Big Brain Academy challenges you and your friends to 15 different mini-games, each designed to determine how heavy your brain is. The more games you can clear by providing correct answers in the shortest amount of time will net you a heavier brain. The various puzzlers are separated into five different categories: Identify, Memorize, Analyze, Compute, and Visualize. My favorite category, and the one I tend to perform better in, is Compute. One game has a series of balloons with numbers on them floating around the screen. The object is to pop each balloon in order from least to greatest by pointing the Wii Remote like a gun and firing away. At first this seems easy, but as you get better at the game it will throw in some negative numbers and it quickly becomes increasingly difficult. Another fun game in this category is Mallet Math. Here, a series of numbered blocks stand vertically and you are given a total they must add up to. Only by eliminating the correct blocks with a mallet will you be left with the correct combination of numbers that adds up to the total displayed on the screen.

The game is pretty weak when it comes to modes of play. The single player experience is highly lacking and I have a hard time believing anyone will continue to play after an hour or two of practicing and testing. Just as it was on the DS, the game's real appeal begins to shine through when playing with friends. The game offers up three different multiplayer modes. Only one of them allows for two people to battle it out simultaneously via split screen. The other two alternate players so only one is playing at a time. Up to eight people can play in teams to see who has the bigger brains. The multiplayer games are fun, but the appeal wears off rather quickly.

Big Brain Academy utilizes Wii Connect 24 to allow users to send their brain size data to other Wii owners. It pulls the friend information straight from the Wii Menu, meaning there's no need to input separate friend codes for this game. Even friends without the game can receive your data, but if you have other friends with the game you will be able to battle against the computer, which will have all of your friend's stats so it's sort of like battling your friend. It's too bad that full-fledged Internet play wasn't integrated into this game as it seems like it wouldn't be too difficult to pull off. The game makes full use of your Mii characters and you'll see them wandering the halls in the school. It also uses the Wii Remote's internal speaker to talk to you while playing and for a mini-game where you must take a food order and then check off the items listed on the menu.

According to Nintendo's official web site, "Touch Generations games are easy to play and fun for anyone". I'll agree that Big Brain Academy is easy to play, but I don't see it providing much fun to a wide swath of gamers. Sure, it will find an audience, but I feel it will be much smaller than it would have been if it had been priced within reason ($29.99 would have been the sweet spot) and featured more multiplayer modes. Unfortunately the game offers up too little for too much and could have been up so much more. Perhaps a sequel will come out and fill in the feature set that's so sorely lacking here.