Brain Academy Wii dated

By Robert Purchese Published 31 May, 2007

For Europe in July.

Nintendo has stamped a European release date of 20th July on the Wii version of Big Brain Academy.

It's chock full of mind-bending tasks and tests to sharpen up your thinker, each split into five categories: visualise, memorise, analyse, compute and identify.

The single-player Test mode takes you through all of these areas and judges you on your reactions and correct answers. If you enrol your Mii in the Academy you can also track your progress, gradually building up a student record and even receiving grades. Your big old brain will also get heavier the more successful you prove to be, which, er, we could never quite understand.

You'll also get a chance to prove your worth against your smarty-pants friends in three multiplayer modes. Two teams can be formed of up to four people each, which will gain points from numerous head-to-head showdowns. Mind Sprint lets you race a over 24 games, Mental Marathon challenges you with keeping a perfect score for as long as possible, and Brain Quiz is an assortment of 12 random tests.

You can even venture online to send your student books all over the world, then take other people on in Mind Sprint mode.

Big Brain Academy was released on DS in 2006 and received solid scores, although it proved to be a little shallow compared to main competitor Brain Training. Here's hoping the wacky motion-sensing abilities of the Wii and critical feedback can make this a real gem.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (27) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Beano #1 5 years ago

    Who cares... we want Super Paper Mario!

  • Tonka #2 5 years ago

    Who cares... we want Zak & Wiki and No more heroes

  • kissthestick #3 5 years ago

    Zak & Wiki and No more heroes

    Confirmed for Fall in japan

  • neil_pub5 #4 5 years ago

    Sorry that isn't why I bought my Wii. I did however stupidly buy one thinking quality software was going to be made and actually released on time in this country. Y'know stuff like feckin SUPER PAPER MARIO. Where is it Nintendo, where? I'm giving up.

  • smelly #5 5 years ago

    @neil_pub5:

    Well i take it you havent bought strikers, or mercury, or excite truck, or the godfather, or zelda? Or any of the many many decent VC games?

    Actually I presume you even have a wii?

  • Killerbee #6 5 years ago

    Mercury isn't out yet... or is it?

  • polymorph #7 5 years ago

    Is it bad to say i love my wii??
    NO,
    IS IT BAD TO DISAGREE WITH OTHER PEOPLE, NO!
    DO I WISH THERE WERE MORE GAMES? OF COURSE!!
    DO I HOPE THEY WAIT AND DO THEM RIGHT? YES!
    AM I MILDLY HAPPY HAPPY WITH VC RELEASES?
    YES, JUST!!!!!!!!!
    SNES MARIO KART, NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • MoGamer2006 #8 5 years ago

    If you're that fussed about UK releases, get a US Wii - it's quite simple!!! DVD BoxOffice (love those guys!) will sort you out for around £165 incl. p&p.

    That's what I did. Now I get the games earlier and cheaper.

    BTW, I finished SPM a week or so ago - and for the record, it's good but no classic... so don't keep whining on about it like it's the lost grail or something!!!

  • polymorph #9 5 years ago

    @ neil_pub5
    I THINK THE ANSWER YOU WANT IS IN YOUR QUESTION.

    YES YOU DID STUPIDLY BUY A WII ONLY OBVIOUSLY WANTING 1 GAME!!
    YOUR FAULT NOT NINTENDOS.

  • Tonka #10 5 years ago

    Shouting adds credibility to your arguments.

  • polymorph #11 5 years ago

    NO, BUT ME NOT REALISING,
    that makes me look a massive tool,

    thanks tonka!

  • stampax #12 5 years ago

    I remember the good old days of wii threads, when people didnt used to go on non stop about Super paper mario.


    Oh wait, no I don't.

  • polymorph #13 5 years ago

    Can i, as a nintendo fan since the nes, say im not really interested in paper mario??
    Or will i get flamed for not really being interested in it??

    Im sure future posts will tell me..

  • smelly #14 5 years ago

    "BTW, I finished SPM a week or so ago - and for the record, it's good but no classic... so don't keep whining on about it like it's the lost grail or something!!! "


    I agree with that.

    But most of the trolls have just picked up on one game which hasnt been released in the uk.. and are using that to mention every 5 minutes as to why the wii "suxors" and their console is the bestest.

    When it does come out - they'll just go on about it being "another mario game" and how nintendo need to do something new.

  • Markusdragon #15 5 years ago

    Not interested, blah blah blah minigames, blah blah blah where the hell is paper mario.

    I've posted it a million times, and I still mean it.

  • Tonka #16 5 years ago

    Project O

  • david78 #17 5 years ago

    Yeah, where's Paper Mario NoE?.
    Stop releasing teh shit of Big Brain Academy.

  • smelly #18 5 years ago

    What tells me when paper mario gets released.. everyone will start mentioning another game which has a us release but not a uk release on every single bloody announcement?

    Paper mario isnt THAT great - trust me.

  • Der_tolle_Emil #19 5 years ago

    Well Wii owners can't moan about anything else - and there has to be something to moan about all the time. I don't even mean that in cynical way - nothing is perfect and even the one thing that is as close to perfection as possible will have one thing everyone moans about.

    It get's boring, yes, but it's not surprising. Look at it this way: Since Paper Mario was released in the US noone gives a shit about the crappy 50hz and bordered VC releases anymore.

  • smelly #20 5 years ago

    Well maybe i'd feel differently if i was still in europe :-)

  • Beano #21 5 years ago

    "But most of the trolls have just picked up on one game which hasnt been released in the uk.."

    So now we are trolls because we are looking forward to a Wii game and want Nintendo to release the bloody thing in Europe?

    Geee... some fanboys just can't see ANYTHING wrong with the way Nintendo treats Europe. No matter what they do.

    SPM may not be a classic, but I'll settle with "very good" for now until the real Wii Mario game comes.
    Edited by 1 at 01/06/07 @ 08:05

  • WillTheSecond #22 5 years ago

    This isn't my kind of game (but then obviously, we are gamers here, not the casual audience, so what do you expect?).

    On the Super Paper Mario detractors: it's not that great, it's not like Galaxy or something. Strikers Charged has generally got equal reviews to Paper Mario! Stop whining and buy that instead!

  • neil_pub5 #23 5 years ago

    Yes I do own a Wii, complete with Zelda, Sonic and Wario Ware thank you very much. My point is that first party stuff like Paper Mario should be out here on time. There is no excuse for it. It doesnt paint a rosey picture for the future of Nintendo's support and I doubt Mario Galaxy will release in the UK this year. It annoys me that we're denied games that are finished and out elsewhere until Nintendo feel like releasing them ok!

  • chrisjm #24 5 years ago

    USA hasnt got mario strikers OMG TEH D00M3D. i wonder if they are whining as much about that.

  • smelly #25 5 years ago

    "It annoys me that we're denied games that are finished and out elsewhere until Nintendo feel like releasing them ok!"


    Do you cry so much when movies get released later in the uk?

    I live in the states now. We dont have strikers yet (and im a darn site more interested in that than paper mario - which was over too quickly), at least strikers has replay value!

    And Hot Fuzz only just came out over here.

    Am I crying? No. Because i dont care. Just because some people get something earlier than me, doesn't mean i'll enjoy it any less when it does come out. I dont see why the impatience. I dunno, maybe gamers are just naturally more whiney than everyone else?

    Paper mario is a text heavy game, it has to be converted to all the european languages (or at least english, french, italian, german and spanish). And it's not just a case of running it through google too, the humour has to be re-written for each country to make sense.

    Added to which it'll need to have a pal conversion done properly on it (as we all know gamers bitch about borders a lot). That may seem like an easy job, and it is (for the most part) on a 3d game, but something like this is going to need a much better job doing on it (as the "2d" parts will need re-doing to fit better on a higher res screen). Bear in mind that PAL tv's are higher res than NTSC ones (32 pixels more in the verticle.. that's a LOT when it comes to a 2d game) - you cant just stretch it - and if you put it in borders people will moan.

    And as any 360 owner will tell you, higher definition makes games better.. Apparently.

    Then it has to go through the rating systems for each country before they can think of releasing it.

    Etc etc.

    And how do you know that the european version wont have extra content (to go with the higher definition,etc)???


    There's much much more to releasing a game in europe than just going "right its done, put it in a box"

  • firefly #26 5 years ago

    All of these things are true but surely we're past the days when localisation is a process that occurs after the initial development. Europe is a big market and Nintendo knew that the game would have to run in PAL long before it was released - could they not have developed it with both standards in mind rather than seemingly waiting until after the US release was done? For that matter the same could be said of translation. Is there somebody sat playing the game at NoE right now translating each sentance as it comes up? Probably not, they should be translating from a script which means that they could have started the task of actually translating the text whilst the game was in production.

    For the record Super Paper Mario isn't high on my list of priorities anyway but I'd certainly be far less bothered if Nintendo of Europe broke their silence on the issue and gave away some sort of clue as to when it's likely to come out. As for the fact that people will be moaning about another game after it's out, surely the solution to that is to release game number two on time.

  • neil_pub5 #27 5 years ago

    I dont care about the same games you care about. Thats called CHOICE, something that doesnt exist as well as it should do. The point is the treatment of UK gamers and please stop picking on one game in particular. You see?

    PS the conversion thing is bollox as they should be developed in parallel. Other companies manage it. NOW SHUT UP