Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree Review

Nintendo's Brain Age and Big Brain titles have combined sold more than one-hundred ga-trillion copies on the company's dual-screened handheld. All right, a slight exaggeration, but these games were unpredictable hits, appealing to all types of buyers with mental challenges that could only loosely be described as gameplay by traditional standards. And unlike so many of the graphical powerhouses that are here Monday and gone Tuesday, these simple brain puzzles -- designed to "expand the audience," says the Big N whenever it possibly can -- have legs. Their appeal doesn't thin and disappear with age because, like Tetris, their mechanics are timeless, and as a result you may still find a DS brain game in the Top 25 best-sellers list a year after its release. Not bad for a series of projects inspired by someone at Nintendo who didn't technically work in development; he merely suggested that the publisher create something that would hold the attention of adults. Somebody give that man a raise.

The unique make-up of the DS has helped foster efforts like these. Whether you're using the stylus to simmer some food in Cooking Mama, sewing up a patient in Trauma Center, washing off your puppy in Nintendogs or frantically solving math problems in a brain game, these genre-breaking undertakings have succeeded partly because they are easy to understand and even easier to control. But what works for DS may not always translate to Wii. Trauma Center made the transition to home console with few hitches, but the same could not be said of the sloppier-controlled Cooking Mama, whose utilization of Nintendo's innovative remote felt uninspired, if not forced. Let's face reality: there are certain games that are just more suitable for a handheld, right?

Well, maybe not.

Just point and shoot the balloons with the Wii remote.

At first glance, Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree -- a console-ified take on the DS title of the same name -- seems like a gimmick. If you're a cynic, you'd call it a cash-in, which may not be that far off the mark. It's not as though the game really branches out from its DS predecessor, after all. You enroll in the Big Brain Academy, a virtual college complete with a very basic graphical hallway and doorways that lead to a series of challenges designed to really put your mind to the test. And if you played any of the brain titles on Nintendo's handheld, you will notice immediately a very similar presentation, not to mention puzzles and mind twisters that seem familiar in some fashion.

But Wii Degree is also unmistakably redesigned for the Big N's home system and in contrast to a game like Cooking Mama, using the Wii remote to solve the puzzles never feels awkward or clunky. Rather, it feels great -- it's incredibly tactile and responsive. In addition, Big Brain on Wii comes complete with some very engaging mental challenges (many of them completely original) and a highly enjoyable multiplayer mode -- arguably one of Wii's best, particularly if you want a Wii Sports-like experience. It only takes a few minutes with the project to discover that it's not just the DS game with a new cover, but a smart console interpretation of a winning handheld phenomenon.

Illuminate the darkness and then select which animal shows up the most.

Wii Degree's interface -- we're referring to everything from the design of the college to the menus -- is intentionally designed to be ridiculously simple. You won't be booting the game up to show off its graphic prowess -- there are, frankly, very few visual accomplishments to speak of here. The main hallway of the Big Brain Academy looks like something out of an Internet Flash game -- in other words, basic to the point of being archaic. It's a strange thing to note, then, that it doesn't qualify as poor and it certainly doesn't offend. In fact, it looks very colorful and clean in the same way that Wii Sports does. The game automatically pulls your system's Mii characters and you will see them walking around the hallway in the foreground, which adds a welcomed touch of personality. As an aside, Wii Degree is compatible with WiiConnect24 and auto-imports your Wii system friend codes so that you don't have to manually implement dozens of stupid random numbers in order to re-add your buddies -- we love this and hope it's a sign of the future for all Wii titles.

The Wii game features only a disappointing handful of modes and you will inevitably learn that the title is best played with friends. If you've got none, you can still go solo and test your brain on a daily basis, which is still fun, but you'll be missing out on one of the console version's biggest advantages, which is the two-player simultaneous play or up to eight-player trade-off play, both robust and addictive. You'll begin the game with a test, which ranks your brain in five categories, from identify and visualize to compute, memorize and analyze. You're scored an initial brain size for your (hopefully stunning) performance and it's this early ranking that is used as a base for all your follow-up endeavors; the game constantly judges how you've improved over time with easy-to-follow stats. From there, you can wander the very small hallway of the academy, where you can take solo tests or go into group mode to play mind sprint, mental marathon and brain quiz, which are together the meat and potatoes of the effort.
Buried within the five mental categories are some 15 different challenges plus a couple additional puzzlers. First off, we'd have preferred at least twice that number as most people will see and play through all 15 offerings during their initial sitting. Like any brain game, these modes won't grow boring in a matter of days -- math problems will always present a challenge and will in turn remain engaging, for example -- but given that Wii Degree revolves around these brain teasers and nothing more, a greater variety would have gone a long way. Still, all but one or two of the challenges are fun, if not intoxicating. Games include mathematical sum ups where you're shown a series of numbered balloons and you have to point with the Wii remote and pop them from lowest to highest; boards where you must lay down train track from Point A to B, figuring out exactly where the turns and straightaway pieces go; spinning blocks that must be matched to their on-screen counterpart; you'll use the Wii remote as a flashlight to illuminate animals hiding in the darkness and then select which breed is shown the most; you'll look at different pictures and determine which one is out of place; and you'll select which three of six cages are housing birds beneath their cloth covers -- a real pain in the you know what. Call them mental challenges or mini-games, the result is the same: they play well, they're engaging and they're good fun.

Wii Degree really tries to use the Wii remote's pitiful Hallmark card-quality internal speaker. We give the developer credit. There's a mini-game where you have to hold the remote up to your ear as though it were a phone. Then a voice calls out various food orders into your ear and you have to quickly point at the screen and select the items in the correct order. It is compared to all of the other entries very uninspired and it actually becomes boring after the initial novelty of listening to orders with the controller wears off.

Choose the correct railroad paths to get from Point A to B.

The game is at its best when you're playing with one or more friends because fast-paced split-screen mental battles ensue. In our experience, anybody in the room will call out answers and give back seat guidance, just as people will shout and laugh as the matches grow more frenzied. Wii Degree utilizes two remotes for split-screen play and unfortunately it doesn't support four-player simultaneous action. You can, however, trade the two controllers between friends for matches that support up to eight players, even going so far as to create teams. Trading your controller between a partner as you both scramble to quickly solve puzzles before your competition can successfully up the sense of urgency that the game effortlessly spits out. On top of everything else, you can, through WiiConnect24, trade your player records with your friends, who can go into the mind sprint mode and compete against them. The process is very intuitive and works well. We're glad it's in there and at the same time we think Nintendo missed a huge opportunity by failing to deliver a full-blown online multiplayer mode for Wii Degree.

Verdict

Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree is largely a success, which makes it -- like Wii Sports -- a surprisingly difficult project to rate. As everyone knows, the title falls into the emerging "casual" sector -- a target demographic less concerned with graphics and more concerned with accessibility, or so we're told. From that perspective, the title is great -- it is both easy to pick up and really fun to play, especially with friends.

What Wii Degree demonstrates is that Nintendo really has the magic touch when it comes to the utilization of its remote. Very few third party titles incorporate that tangible, tactile responsiveness -- the sensitive controller rumble you feel when you're navigating menus in Wii Sports, for example. Wii Degree is fun to play partly because you really feel like you're reaching out and touching the puzzles and objects in the game with Nintendo's controller. That sense of polish goes a long way. Of course, it's also fun because the puzzles themselves are smartly developed and very engaging, if not downright hard. I swear, every time I encounter the bird cages I want to pull my hair out. There is no doubt that the effort was inspired by its DS predecessor, but with new minis, a robust multiplayer mode and even WiiConnect24 support, it certainly distinguishes itself and gives Wii owners a reason to take notice.

It's not perfect, though. It's shallow, for one. It only features 15 or so activities that you'll burn through quickly, even if you'll keep coming back. A couple of challenges fall short, like those that rely on the Wii remote's internal speaker. The hallways and rooms of the Big Brain Academy are presented in 16:9 widescreen mode, but the minis themselves unfold in 4:3 for some stupid reason. And I honestly think Nintendo dropped the ball by failing to include a genuine online mode for over-a-network mental battles.

I think Wii Degree is a really strong first effort -- one that I can recommend to everybody. However, it also feels like a foundation -- the beginning of a home console franchise with a lot of room to grow. You're going to have fun here, but in three or four years we'll look back at this game and it will pale by comparison to its inevitable sequels.