Nintendo Media Summit: Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree hands-on (Wii)
by Colin Torretta 
{ May 25th 2007 at 12:00AM }
The sequel to the DS hit, Big Brain Academy, was shown this week at the Nintendo Media Summit. Dubbed Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree, this version offers tons of new mini-games to test your senses and give your brain a workout. It supports three multiplayer modes for up to 8 players, and 15 new challenges for single-player mode. It also allows you to trade your student data over WiiConnect24 with other players, allowing you to challenge others and compare results. In a nice touch, the game also imports all your friend's codes automatically.The gameplay is focused on fast-paced small minigames that are meant to help you increase your mental capacities in one of five areas: Identify, Memorize, Analyze, Computer and Visualize. The game tracks your progress and gives you a diagram showing your strengths and weakness in the different categories. To improve a poor stat, you need to play games specific to that category. For example, if your Identify skill is low, you could play "Fast Focus," in which you see a distorted image slowly revealed. The point of the game is to correctly guess the subject of the picture as quickly as you can, using the Wiimote to select the answer from a provided list. "Fast Focus" was probably my favorite of the minigames, but unfortunately I saw quite a few images repeat after only playing it for a short time. Kind of a bad sign for the longevity of that particular minigame, but may have just been a fluke.
Gallery: Big Brain Academy (Wii)
The graphics are clean and fairly minimalistic -- using Miis for characters and being set in a featureless school added to the simple look. The professor character reminds me of a schmoo though, which gave me a constant and unsettling urge to eat him. Other than the slightly cannibalistic tendencies that the game awakens in me, it seems like a solid addition to the Big Brain Academy series. The online features are nice, the graphics are unoffensive, and the gameplay seems solid. It would have been nice to have more challenges, but this should be a solid pickup come June 11th for Wii owners looking to exercise their brains a bit.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Defenestrator2.0 @ May 25th 2007 3:01AM
Awesome, now I can get a "Wiil" degree, and not one of those fake real life ones.
mandark @ May 25th 2007 6:39AM
Oh yes ! this game will keep me entertained trough
the Norwegian summer .
-All 5 minutes of it .
Cool graphics by the way, I guess the wii can run the unreal engine after all.
Martez @ May 25th 2007 7:00AM
"the game also imports all your friend's codes automatically."
THANK YOU.
D @ May 25th 2007 7:32AM
I really want the game the only problem I have with it is the price. The ds version was sold at a discount (19.99), and I think the wii version should be the same (29.99). There is no reason this game should cost 50 bucks.
Hak Foo @ May 25th 2007 8:14AM
I'm not sure how well the Wiimote will be suited to this game. Hopefully all the options/selection boxes will be huge. Otherwise it will be difficult to be as fast/accurate as you can be with the DS.
Jason @ May 25th 2007 8:23AM
Wow, more rip off minigames for the Wii.
JodyAnthony @ May 25th 2007 8:56AM
i'll pick it up when it hits $30.
Ichidou @ May 25th 2007 9:00AM
Wait a minute, so this means that developers can simply import the wii's friend codes and use that in their games? Wasn't it said some time ago that it couldn't be done like that? Or am I thinking about just one particular developer's thoughts on one particular game?
Freakhead @ May 25th 2007 10:58AM
Looks awesome. I'm picking it up. Not sure about the $50 though. $30 for sure.
TravistyOJ @ May 25th 2007 11:02AM
That looks boring.
Rubang B @ May 25th 2007 3:27PM
Well Mario Strikers will have different friend codes for each user on one game, so those are new codes. Just so you don't mess with each other's stats. Anybody can play online for free without codes, but you need them to set up matches with people you know. In this game, it seems like it imports your Wii's friend list from the mailbox, and you get stats per Mii and your Miis mingle and show each other their sats on different Wiis. It's like a Mii Parade but with IQ scores everywhere to compare. The difference is that this game doesn't have online leaderboards and seasons and all that, let alone online multiplayer. It's just a new mingle system to compare scores and battle.
..I think.