Big Brain Academy (Nintendo DS, 2006)

The first time I picked up Big Brain Academy and played it, I didn't put it down for at least three hours. It all started with the test, and my brain weighing an interesting 1010 grams. My evaluation stated (in not so harsh words) that I sucked at thinking, was doing exceptionally at memorizing, and not so bad analyzing, identifying and computing. What does all this mean? Keep on reading and find out.

Big Brain Academy falls under the educational type of games. A bit like Brain Age, this Touch Generations title lets you exercise your brain to improve your overall mental performance. What sets it apart of Brain Age is that its mini-games are more varied, offering a variety of colors and shapes, and they're a lot more entertaining to do.

The activities in Big Brain Academy will test your brain in five specific areas: thinking, memorizing, computing, analyzing and identifying. You begin by doing the initial test to see how your brain fares in these areas. Doctor Lobe, your strange little host, will then tell you how much your brain weighs, what career type or historic personality you correspond to, as well as giving you a grade on a scale of F to A+. You then move on to the Practice tests to improve your abilities.

Results are calculated by the amount of questions you answer within a time limit, and how many correct answers you give. In Practice exercises, you are given medals (Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze) according to your results. Doctor Lobe also makes you go over the wrong questions at the end until you get the right answers.

The game has a total of 15 activities, three for each category of "brain testing", and three levels of difficulty for each. In the Think area, you have:
- Heavyweight, where you guess which object is heavier by looking at a series of scales; - Pathfinder, where you must draw a single line that will make the top animal find the bottom one; - Bone Yard, which I find particularly complicated, involves placing a bone on the square the dog will eventually move to on the grid.

In the Memorize area (my personal favorite), you can find: - Sound Bites, a memory game to play the sounds in the order you hear them; - Memo-Random where you look at the top row and then find the respective panel when one is covered; - Flash Memory, where a series of numbers and symbols appear on the top screen and you have to repeat them on the bottom screen.