That Trivia Game

Some people feel I review too many trivia games at Indie Gamer Chick. I don’t know how to respond to that. I guess I’m such a fan of You Don’t Know Jack that I keep looking for the next evolution in video game trivia. And you would think that would come from the indie scene, where irreverence and quirkiness are a way of life. But it hasn’t happened yet. Or at least I haven’t found it. Probably the most inspired entry in the genre I’ve found is Triviador on Facebook of all things, which mixes Trivial Pursuit with Risk. Not a wild idea or anything, but it’s a step in the right direction. Otherwise, your only options for stuff that tries to be a little more than a glorified pop-quiz are the Scene It series, and those aren’t exactly magnificent or anything. I’m more than a little surprised that indies seem to phone in the trivia genre. Maybe it’s good for getting your feet wet in game development, which is why nobody really takes risks with it.

Wait, there a tube other than YouTube?

By far the most unambitious title in the genre I’ve run across so far is That Trivia Game, which recently hit the PlayStation 4. I literally only have two positive things to say about it. First, I never stumbled upon a question where the correct answer was in fact not accurate. More than half the trivia games I’ve played on IGC have had that issue. Second, there’s full voice acting for all the questions, although the puns and barbs the host throws at you sound half-hearted and are never funny.

As for the actual game, there’s four rounds in That Trivia Game. In the first, you answer five questions from a subject of your (or one of the other players) choosing. Correct answers net you 250 points. You then are given one final question in that round, where you can wager as much as 750 points. In the second round, incorrect answers in the multiple choice disappear, and you get more points for answering before they do. In the third round, you simply get more points for answering quickly. The final round is almost identical to the Jack Attack round in any You Don’t Know Jack game. Answers to a question appear one at a time and you must buzz in when the correct one is on-screen. The first person to get it gets 1,000 points, while every incorrect answer costs you 1,500.

I guess for a $10 indie trivia game, I expect more. The play style is as basic as possible. There’s no online play, so unless you have extra controllers and people up for playing with you, you’re stuck with an utterly brain-dead AI opponent. Besides the occasional question based around a photograph or drawing, there’s nothing resembling personality or edginess to the trivia presented. And, the gameplay isn’t always right. Take the third round, where the points decrease at a steady rate. There’s nothing wrong with this style, except the countdown should ideally wait at least a second or so, long enough for you to read the question. It doesn’t, and thus unless you blindly stab at one of the answer buttons, it’s impossible to get the maximum point value out of it.

This is the only time you wager points. It’s at the end of the first round, and you can’t even bet the maximum amount of points (which at most can be 1,250). So very lame.

Most of all, the value sucks. $10 nets you the much more entertaining Scene It! on PlayStation 3, and you can nab You Don’t Know Jack on PS3 or Xbox almost anywhere for $15 or less. Or you can pay nothing and find hundreds of free trivia apps all over mobile phones, online, or on Facebook. This is one of those rare games where I have no choice but to factor in the price. Anything but free is too much for a game like this. And even if it were free, I’m not sure it’s worth the space. It’s just plain boring. You could dig up a corpse that was buried ten years ago and find bones less bare than those of That Trivia Game.

That Trivia Game was developed by The Game Room

$9.99 is drooling at the prospect of 1 vs 100 returning to Xbox in the making of this review.