Brains! Brains! Brains! If anything, Nintendo's brain-themed games for its DS system have proved that grey matters, at least in Japan! But now it's onto the U.S., where Mario and Co. hope to capture an audience of non gamers with its patented Touch Generation lineup of games geared towards people that don't give a crap about Xbox 360 and PS3. Thus, Big Brain Academy was born, a game that's primary goal is to make you smarter by tossing you into various mental gymnastics. There's no scientific evidence to suggest that playing it makes you more intelligent, but I'll be damned if it isn't enjoyable, though there are a couple of drawbacks that keep it from greatness.

Big Brain Academy is cool for numerous reasons, predominantly because it's the perfect compliment to Nintendo's other title, Brain Age. Where that game measures how old your brain is, this one is more focused on how much it weighs, and in order to calculate this it throws different types of mini games at you that have been divided into the following five categories: Think, Memorize, Analyze, Compute, Identify. Each category is comprised of three games (for a total of 15), and each one is drastically different and uses the touch screen exceptionally well. One splits the screen into two segments, tosses change onto both sides and asks you to pick the side that has the most, another puts two animals onto a scale and asks you to select the heaviest, while another charges you with solving simple arithmetic. At first it's all very easy, but every time you get a correct answer the game throws a similar but more complex problem at you, then another, then another. And when you've finished with the test (after completing one game in each category), the game's "professor" appears, lets you know how large your brain is, slaps it with a letter grade, then informs you which type of brain you have, whether it's the brain or a lawyer (which is good) or an economist (not so good), though there are other professions that you'll run into.

All of this is good, clean fun, and it's bound to incite plenty of trash talk at the office or at school as people boast about the size of their brains, but unlike Brain Age, which does its best to convince the player that there's some sort of valid science surrounding its claims, no such animal exists in Big Brain Academy. That's not to say that Brain Age is accurate, but this game is even more unbelievable, especially since there's a huge margin for error. If you're a lucky son-of-a-gun you can attain a high score from just making random guesses, and then there's the moments when frantic screen tapping results in accidentally making a wrong selection.

Furthermore, the game doesn't track your progress over time. After completing a test it identifies your strengths but it doesn't save this data for future use. It retains your previous brain weight, but that's not particularly useful other than knowing that that's the score that you're trying to beat. Plus, the game has a cutesy appearance, so instead of being an educational tool it comes off as a toy. That doesn't bother me since I dig the visuals, but it may send a mixed message to new adopters, particularly the non-gamers interested in the DS' more mature content.

I'm also enjoying the multiplayer, especially since only one copy of the game is required and up to eight people can compete to see who's got the biggest brain. It's just a lot more fulfilling than the wireless multi-play in Brain Age, which is rather limiting.

Big Brain Academy is goofy but it's also enormously entertaining. The variety of games coupled with the addictive multiplayer element makes it a must buy. And as for whether or not you should pick up Brain Age, I strongly recommend that you purchase both titles because each of them has something uniquely fun to offer.