Main
Features
 FOTD
 Toy Fair 2023
 SDCC 2023
 Toy Fair 2020
 NYCC 2019
 SDCC 2019
 Toy Fair 2019
 SDCC 2018
 Toy Fair 2018
 HasCon 2017
 SDCC 2017
 Toy Fair 2017
 SDCC 2016
 Toy Fair 2016
 SDCC 2015
 Toy Fair 2015
 SDCC 2014
 C2E2 2014
 Toy Fair 2014
 SDCC 2013
 C2E2 2013
 Toy Fair 2013
 SDCC 2012
 C2E2 2012
 Toy Fair 2012
 NYCC 2011
 SDCC 2011
 Toy Fair 2011
Archives
 Books
 DVD
 Music
 Statues
 Prop Replicas
 Toys
 Video Games
Credits
Contact


This site is part of Amazon, Walmart, eBay, and Entertainment Earth affiliate programs. We may earn a commission when you click one of their links.


Related Links:
16bit Tumblr
16bit Twitter
16bit Instagram
ASWN
EE Podcast
Galactic Hunter
Glyos News
OSM News

Trivial Pursuit EA, Xbox 360, March 2009

Xbox 360 Trivial Pursuit by Electronic Arts
Publisher
Year
Players
Price
EA
2009
1-4
$30
The Xbox 360 Trivial Pursuit is a fun experience for you and up to three more players on your couch-- the questions range from simple to challenging, but are mostly challenging. The game also appears to have found a smart in-game way to promote downloadable content (DLC), plus this title incorporates your avatars.

Rather than have you say the answer out loud, this game features multiple choice answers. This may infuriate purists, but it does allow the game to be played without having to quickly think about, type in, and spell correctly your answer. I thank the developers for this.

Control

It's so simple even your idiot friends can play it. Move the cursor and use the buttons as directed on the screen-- the developers made sure that this game would be accessible to people who may not be experts on controller button placement. This is particularly great if, to have a four-player game, you need to use cheap controllers for the extra players. Well done! You also have the options of selecting the language in which the game appears, or picking if each gamer gets a controller or if you all share.

Graphics & Sound

The colorful board could be out of 1987 or 2009-- it just looks sharp and very plastic-y. The menus are all very simple, and the development house made sure to not be too showy. It looks like you're playing with digital chunks of plastic, and the dark screen with brightly colored pieces makes it easy to see what you're supposed to do.

A particularly clever element is a "news ticker" on the bottom of the screen. Not only does it give you statistics on how everybody is doing, but it occasionally pops up a reminder of which downloadable expansion packs are available for download-- free or paid. It's a great use of the screen's real estate, plus it's pretty unobtrusive as these things go.

Like numerous other board game/game show games of this era, there's an announcer which hurls taunts and compliments your way as you play. The sound mix places him in a position so that if you're having a conversation in the room with other players, it's easy to completely tune him out. He's not particularly annoying, but I can say that his presence was generally not noticed when we were playing.

Online Play and Multiplayer

There's no online play. This is a real shame, because the reshaped experience seems to lend itself well to online trivia battles-- although we suppose it might be possible to exploit Google and cheat if nobody's watching you play. There are online leaderboards, but I honestly have to say that I don't feel that online leaderboards on a trivia game (because you may be able to cheat) are a particularly noteworthy feature.

The single player mode-- yes, there is one-- relies on time, scoring multipliers and yes, points. As such you aren't competing against the computer, which was a really smart decision for this game. You can earn a high score, and there's an actual strategy involved in which questions you opt to answer in order to maximize your score. Depending on if you want to play for a huge score or just for fun for a few minutes, you can finish the one-player mode in under 10 minutes quite easily, or stretch it out to about 30 minutes. Kudos for the decision to let you compete with what you know, rather than a computer player who'd likely be either a genius or, shall we say, "special."

Of all the Hasbro/EA board game conversions we've played so far, this one we liked the best. Unlike Hasbro Family Game Night, there are no little surprises which may prevent you from playing the game you paid for.

One final detail: it does make use of your avatar, but it clips your name at 6 characters. Expect butchering of names.

Is It Worth It?

RATING
B
LOCAL FUN
There are some things you simply cannot do when you translate a board game to a video game. This game tries hard to get around these obstacles, but part of Trivial Pursuit's charm was that you actually have to be able to speak an answer aloud rather than guess a correct answer out of four. Questions involve picking one of four correct trivia answers, highlighting the right location on an unlabeled, border-free map, and other challenges. If you don't know geography, this game will punish you severely.

If you are a single gamer who only plays with other people via Xbox Live, you probably won't want to buy this unless you can get it cheap. I highly recommend this to anyone who loves video games, but has a significant other that's a board game fiend. This will allow you to satisfy your desire to earn more achievement points-- some of which are damned fiendish-- while they get to pretend they're playing a game involving dice and a board. If you enjoyed the Scene It! games, this is a better game overall-- plus it's expandable. Here's hoping EA continues to provide additional DLC question packs, particularly if they're free like the movies one, which you ought to grab as soon as you buy this game.

Trivial Pursuit is available on numerous other platforms including Wii, Playstation 3, and PS2. The PS2 version can be had cheaply on sale or even on clearance at certain retailers. (The big red dot does not waste time.)

--Adam Pawlus
June 1, 2009

Game Reviews

Arcade Games
 Godzilla Kaiju Wars VR

Gear
 Rollacrit Bag of Holding

PC Peripherals
 MT80 White Mechanical Keyboard

Nintendo Wii
Final Fantasy IV: The After Years
 Main Game
Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People
 Homestar Ruiner
 Strong Badia the Free
 Baddest of the Bands
 Dangeresque 3
 8-Bit Is Enough

PSP
 Kurulin Fusion
 Thexder Neo

Xbox 360
 Battleship
 Bubble Bobble Neo
 Bust-A-Move Live!
 Comic Jumper
 Connect 4
 Encleverment Experiment
 G.I. Joe: ROC
 Gel: Set & Match
 Hard Corps: Uprising
 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
 Lode Runner
 Mega Man 9
 Puzzle Quest Galactrix
 Qix++
 R-Type Dimensions
 Scrabble
 Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection
 Space Invaders Extreme
 Space Invaders Infinity Gene
 Splosion Man
 Trivial Pursuit
 Yahtzee
 Zombie Apocalypse
 Zombie Wranglers
Walking Dead
 Episode 1
Wallace & Gromit
 Fright of the Bumblebees
 The Last Resort
  Muzzled!
 The Bogey Man

GameBoy
 GameBoy Advance SP Famicom Color

Saturn
 Salamander Deluxe Pack Plus

16bit.com is best not viewed in Apple's Safari browser, we don't know why. All material on this site copyright their respective copyright holders. All materials appear hear for informative and entertainment purposes. 16bit.com is not to be held responsible for anything, ever. Photos taken by the 16bit.com staff. Site design, graphics, writing, and whatnot credited on the credits page. Be cool-- don't steal.
We know where you live and we'll break your friggin' legs.