Trivia or Die, Trivia or Die: Movie Edition, Avatar Trivia Party 2, and What The?!

I’m into trivia, and I would like to think I’m pretty good at trivia.  How good?  I’m banned from playing any and all trivia with friends and family.  The last attempt at doing so was playing Trivial Pursuit 5 on 1, with me being by myself, plus I was banned from getting to continue my turn if I got a question right.  I still won three games to zero, and suddenly people were more interested in playing Sorry! or Uno instead.  I was also asked politely to abstain from participating in trivia night at our country club.  They said I was single-handedly responsible for a drop off in attendance, and since trivia night was one of their most profitable events, I would be doing them a big favor by not showing up.  Then they advertised that trivia night was Cathy-free.  I’m kind of proud of that.

So reviewing some trivia-based XBLIGs would be a chore, but thankfully, all of today’s games could be played single-player as well.  I then simply observed my parents play a round of each game to make sure they functioned as multiplayer efforts.  Of course, a little piece of me died every time they missed a lay-up like “how many colors are on France’s national flag?”  Sigh.  I must have been adopted.

Trivia Or Die

Like all the games featured today, Trivia or Die is pretty basic.  The only real hook is if you miss a question, the host of the game insults you.  Not only is the insult kind of poor as far as insults go, but it’s done by what I think is meant to be a stereotypical Japanese game show host.  It’s as bad as it sounds.  The other gimmick is once a game ends, the losing players are killed by being dropped into a pit of fire.  Not as cool as it sounds.

The first one of you to say “TOASTY!” is getting bayonetted right in the fucking eyeball.

As far as the game goes, everything you need to know about Trivia or Die can be summed up with saying the first answer to the first question of the game was wrong.  What kills the most people: lightning strikes, earthquakes, or hurricanes?  The game says lightning strikes.  Sounded wrong to me, and a quick check on Google finds numbers for all three scenarios to be all over the board.  There doesn’t seem to be a definitive answer that has statistics and shit to back it up.  So it probably should have been left out of a multiple-choice trivia game.  It wasn’t, so I can’t recommend it.  Though if someone can find multiple sources to back up the lightning strike claim, I’ll change this to a mild recommendation.

Trivia or Die: Movie Edition

This is the exact same game as Trivia or Die, only it features movie-themed questions.  And it’s better on account of having no answers be inaccurate.  However, I should point out that there’s still some writing mistakes.  A quick example that gave me a chuckle: Goodfellas is called “Goodfellows.”  Somehow, Goodfellows is not such an interesting sounding movie.  Goodfellows sounds like it would star Woody Allen as a carpet salesman or something.  Oh, and there are issues with how questions are worded.  “What was the first animated film to be nominated for an Oscar?”  Well, that would be the Flowers and the Trees from 1932.  But, that’s not an answer, so I’m guessing they meant “What was the first animated film to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.”  That would be Beauty and the Beast.  Yea, I knew what they meant, but it’s still lazy.  And now I’m just being nit-picky.  Trivia or Die Movie Edition will serve as a semi-competent time waster that might barely be worth $1 if you have three friends of equal skill.

What kind of fucking moron would answer Y to.. DADDY HOW COULD YOU??

Avatar Trivia Party 2

It’s exactly the same game as the first one, only there’s different questions and a different board.  It’s like Mario Party, only with trivia.  Of course, actual trivia skills are not required to win.  In the original game, I lost a match to Brian where I never missed a single question and he missed significantly more than a single question.  What followed I think is legally classified as domestic assault.  Either way, I like the board in this one better than the original, and it is fun.  You can read my original review for more detailed thoughts on it.

What The?!

And I close out with the worst of the four games, which really sucks because it also had the most effort put into it.  It has full voice acting, which would be cool.  It would be, if the actors didn’t totally half-ass the whole thing.  There’s two guys: a host, and an announcer.  The announcer is actually the guy who reads the questions, and he at least seems to put some effort into his work.  It’s still awful, and the guy sounds like he’s so bored that he might fall asleep.  But he has the right voice for an announcer, so we’ll give them a half-point on it.  And then I’ll subtract a billion points for the host, who sounds like he would rather be dead than participate in this shit.  I’m not joking.  He sounds like he’s either coming out of a coma or going into one.  I’m sure some people will say they deserve props for having voice acting at all, but if it’s worth doing, is it not worth doing right?  Or with enthusiasm?

Otherwise, it’s just another bare-bones trivia game.  It’s set up to look like a 70s game show, but it doesn’t take advantage of this.  The hook here is you can occasionally “win prizes.”  They’re all gag prizes, but the weird part is, there’s no gag to go with them.  You can win the Moon as a prize, but there’s no joke or punchline to go with it.  Again, it’s another effort to give the game some personality that fails miserably.  And the bare-bones setup with the actual questions and answers, the lack of punchlines for the gag-products, and the ultra-slow pace really cripples What The?!  It has what should be the best feature of any of the games: a system in place that prevents you from being read the same questions more than once.  But that’s completely negated by how boring the overall experience is.  It would be like listening to Harry Potter’s book-on-tape and finding out the reader is Ben Stein.

The host has that “I’m going to sit in my garage with the engine running and the door shut” look on his face.

So I’ve tallied it as follows: Avatar Trivia Party 2 is the best of the bunch, but if you’ve already played Avatar Trivia Party, it offers nothing new besides a new board.  Trivia or Die: Movie Edition is competent but quite bland.  The original Trivia or Die is also bland but lacking in competence so you can feel free to pass on it.  Finally, approach What The?! only as a drug-free alternative to NyQuil.

Trivia or Die and Trivia or Die: Movie Edition were developed by Fun Infused Games

Avatar Trivia Party 2 was developed by Red Crest Studios

What The?! was developed by Social Loner Studios

80 Microsoft Points each dug a hole in the armrest of my couch with my fingernails while watching my parents miss question after question.  I tell you, it was worse than torture in the making of this review.

Trivia or Die: Movie Edition and Avatar Trivia Party 2 are Chick Approved and ranked on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard.  The other two games probably couldn’t tell you who is buried in Grant’s Tomb.