GDC 2007: Big Brain Academy Hands-on

via ign

All right, so Nintendo has already established that DS provides exercise for your brain while Wii gives your body a workout. But that doesn't mean that Wii owners can't take part in daily mental training, too. It's with that thought in mind that the company is readying Big Brain Academy for its home console. The title is inspired by the DS-based brain titles before it, but puts the unique abilities of the Wii remote to use in order to enable a fun and challenging multiplayer brain-off.

Nintendo showcased a fully playable version of Big Brain Academy at the Game Developers Conference 2007 in San Francisco and naturally, we were on hand to give it a try. The project can be enjoyed by a single-player, but one of the main advantages of the Wii build is a two-player challenge and Nintendo encouraged gamers to try out the mode at its GDC booth. In it, two gamers square off in vertical split-screen brain tests. Some will be familiar to those who played Big Brain Academy on DS, but others are brand new to the Wii build. Nintendo says some 15 activities spanning five categories, from memory and analysis to number crunching, visual recognition and quick thinking, are new to the console version.

Gamers who have never played any of Nintendo's brain games will find the experience similar to Wario Ware on some level, meaning that mini-games rotate in and out of the screen and players have only seconds to complete them, either correctly or incorrectly. The big difference, of course, is that the minis in Big Brain are, in fact, designed to give one's mind a good workout and in some cases, a hard walloping. Using the Wii remote, players interact with on-screen puzzles and aspire to best them quicker than their opponent. We're not embarrassed to admit that our initial attempts at some of the mind twisters resulted in poor completion times only comparable to Neanderthal man or perhaps well-trained monkeys and we're only a little embarrassed to admit that we were playing on easy.

Some of the puzzles were simple. For instance, five different numbers appear on screen and you have to eliminate the a couple of them with the Wii remote so that the end sum forms the five, or three, or two, or whatever predetermined figure the game has selected. In another, players must watch as characters are placed underneath rotating cups and then identify where they are hidden when the objects finally stop moving. In one more, the object is to snugly fit two different protruding pieces of a 3D cube together. In one more, gamers must draw the pathway for a railway. Finally, gamers may have to pop a series of balloons with numbers painted on them in order of lowest to highest. None of the activities require any complex movements from the Wii remote; rather, in most cases, a simple point and button press will do. Obviously, Nintendo's plan is to keep the presentation simple so that - like the DS versions - players of all ages can enjoy the experience.

The graphics are simple - so much so that it's easy to see that they were inspired by the DS version. And yet, the colorful, stylized presentation does have a charm all its own. It is, at the very least, inviting, which is probably the goal.

It may still be too early to tell if Nintendo can duplicate the handheld success off the Big Brain series for its Wii console, but from what we've played so far, it's off to a great start. Not only is Brain Age Academy as pick-up-and-play friendly as its DS predecessors, but it's also challenging and it sports a two-player mode that adds a much-needed competitive element.