The Wii game features only a disappointing handful of modes and you will inevitably learn that the title is best played with friends. 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 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. In fact, it looks very colorful and clean in the same way that Wii Sports does. It's a strange thing to note, then, that it doesn't qualify as poor and it certainly doesn't offend. 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. 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. 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. Illuminate the darkness and then select which animal shows up the most. 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. 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. Rather, it feels great - it's incredibly tactile and responsive. 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.īut 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. 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. It's not as though the game really branches out from its DS predecessor, after all. If you're a cynic, you'd call it a cash-in, which may not be that far off the mark. At first glance, Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree - a console-ified take on the DS title of the same name - seems like a gimmick. Just point and shoot the balloons with the Wii remote. Let's face reality: there are certain games that are just more suitable for a handheld, right? 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. But what works for DS may not always translate to Wii. 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. The unique make-up of the DS has helped foster efforts like these. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
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