Common Sense Media Review
By Jinny Gudmundsen
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Families compete for "weightiest" brain.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 8+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Play
Parent and Kid Reviews
Based on 2 parent reviews
Based on 10 kid reviews
Kids say this game can be a fun and educational tool for older children, particularly in challenging their math skills, but younger kids may struggle due to unclear instructions and limited minigame variety. While some find it worth the price for brain training, others feel it lacks sufficient content and has a fast pace that can be frustrating.
- educational value
- limited content
- unclear instructions
- suited for older kids
- fast-paced gameplay
Summarized with AI
Summarized with AI
What's It About?
The premise behind BIG BRAIN ACADEMY, Nintendo's second title that promotes \"exercising\" your brain, is that you are competing for the \"Biggest Brain,\" a designation determined by how well you perform on the provided tests. Tests are made up of five one-minute Mini games drawn from a pool of 15 games and divided into five categories: Memorize, Identify, Compute, Analyze, and Think. Your test score is given in terms of grams -- the more grams your brain weighs, the smarter you are. 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 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. 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.
Is It Any Good?
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. Since this game 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.
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 addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division; so this is not a good fit for those under 8 years of age. It is good for friends and family looking for a video game to play together.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
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?
Can you think of real-life jobs where math computations are a part of the job? Does the educational aspect of the games make you feel good about playing or does it feel more like homework?
Game Details
- Platform : Nintendo DS
- Subjects : Language & Reading : following directions , reading , spelling , Math : arithmetic , sequences , shapes
- Skills : Thinking & Reasoning : logic , memorization , problem solving
- Pricing structure :
- Available online? : Not available online
- Publisher : Nintendo
- Release date : June 15, 2006
- Genre : Educational
- ESRB rating :
- Last updated : October 9, 2025
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