The past year has seen Nintendo achieve the impossible. In a year that saw the government paying students to study with their Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA) scheme, Nintendo have somehow convinced young and old alike to pay for the privilege of going back to school. Their ingenious combination of daily coaching, taxing puzzles and progression tracking has got literally millions of us scratching our heads once again on those G.C.S.E style real world tasks. This is a stark contrast with the governments EMA approach, which as reported on the Parent Centre website, ‘offers weekly payments as an incentive to young people aged 16-19 to encourage participation, retention and achievement in Further Education’.

One of the rising stars of Nintendo’s education line up was Big Brain Academy. This was more of a quick play title than Brain Training as it provided a wider variety of games and challenges. Although it lacked the statistics and sense of progression of the previous game, it offered a series of tasks that could be played by a much wider demographic.

It is this game that is to be the first release in the education line up for the Wii. Currently dubbed "Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree", although that may well change, it offers a similar line up of tests and tasks to get the old grey matter working. The tapping of the DS has been replaced by pointing and gesturing with the Wii-mote.

One of the more interesting features of the Wii version is the introduction of new modes that enable you to play with other people. Multiplayer mode pits you against someone else at a particular challenge, trying to get 12 points before they do. Co-operative play enables you to work together to solve complex problems. These may well edge the title into the party game genre, so it will be interesting how much they are able to stay true to their educational roots.

A feature that I hope will become mandatory on all games of this ilk, is the use of Mii’s. I always look forward to a new rendering of my little avatar. Hopefully this is not just for the player character but also gets used within the puzzles. Some more "Spot Mii" type games as were seen in Wii Play would be something worth shouting about.

The currently selection of screenshots shows how much the games benefits from the extra screen space. It looks like a lot of the old favourite games are making a re-appearance, as is the spider-web diagram that maps your progress. There are also some multiplayer graphs, which we hope suggests that there are more ongoing stats recorded, as these add a whole other reason to keep coming back for more.

Overall this looks like it will be a great little addition to the Wii line-up. Who can argue about another chance to dust of those Mii’s and improve their brain power.