are divided into the following categories: Memorize, Identify, Compute, Analyze, and Think. All the games last for one minute, and the goal is to answer as many questions correctly in the time allotted.
In the Memorize category, one of the games flashes numbers on the screen and you punch those numbers into an on-screen calculator using the DS stylus. In one of the Identify games, you examine a grid of objects to find matching pairs. Under the Compute category, you will answer math problems that are written ("thirteen plus eight is"); and under the Analyze category you will have to determine the number of cubes in a picture.
The Think category contains three games that are the most difficult to learn. In one, the top screen shows a series of balanced objects, and the bottom screen asks you to deduce which object is the heaviest.
The main menu in Big Brain Academy, is a home room where you meet Dr. Lobe, a cocky ghost-shaped headmaster who wears a graduation hat and spectacles. Dr. Lobe encourages you to practice the 15 games, to take tests which randomly draw from each of the five categories of games, and to compete against up to seven of your friends to see whose brain is biggest.
When practicing the games, you can choose to play at three levels of difficulty. At the end of a one-minute game, you receive a score and if you missed any, you can review those questions and retry them.
While both Brain Age and Big Brain Academy are fun to explore, Big Brain Academy is a better family game because it has a better competition mode. To compete against family members or friends, you only need one software cartridge, but as many Nintendo DS units as you have players. Parents and kids can go head-to-head answering the same questions to see whose brain is bigger. Being the first to correctly answer a question gains you the most grams (points). Since this is a game that is easy to learn and tests skills adults are comfortable with, this is a good way for parents who have not played video games with their kids to jump in. However, to avoid an intellectual smack-down, you may need to sneak some practice late at night when the kids are in bed.
While the earlier-released Brain Age was all about encouraging the player to do mental exercises every day, Big Brain Academy is a game with an attitude. Dr. Lobe is hard to impress as he pushes and needles you to improve. The brain scoring seems a little wacky but most of our testers were able to add weight to their brains the more they played.
These games require players to know how to read, understand money, and do math computation in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division; so this is not a good fit for those under 8 years of age. It is a good fit for friends and family looking for a video game to play together.
Other fun games for families to play together include: Elite Beat Agents and Donkey Konga.
Reviewed: 12/20/2006
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Social BehaviorProvides fun way for cross-generational players to compete on two or more DS's |
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CommercialismA sequel to Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day. |
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Educational ValueFifteen games that test arithmetic, memory, visualization, and problem-solving. |
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