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Electronic Arts and Hasbro have teamed-up once again for
Trivial Pursuit, a disc-based retail release in a similar
vein to last year’s Monopoly. Launched alongside the XboxLIVE!
Arcade Hasbro Family Game Night envelope - offering
Connect 4, Battleship, and
 Yahtzee
and promising
Boggle, Sorry! and Sorry! Sliders
in coming months – some may wonder
as to why this game in particular has been chosen for a full-price
adaptation. But as with Monopoly,
there is plenty of method to what might seem like madness.
Trivial Pursuit
is mainly a multiplayer game, as
would be suggested by the subject matter. The Classic Mode is just
that; classic Trivial Pursuit.
Featuring the expected assortment of categories – Science,
Entertainment, History et al – players take turns to roll the dice,
move around the board and answer questions. A correct answer on a
regular square will give you a second roll of the dice, and
correctly answering the question presented on a Wedge HQ will grant
you the associated Wedge. Once you have obtained a Wedge of each
colour, you must land on the Central HQ with an exact roll, and
correctly answer the presented question, to be proclaimed the
winner.
Facts & Friends Mode jumbles things up
a bit. Each of the players shares a single representational piece on
the board, and moves this piece in turn
 with
each
roll of the dice. Players can
accumulate points towards earning a Wedge by correctly answering
questions on normal squares, and will receive a full Wedge from the
Wedge HQ square as normal. In addition, players can earn points by
betting whether or not other players know the answer to the proposed
question, or selecting the “I Know” option for a chance to answer
the question themselves, should the first player get it wrong. Once
a Wedge has been collected, that category disappears from the board,
and players will have to steal it from the winner in order to claim
it as theirs. To do this, a player must land on a Bonus Event
square, which will provide a random selection of special effects. As
well as the aforementioned Wedge-stealing option, called the
“Wedge-Off”, being able to teleport to any square on the board or
awarded double points for correct bets in the following round are
some of the other possibilities of a Bonus Event square. Acquiring
the most Wedges is important as these count as lives in the End
Game; a final stand-off where all players have to simultaneously
select their answer from one of four.
The Facts & Friends mode is
considerably more aggressive
than the Classic option, with a more
traditional quiz-game feel and has clearly been designed for players
who may have the preconceived notion that Trivial Pursuit
is a particularly boring exercise.
When with a group of knowledgeable friends, that’s one label that
certainly couldn’t be afforded to this videogame adaptation.
The single-player mode,
quite obviously an essential addition to a retail package such as
this, is surprisingly inventive. Entitled Clear the Board, the mode
functions
similarly to the Facts & Friends mode in that obtaining a Wedge will
reduce the size of the board. High Scores or speed runs are
objective here: each square only allows for use only once, and each
correct question provides additional points but will considerably
add to the time it takes to “clear the board” – and an incorrect
answer will, of course, harm your chances of achieving either.
The presentation of
Trivial Pursuit is well
conceived, with superior Avatar implementation than most of
Microsoft’s own releases. The visuals and soundtrack
have taken lessons learnt through Monopoly and produced a
much more modern structure with Trivial Pursuit. The visuals
are stylish and crisp, if lacking the personality of Relentless
Software’s BUZZ! titles, and the soundtrack is reminiscent of
the likes of Zero7 – and is somewhat at odds with the Scene It?
style announcer.
The lack of online play is questionable, but even with support for
the XboxLIVE! Vision Camera the game would lose much of its
lustre when playing with opponents in a different location. The
promise of Downloadable Content in the form of additional
 question
sets will be interesting with respects to their price positioning;
though not entirely necessary they will of course be a pleasant
option for enthusiasts. The multiplayer modes are clear and
immediate enough for anyone to learn in the first round, and the
single-player is resourceful enough to remain a rewarding experience
far beyond any such on-paper descriptions would lead you to believe.
Trivial Pursuit is quite easily one of the best videogame
adaptations of a board game ever released: effortlessly enjoyable
and with presentation designed to rival the likes of Scene It?,
Electronic Arts have certainly proved Trivial Pursuit worthy
of that full retail release.
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