Big Brain Academy (Nintendo DS) > Reviews > More games for the brain!

Author's product rating:   

Playability & Enjoyment	Excellent - very playable game
Addictiveness	Compulsive
Graphics	Good
Difficulty & Complexity	Average - suitable for most
Value for money	Excellent value

Advantages:	Keeps your best score and tests you on different aspects of intelligence .
Disadvantages:	Not sure how to play it with other ds users yet .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I bought this game about a month after I bought Dr Kawashima's Brain Training. I love both games. While the "Brain Training" graphics make it perhaps more appealing to adults, the "Brain Academy" seems a lot more appealing for children. However this is still a fantastic game for adults. One of the main features I love about the Brain Academy (compared to Brain Training) is that your best score is always saved! This means I am quite happy to test myself on a regular basis as I know that if I don't perform as well as my last test I will not lose my best mark!

When I turned the game on I went to the "Test" straight away to check what my brain was like before any practice! I got D+ (I think D is the lowest grade you can get)! The highest you can achieve is A+, which is proving very difficult to achieve. After practicing I have now reached and become stuck on B- for a while and cannot seem to get any higher. I did stop training for about a month so that has not helped. It also gives you a brain type; the two I have come across so far are "Michelangelo" and "Museum Curator"!

The Test and the practices cover 5 main areas (the test randomly chooses one of the games from each area, which are timed, to test you and work out your brain weight), which are: Memorize, Think, Compute, Analyze, and Identify. At the end of the test, apart from your brain's weight, grade and type it also displays your performance in each area so that you can concentrate on the areas you can improve on in the practice sessions. In the following part of this review I have chosen my favourite game in each category and tried to explain what is good about them.

Memorize.

In the Memorize section I just love the game "Sound Bites" (probably because I have scored my highest mark on this game)! There are several objects and characters that are shown in the top screen making a sound in a particular order. For example, you might be shown a piano, a baby and a train. Each of these makes their sound in an order you have to memorize. You then have to touch each of the objects on the bottom screen using the stylus in the exact order they were presented. Other games include: "Memo-random" (memorizing and recalling images) and "Flash Memory" (memorizing and recalling numbers).

Think.

My favourite game in the Think section is "Bone Yard". At first I found this game very confusing as I was not sure how to play it. The top screen shows some arrows, which relate to the direction the dog (and sometimes some blocks of cubes), will be moving. You then have to touch the grid that you think the dog will end up on. Once I realized what was required of the game (through lots of trial and error) it became quite fun to play and I like the sound effects of the dog when you choose the correct or incorrect grid! Other games in this section include: "Pathfinder" (trying to get an animal to move successfully down a pathway) and "Heavyweight" (choosing the heaviest item out of a selection using the information on some scales).

Compute.

As I am not a huge fan of numbers it is difficult for me to choose a favourite in the Compute section. If I had to choose then it would be "Coin Comparison" where the top screen shows the different types of coins and their values. Using this information you need to choose from one of two money boxes, containing different combinations of coins, with the highest value. Other games include: "Written Math" (solving number equations) and "Add Agency" (choosing objects to match the number of objects shown on the top screen). This is admittedly the category that I need to improve on a lot! However, regularly practicing these games have helped me to improve a lot so far. There is still hope!

Analyze.

The game I like in the Analyze section is "Animal Lines". The top screen shows a pattern/arrangement of animals, which you then have to trace correctly on the bottom screen, which contains other arrangement of animals as well as the one you are looking for. Other games include: "Missing Link" (Completing a nearly finished dot-to-dot picture) and "Cube Game" (counting the number of blocks in different stacks and writing down the total).

Identify.

Finally, my favourite game in the Identify section is "Shadow Shift". In this game you are given a selection of pictures on the bottom screen to choose from. In order to choose the correct picture you have to match it with the shadow of the picture/pictures shown on the top screen. As it gets more difficult there are several shadows on the top screen that are moving or spinning really fast making it harder to choose the correct pictures. Other games include: "Matchmaker" (selecting correct pairs of numbers or pictures) and "Get In Shape" (like jigsaw; selecting the smaller parts that make up a larger shape).

Another member of my family has recently been given a DS and this game. We are still trying to work out how to play against each other. I am sure when we do find out it will get extremely competitive!

I think this is another excellent game to help train the brain. Like Brain Training you have to play Brain Academy regularly to really reap the results. Some people may get bored with playing the same games all the time but if you aim to improve your brain and/or you have some competition from other people then you may enjoy this game for a very long time! I am glad I have played it as it has shown me the areas I could improve on and it gives activities to help me do this. It also helps me to be happy with the fact that I am not weak in all the areas of my abilities!

I think I will probably buy the next instalment of this game once I try to do as best as I can in this game.

This is a brilliant game and I would recommend it to everyone - both adults and children will hopefully enjoy this game!