How big is your brain? How much does it weigh? How fast can you think? Do you have a Big Brain? These are the kinds of questions you'll start asking yourself after taking your first test in Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree, the first Touch Generations game for Wii and the sequel to the Nintendo DS hit. Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree is a brain training game that tests players' abilities to quickly and correctly solve challenges and answer questions.

Built on a similar model to the original Big Brain Academy, this game offers players five different categories with which they can test their skills; Identify, Memorize, Analyze, Compute and Visualize. The full test brings together all five categories, testing the player one at category at a time, to determine that player's brain weight. The bigger the brain, the better.

Gameplay

Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree has to be the absolute simplest game to control, that I have ever played. Everything is point and click. If you want to select something, just point the Wii Remote over it, click, and you've selected it. That's the way the menu system works, and that's the way all the challenges work. This kind of control system makes this game particularly great for casual, and even non-gamers. It has a very pick-up-and-play style suitable for everyone.

Everything in the game is set up like a school. Players must first enroll in order to play and records of their progress are kept and updated whenever they play. Since the game uses player's Miis to keep track of who is playing, it's easy to jump into a practice session or a full test any time. If another player comes along and wants to do some practice, all they need to do is go back to the hallway and select that player's Mii. The only, slight problem with this however, is when guests want to play. They must also be enrolled in order to play. If they do not have their own Mii, though, that could be a little annoying, unless they don't mind using the Wii's guest Miis. If that's the case, and most likely it will be since it's a lot simpler than having to go back to the Mii Channel and making a Mii, they just have to enroll the guest Miis to start playing.

When playing the practice challenges, players can select a specific challenge from one of the five categories and play it as many times as they want. Each practice session runs through ten rounds of the chosen challenge. After the session is over, the final score is calculated by the player's speed and number of correct answers, and comes out as a measurement in grams. Players can also earn medals for achieving certain brain weights (Bronze for 100g or more, Silver for 200g or more and Gold for crossing the 300g threshold). Players can also earn Platinum medals for exceptionally high scores, but a higher difficulty will require a higher score in order to earn that coveted prize. The full test works very similarly to the practice sessions, except that it tests players on all five of the categories and calculates their full brain weights based on the results. The test also creates a pentagonal graph which shows how well a player is doing in each category and selects a title for that player, like Doctor, Musician, Rock Star, etc.

The only real complaint I have concerning gameplay though, is the fact that there aren't enough challenges. There are only three challenges per category, excluding the group play challenges. Playing Art Parts (Visualize), Block Spot (Analyze), Fast Focus (Identify) or any of the other challenges are a lot of fun, but it feels like there still could have been more. Granted, group play does have extra challenges, but it would have been nice to see some more in the solo play.

Environment and Graphics

One might assume that a brain training game wouldn't have much, if anything, in the way of an environment. That's not the case with Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree, though. As soon as you're into the Disc Channel, not even in the game yet, you're at the entrance of the Academy. Starting up the game brings you into the main hall, where you can access the office, the group play hallway or the solo play hallway. After that, the only part of the Academy that still looks like a school is the office. All of the classrooms lead into the games, practice and test areas, which look more like the point of view of looking down at a desk. But for the type of game that you wouldn't expect to have any environment at all, that's pretty impressive.

Graphically, there's nothing particularly impressive though. There's nothing bad or anything glitchy with the graphics, they're just very simple and cartoony. The Academy, the practice sessions, everything looks drawn. The fact that the Miis also look drawn is a nice touch, though.

Sound

Crisp, clear, noticeable when it needed to be and out of the way when it could have been distracting, the sound for Wii Degree was, simply put, beautifully done. There were a lot of sound effects used for the game, most of them activating when selections are made during the challenges. Each challenge has a different sound effect for when a selection is made. The only two sound effects that stayed the same throughout each challenge were the right answer bell and the wrong answer buzzer. The good thing about the sounds effects, and this was the case with the in-game music too, is that they weren't distracting during the challenges, making it easy to focus.

The music in the game was very simply laid out. There was music for the hallways, music for the category and challenge selection, background music for during the challenges and tests and music for after the challenges and tests. The music is always the same, but never annoying and, as I mentioned with the sound effects, is not distracting during the challenges.

There is a bit of voice work in the game, in the hallways and during challenges. When in the hallways, if you hold the Wii Remote's cursor over something selectable, like the office for instance, a little, helium inhaled voice will say what you're holding it over. There is also something called the Remote Coach, which is a voice that comes out of the Wii Remote's speaker to encourage you. During challenges, it will let you know how you're doing, and after challenges, it will encourage you to do better if you've done poorly or say you're doing great if you've scored really well. The Remote Coach can be a bit annoying at times. It's not distracting, but if you're not doing well during a challenge you might just want it to be quiet. It sure is nice to get that “Great job” at the end of a challenge well done.

Conclusion

Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree is, hands down, a really fun game. The best part about it is that it's meant to be played every day, so its replay value is tremendous. Its solid and easy pick-up-and-play gameplay style is great for core gamers and non-gamers alike. If you do rent it, you'll end up wanting to buy it so you can keep up, and keep your brain trained.

Gameplay: 9
Environment and Graphics: 6
Sound: 8.5
Story: N/A
Fun: 9

Verdict: Buy It