Brain Teasers are Bigger and Better on the Nintendo Wii

big-brain-academy-wiiA smash-hit on the Nintendo DS, Big Brain Academy on the Nintendo Wii and is chock-full of the same brain-teasers and casual gameplay mechanics that made it so successful in the first place, thanks in part to the intuitiveness and ingenuity behind the Wii’s controller.

After one look at the Wii, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that most of the games on the Nintendo DS can be successful there. However, as gamers have seen in the past with games like Cooking Mama and Pokemon Battle Revolution, a simple dirty port with enhanced graphics alone isn’t going to get the job done. In the case of Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree, not only does the game have the same casual feel of it’s older brother on the DS, it attempts to incorporate the microphone in the Wii-mote in ways never used before, making the game feel fresh and new and not like a shoddy sequel.

While the end result isn’t the best in the world, as the Wii-mote’s mediocre sound quality somewhat hamper the overall gameplay experience, Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree is still a blast to play and even better with friends.

Utilizing five different categories to find your degree of intelligence, Big Brain Academy tests your wits by having you do everything from simple arithmetic to complicated puzzles, utilizing the Wii-mote as a light gun to quickly pick the right answers to the questions. Nowhere near a hardcore gaming experience, Big Brain Academy is best served as the game you play before or after you embark on a four-hour venture in your favorite MMORPG or FPS.

However, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t capable of holding your attention for long periods of time.

Despite not having great graphics and sound, the gameplay in Big Brain Academy is so addictive that you’ll often wonder how it manages to take up so much of your time. The simple object of trying to raise a grade that marks your intelligence may not seem too enthralling an objective to meet at first, but after a few plays, your pride will take over and force you to continue playing until you find a way to raise your score. Add a few friends into that mix as well and you’ll create a blitzkrieg that lasts into the wee hours of the night, waiting for one gamer to claim the top of the intellectual totem pole.

That alone makes up for the fact that most of the game’s audio comes out of the minuscule Wii-mote speaker and that the game’s graphics look like 2-d cel-shaded sprites from the N-64 era. Considering this, perhaps Nintendo has found a way to make a game that doesn’t need great graphics or sound, or any story for that matter, in order to be a success. If that is the case, then Big Brain Academy would have to be the first game that fits that mold.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13819 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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