Unless You Have Online Capabilities Or A Group Of Trivia-Loving Friends, There's Nothing Here For You
This is a review of this product: Trivial Pursuit Unhinged (PlayStation 2 video game). Amazon may display this review on the page of another version of this product, for which this review may not apply. After reading this review, please click on the link so that you can be assured that the product this review applies to is the same one you thought it was for.
(This is a review that I originally wrote on 03/29/2004)
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Although I really dislike the original board game (I find it terminally boring), I decided to rent this game. I figured that since it's a video game it might provide some enjoyment that can't be found in the board game, due to the nature of the formats. Well, I was wrong!
For starters, you can't really play this game with one player offline because there are NO computer opponents. There are three game play modes, and two of them can be played with just one player BY HIMSELF/HERSELF, but where's the fun in that? The game has online play, but I don't have the PS2 Network Adapter, so I couldn't test it out. Online would be the only way to play this with just one player, in my opinion. (As of this writing, I haven't had the chance to gather my friends together for a game.)
GAME PLAY MODES
CLASSIC - 1 to 6 players - Roll the dice and move around the board. If you land on a category space or headquarters, you answer a question in that category. If you were on a category headquarters, and you answered the question correctly, you get a wedge of that color, and you roll again. If you were just on a regular category space and you answered the question correctly, you just roll again. If you answered incorrectly, turn passes to the next player. The first person to get all six wedges, go back to the central hub, and answer the final question, wins the game.
FLASH - 1 to 6 players - You start on level one, and the goal is to get to level six. On each level you get to choose between two question categories. Answer the question correctly and you move up one level. Answer incorrectly and you stay at your current level. Whether you answer correctly or not, your turn is over and the next player goes. The first player to get to level six is the winner.
UNHINGED - 2 to 4 players (each needs his/her own controller) - Same as classic, except you play for points as well as wedges. You get one point for answering a question correctly and you can gain additional points by betting on whether the current player will answer the current question correctly or not. Points can be used to steal other player's wedges, protect yourself from getting one of your wedges stolen, or to choose a new question if you feel that the current one is too hard. Plus there are special spaces on the board that rotate the board, give you double or triple bonus points, let you recycle questions until you get one you like, choose between only two "multiple choice" answers instead of the usual four (called "50/50"), and do other things, too.
Each game play mode has one setting that you can adjust before you start the game. For Classic and Flash, you can choose whether you want to Shout Out the answers to the questions or select from four Multiple Choice answers. Shout Out is just like the traditionally way of playing. You read the question on the screen (no celebrities read it to you), you vocally give your answer, then you press X to see the correct answer. If you were correct, you press X. If you were wrong, you press O. Obviously the game is trusting you to honestly choose whether you were correct or not. This option of answering questions is best used when playing with other people in the room. For Unhinged mode, the only setting you can adjust is how frequently you want the special spaces to appear (low, medium, high, or never).
CATEGORIES/MULTIMEDIA
They are slightly altered from the original board game:
Pink - Arts & Entertainment (Whoopi Goldberg)
Yellow - History (John Cleese)
Orange -Wild Card (John Ratzenberger)
Blue - People & Places (Brooke Burke)
Brown - Science & Nature (Bill Nye the Science Guy)
Green - Sports & Leisure (Terry Bradshaw)
(The black spaces are Roll Again)
I'm rather disappointed by the whole multimedia aspect of the game. The game features six celebrity "hosts". However, you only HEAR them read the questions for their particular category (except if you have the Shout Out option on, in which case you read the question yourself). You never see them at all. The game also boasts multimedia questions, in which you are asked a question pertaining to a still photo, audio clip, or video clip. However, these questions come up very infrequently. Most of the time you'll just get a boring old text question.
MY FINAL ANSWER
This game was designed for only two types of people: single player trivia junkies who have a network adapter and online capabilities, and groups of people who love trivia games. Unless you fall into one of those two categories, there will be absolutely nothing in this game for you. If you absolutely must try this game out, rent it first to see if it suits your needs before you buy it.
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