This week, Big Brain Academy joins the ranks of Cooking Mama and Trauma Center as another DS title remade and ported to your television. And much like Cooking Mama and Trauma Center, it is identical to the DS title with minor tweaks, changes and multi-player modes added.
Today I finally broke down and picked it up. Knowing that $50 is way too damn much for this game.. Knowing there are only 15 mini-games in this whole package.. After checking blockbuster each day hoping they'd have it.. After keeping myself away from Best Buy, Shopko, and all those other places where I'd be tempted to purchase it.. Even after telling myself over and over again that I can just wait a week and Resident Evil 4 will be out on the Wii.. After all that.. I caught a thread on Cheap Ass Gamer, stating it was $40 this week at Circuit City. and.. I came across an article which said I could get a free Wii-mote keychain. So whatever.. I picked it up.
Bad Choice.
Big Brain Academy boasts its depth in bulking up and building your brain, but offers the most shallow presentation, gameplay, and overall quality on the Wii alongside Wii Play.
For single player modes you have training and practice. With training, you delve through 5 areas of focus with 10 puzzles each. For each area a weight is calculated to determine how massive your brain is. These are totaled up and kept track of. Sounds like fun eh? As some of my old roommates said, "wow.. it's like they made a game based off of school that's actually as boring as school."
You also have practice mode where you can go through each area one by one, on any difficulty and get bronze, silver, gold or platinum medals for your successes.
Multiplayer has 3 different modes that use all these same games.
And... that's it. I'm already fricken bored of it. It does have a little connectivity online, but that's only to compare your brain's weight to others in your Wii address book.
Much like the DS titles, it seems like this is the type of game you play for 15 to 30 minutes a day and improve your brain's capacity. That works great for the DS because it's a portable system. It's designed for pick-up, play and put-away type games like this. The Wii is a home console.. people don't spend full price on a snack size game when they expect a full meal.
Honestly, so far the Wii library has done a horrible job at making an actual compelling game to sink time into.. Luckily they ported Twilight Princess, so you can throw that argument back in my face.
Anyways, why didn't they just forget about the multiplayer, beef up the online connectivity, and release this as a $20 downloadable channel in Shop Channel? It seems like such a waste to have this tiny game on an entire disc.. If I'm only going to spend 10 or 15 minutes playing it, I don't want to have to switch discs every single time. I want it easily accessible like the 'Everyone Votes' channel. Would you spend $50 for that?
If you really want to play this game, I suggest you rent it.. If you really want to buy it, though.. wait until it's $20.. or hell.. you could just buy it off me. I already registered it for the Wii-mote key chain though.