Trivial Pursuit
The “Trivial Pursuit” video game builds on the original gameplay with stunning visual presentation, new question types and all-new questions, and the innovative Facts & Friends game mode. The quick-playing Facts & Friends mode adds a whole new social dynamic to the game that keeps everyone involved by encouraging players to guess whether their opponents will answer their questions correctly.The Trivial Pursuit video game from EA builds on the original gameplay with stunning visual presentation, new categories of questions, all-new never before seen questions, and the innovative Facts & Friends game mode. The quick-playing Facts & Friends mode adds a whole new social dynamic to the game that keeps everyone involved by encouraging players to guess whether their opponents will answer their questions correctly. The result is a new take on a tried and true classic that has found a home on the Xbox 360.<
 |
Key Game Features:
|
|
|
|
|
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars Great for family game night
My family recently had the opportunity to try Trivial Pursuit on the Xbox 360. This game is AMAZING and really is hours of fun. It’s great that our entire family could all sit down together to play this. Ofcourse my husband and 17 year old daughter took the wins every time. They are super science and history buffs. The graphics were great and you have to be quick on your feet with some of the challenges. My daughters played this one night for almost two hours. I loved that they were able to find something that they both loved that was also educational. Our favorite game mode is the Facts & Friends. Another great part of this that we love is that you can also play Live with this game. So you can play anyone, anywhere, anytime.
2 Stars Disappointed
Well, I was really looking forward to this game and hoping it would revive the Trivial Pursuit popularity as it was in the 1990’s. Unfortunately, this version is not it (perhaps a later version will be?). The package is misleading as it is not xbox live compatible - you cannot play others on-line - which to me renders it basically useless. They over did the voice over announcer on this game. I always keep the volume down as it is ReaLLy irritating. Other than that, it is ok, educational and all. The long game CaN be rEally long. I like that the individual game can be “won” in several different ways (versus the clock, getting so many points per category before clearing the board, etc.). I happen to have gotten a defective game as it has “frozen” several times. So, this one is getting returned. I may wait and see if they improve it (on-line playable) before I purchase it again.
3 Stars Excellent game, but very content-starved.
At its core, this is a great game for the trivia buff. But its content really needs work.
The graphics are great for what it is (this is a jazzed-up board game, kids, not Halo.) The gameplay - visuals, pace, control - is truly excellent and well-thought-out. The designers did a fantastic job bringing Trivial Pursuit into the video gaming world.
My primary complaint is the quality and quantity of content. Perhaps I’ve been “spoiled” by the excellent and voluminous questions of the classic TP board games of yesteryear, but this was quite disappointing. Don’t get me wrong - there are many excellent questions - however, several are miscategorized (asking me about crab soup ingredients in ‘Geography’ - really, guys?) And (as shipped) the game has nowhere near enough questions to sustain any long-term engagement. To illustrate: we (two people) have only had the game two days, played perhaps four or five games total, and have seen 15 or 20 questions twice. That would never happen with a real TP card set.
The good news is that these content issues can be easily remedied with additional question pack downloads and updates from EA - but, as of this writing, the pickings are very slim.
Also, the geography “map” feature could be improved. When the player is selecting his/her answer on the map, the name of the answer being “hovered” over is not shown. Perhaps this is just to make it more challenging, which is fine, but it’s inconsistent with the rest of the game, which lets you see the name of your answer before you lock it in.
Oh, and the idiotic guy talking in the background who says several dumb things to you every single turn? Truly maddening. Who thought he was a good idea? You will want to punch him in the face within the first minute. Thank Heavens you can turn him off (options - voice volume - 0).
And while it doesn’t mean much to me, adding support for online play would be excellent.
Overall, it’s a very good game. But, if you’re going to play it with any regularity, buy it only if you’re optimistic there will be more content available to download in the future (I expect there will, but who knows.)
4 Stars Underrated
Great version of Trivial Pursuit and the new Facts & Friends mode is a fun/interesting way to play and will probably be the favorite mode of many players.
A few reviews have been far too harsh over the Geography questions and lack of online play. The Geography complaints are based on questions that ask you where something happen before presenting a map and having you select the area on the map that corresponds to your answer. This is tough as there are no boundaries on the maps and they zoom in to an extent that makes it even worse.
Online play means nothing to me since I refuse to pay for XBOX LIVE and would rather play games against opponents in the same room with me. I save my online contests for PC games.
Bottom line … I didn’t let the geography complaints steer me away and I’m glad (and I’m horrible at geography).
3 Stars Lack of online play really hurts what should have been a great party game
I’ve complained nearly since the release of the Xbox 360 that there are no good trivia games for the system. I had purchased and quite enjoyed the original Trivia Pursuit: Unhinged game for the older (original) Xbox system. It was great fun to play, but unfortunately the terribly inadequate backwards compatibility mode for the Xbox 360 didn’t include support for that game until several years after the release of that system. Nearly as bad was that once the Xbox 360 came to market the chances of seeing downloadable content and update for the old Unhinged game was pretty much gone.
In the years since there have been a couple of trivia games released on the Xbox 360 (and/or on Xbox Live), but still nothing quite as fun as the heyday of NTN (National Trivia Night, or whatever it was called…), or my more favored You Don’t Know Jack series.
Xbox Live should be a natural for a good trivia game. After all voice support is built in and the game matching system in Xbox Live is second to none. Yes, I know that the Playstation Network is available for Playstation 3 owners (I have one of those too) and it’s completely free. PSN is not bad, and would also be a nice venue for playing a good trivia game though PS3 owners aren’t guaranteed to have a microphone so I rank it a little below Xbox Live in the usability area.
Regardless, the question here is whether or not Electronic Arts’ Trivial Pursuit game is worth the purchase and in answer to that question I must say the answer is a mere maybe. The game itself isn’t bad, but being stuck with local only (as in only local to your own console) gameplay really limits the game much more than it should. The game is fun for a single player but the fun will wear down quickly. For multiple players (family, friends, etc.) its ok as well but in reality the best entertainment for these kinds of games come when you can be completely competitive without really worrying about hurting the feelings of someone close to you. (Which is why being able to play over Xbox Live or the PSN would be so essential).
The discount price may entice some purchases, and certainly there is entertainment value to be had here, the question is whether or not you’ll really be happy after the purchase? Certainly the ability to download content to add to the game helps keep the game fresh over time, but will such content continue to be forthcoming if the game doesn’t sell as well as the publishers hoped? That remains to be seen.
Filed under: Xbox 360 Video Games