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EA Special: Trivial Pursuit

Author: iPhone Reviews // Category:
This is the third of six reviews that will be written for the EA Special competition.


iTunes Link

Trivial Pursuit is a trivia game by Electronic Arts. $4.99

Once again, Electronic Arts have brought a well known board game onto the iPhone. Trivial Pursuit could arguably be called the most well known Trivia board game. I do not own Trivial Pursuit but own and play many times a game almost identical to it called the Game of Knowledge. The basic objective of Trivial Pursuit is to collect wedges for all six different categories. These can be earned from kind of 'boss' tiles that people generally spend their time going back and forth hoping to roll the correct number to land on the tile. One great thing about this new version of Trivial Pursuit is the different game modes. There is the Classic mode which lets you play by yourself or against up to three other CPU's. The Classic mode can also be played against the same number of real people by Pass n' Play or Multiplayer WiFi. Being a recently released game I was hoping for Facebook Connect, like in Scrabble but it isn't available.. hopefully only for now. The great new mode in this game is Pursuit Mode that instead of trying to get wedges on the circular board, you are against the clock to try and get to the end of a pre-designed board. That sounds confusing but I will explain more about it later.

Trivial Pursuit has satisfied all it set out to show in the way of graphics. The board game has been slightly altered to show the tiles and players. It has changed the board into a 3D object and it isn't played on a table like Monopoly, and rather a dark themed background. The whole game is 3D and has been set out perfectly for an iDevice version. Tiles hover above the rest if they are available to move onto, making it alot easier to decide where to move, rather than counting the squares. The different tiles are easy to distinguish and the HQ Tiles stand out. Questions are easy to read and so are the pictures from the visual questions. I have yet to have Trivial Pursuit crash on me, and the gameplay is very smooth. A great trivia/board game graphically.

This game is very easy to control, and doesn't use the accelerometer at all. Everything in Trivial Pursuit is done by touch. To roll the dice you have to touch the dice to roll it and again to stop it. To move your piece around the board you have to touch on the tile you wish to move to so it is selected, then again to actually move there. This is a good way to move as it means mistakes aren't made when clicking on the wrong tile accidentally. The answer text questions you just tap on the desired answer. For visual questions it is similar, except you tap on the picture you want to select. Trivial Pursuit is a simple game to pick up and play on the first time, even if you have no idea what Trivial Pursuit is all about.

Like the other two games by Electronic Arts I have reviewed, Trivial Pursuit doesn't have much in the way of sound. There are a few sound effects for rolling the dice, when you make selections etc. Most of the sound you hear is a peaceful tune that plays in the background. It can get a bit plain if you are playing for a long time and I usually prefer to play my own music when playing these board games, or just have it silent.

The aim of Trivial Pursuit is to answer questions, get to the HQ tiles and collect all the wedges before your opponent(s) do. If you correctly answer questions your turn continues so you have more of a chance to collect all the wedges first. Trivial Pursuit on the iDevice takes this process and hypes it up to a whole new level. Unlike the other board games brought over by Electronic Arts, Trivial Pursuit brings a whole new game mode for people to play. Classic Mode is the board game everyone knows and loves. It pits you against up to three computer players with options such as how many wedges have to be earned and the difficulty level of your players. The two multiplayer modes are Pass n' Play and Multiplayer WiFi. Pass n' Play is very similar to the same mode in Scrabble and Monopoly. Up to four players can take turns playing the game, just handing the iDevice around the group. Multiplayer WiFi lets you play with up to four players again, but on separate iDevices with a local WiFi connecting them all. Sadly Facebook Connect isn't available for Trivial Pursuit as of version 1.0, but hopefully it will be added in the future. The brand new mode available to play is Pursuit Mode. The aim of pursuit mode is to get from a starting tile all the way to an ending tile on a kind of track. You must get a gold, silver or bronze rating to move onto the next level. Each level gets harder and longer and the tracks starting getting many twists, turns and special tiles on them. Questions that you get wrong let you only move 1 space for the next turn, but if you answer the question correctly you will move from 6 to 2 squares depending on the time it took you to answer. I am currently up to Level 1o of Pursuit mode and don't know how many there are to complete.

With 3500 questions, including 600 of them being visual questions, Trivial Pursuit is bursting at the seams with knowledge. This is a super addictive game that with the Pursuit mode has made me forget that it is actually a board game. This is a very polished game, with excellent gameplay and a great reason to play with friends. The only downside I have found is that Facebook Connect is not included, even though it was released after the service was included in Scrabble. All of these board games by Electronic Arts should have the service in case none of your friends have iDevices or wish to play Trivial Pursuit. By far the best trivia game I have played on the App Store, this is one you should definitely check out. You never know, you may learn something while playing Trivial Pursuit, I know I did.

Gameplay- 9/10
Graphics- 7/10
Sound- 7/10
Overall- 8/10


I would recommend this game if you enjoyed- TV Show King

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Thanks- iPhone_Reviews

3 Responses to "EA Special: Trivial Pursuit"

AppStore Reviewer Says :
December 5, 2009 at 4:28 AM

Trivial Pursuit was only like $2 on the black Friday sale - I should have picked it up. EA has been releasing so many good board games, many of which are insta-buys for me.

(thisismyemailthanks2@gmail.com)

jane@make iphone games Says :
March 18, 2011 at 12:46 AM

this game is highly recommended! I got it in my phone as well.. worth the purchase I would say!

generic cialis Says :
March 29, 2011 at 9:46 AM

Nice contribution, and I will put this blog in my wish-list, by the way, Wi-Fi certified and compliant devices are installed in many personal computers, video game consoles, MP3 players, smartphones, printers, digital cameras, and laptop computers. 23jj

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