Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree Hands-On

At Nintendo's recent Summer Preview Event, we had the chance to try out a work-in-progress version of Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree, the console extension of the popular Nintendo DS brain game. Though the game shares the same name and basic structure of the DS original, the content has been revamped to take advantage of the Wii's unique features. Our time with the single- and multiplayer modes in the game gave us a promising sample of the new title that seems to be smartly expanding onto the Wii.

As with the DS game, the goal is to enlarge your brain by enrolling in Big Brain Academy. The virtual school's curriculum is designed to test your lobes via minigames set in one of five categories--identify, memorize, analyze, compute, or visualize--that feature three different difficulty settings. One of the cool touches to the experience is that when you start out, you can "enroll" as one of the Miis on your Wii or controller. The game will also populate its halls with Miis generated within the game and any that are handy on your hardware.

Once you're properly enrolled, you can choose to play through by yourself via test and practice modes, awarding you with medals and advice on how to improve. However, the meat of Wii Degree is its multiplayer experience. It features three modes designed for you to compete against friends or CPU opponents. Mind sprint lets up to eight players compete against each other or the computer, in two teams of four. Mental marathon lets up to eight players compete in a series of minigames that ends the first time someone makes a mistake. Brain quiz lets up to eight players split into up to four teams to compete in 20 minigames.

The various brain challenges are simple and fast-paced twitch games that require you to think and move fast. Art Parts requires you to match an image by quickly placing objects to mimic a sample painting. Balloon Burst forces you to pop balloons and do math at the same time. Fast Focus forces you to identify an image as it comes into view by choosing from one of four choices. Other games make things a little crazier and make use of the Wii Remote's speaker, requiring you to listen to it like a cell phone and take orders that you'll have to memorize.

Control in the game is dead simple. You'll just point with the Wii Remote and, in some cases, use its speaker or turn it on its side. The A or B buttons come into play in some games, as well. In multiplayer matches, you'll have to pass the remote between teammates.

As you train your brain and start racking up medals and high scores, you can use the Wii's WiiConnect24 feature to send your "student record" books to friends. You can review the data or even compete against it to improve your own skills and show up your friends by sending it back to them. Thankfully, the game automatically pulls your Wii friend codes from the system, so you won't have to do any extensive number entering. It will also show you which of your friends is playing the game, letting you decide who to send your data to.

The graphics and audio in the game keep it simple and expand on the DS game. The character visuals throw some clean 3D into the mix. Professor Lobe has never looked smoother, and the Miis are all as cute as ever. The rest of the visuals are simple, with the hallway hub staying basic. The games rely on a mix of 2D and 3D elements that look fine on the Wii. The audio is where things get interesting. While the in-game tunes are pretty nondescript, Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree makes extensive use of the Wii Remote's built-in speaker. You'll have a personal coach offering words of encouragement, as well as some polite dissing, as you play. In addition, as we mentioned, some of the minigames will make use of the speaker.

Based on what we played, Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree is shaping up nicely and should be a good addition to the party game branch of the Wii's software catalog. The multiplayer is definitely fun, the WiiConnect24 support is a nice touch, and the game retains the charm of its DS cousin. Anyone looking for another fun game for the Wii will want to keep an eye out for Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree when it ships this June.