The opportunity of becoming smarter is something that would appeal to a lot of people as this could improve your everyday life, leading to a better job and a more rewarding life as a whole and therefore Nintendo have been clever to capitalise on this market with their game Big Brain Academy. Nintendo suggests that if you participate in the games activities on a daily basis, your brains grey matter will increase, resulting in you becoming more intelligent.

When you first start up Big Brain Academy and select a profile, you will participate in a test which evaluates your grey matter in five separate areas categorised as “Think”, “Memorize”, “Analyze”, “Compute” and “Identify”. You will answer 12 questions in each category and be awarded a graded mark at the end of the test which indicates how well you have done. You will also be told how much your brain supposedly weighs in grams judging by how well you answered the questions, with the average beginner weight being 750g and what weight you should be aiming for in the future. If that wasn’t enough, you will also be shown a graph which visually depicts how well you did in each category, showing your strangest categories and those which you need to work on. The amount of feedback you receive is pretty impressive and you can access it anytime via the Office section in the game.

The games themselves are for the most part enjoyable and will bring a few laughs to the table. These includes games where you have to pop numbered balloons in the lowest to highest order, move the Wii remote around a darkened screen, acting like a spotlight and try to work out which species of animal there is most of and keeping track of moving cages which contain a bird and working out their final position. Each game works very well with the simplistic point and click control system using the Wii remote and this allows all ages to join in and test their brain power. Even though there seems to be a decent variety of games to begin with, the activities can become a bit tedious after you’ve put around 5 hours playtime into the game and this is a huge problem when you consider you should play the game every other day in order to increase your brains grey matter and see maximum results.

The multiplayer aspect of the game could help avoid Big Brain Academy from becoming stale too quickly. There are 3 multiplayer modes in the game, with my favourite being called Mind Sprint. This is where you face of against up to 3 of your friends on the same console and race to answer a certain amount of questions correctly before your competitors. A meter in the middle of the screen indicates who is winning and this can motivate you to keep in the lead or answer the questions quicker in order to catch up, resulting in some fun and frantic gameplay which leads to a lot of laughs.

Another game mode is called Mental Marathon where you can play as a team or go it alone, with the objective being to answer as many questions correctly in a row. A wrong answer will end the game, and you’ll have to rush against a clock which ensures you can’t sit there all day thinking about your answer. Time is added to the clock everytime you choose a correct answer which helps keep the game flowing. The final multiplayer mode available is called Brain Quiz and this is where you and a friend participate in a number of games and try to get the best score in each game, with the aim of conquering the board and winning more games than your friend.

A nice touch included in the game is the ability to send your test scores to your friends and compare on a grid who has the best results. This can be interesting to see and of course provide some banter between a group of people. Multiplayer modes are without doubt the most fun way to play Big Brain Academy and train your brain. You can practice the games on your own but the lack of games available will soon become tiresome and put you off practicing. The theory of playing the game on a regular basis to improve your brain skills is a great concept and I saw results even after playing the game for an hour and re-taking the quiz, so I’m sure over time a substantial difference could be seen if you put your mind to it; I just wish there was a larger variety of games to encourage you to participate in the activities more often.

Big Brain Academy is a tricky one. I want to love it as it has a great concept and some really fun games to play, but the lack of games makes it hard to play the game on a regular basis, which you must do in order to see any results and therefore the game seems to counteract itself. The current price of only £13.69 on Amazon makes this pill a bit easier to swallow, and therefore I can easily recommend picking the game up for that price if you’re looking for a decent game to enjoy with friends and family which could potentially make you smarter!