The concept of playing a trivia game on a console (or any platform for that matter) has never really taken me. Maybe it’s because the most enjoyment I get from trivia is knowing I outsmarted a bunch of randoms I’ll never meet again. Or maybe it’s because I don’t have any friends to play it with. Either way, they just seem like the kinda games you wouldn’t get more than one or two sessions out of. Having said that, that didn’t stop me from dating my last girlfriend, so here’s to second chances. (But not for you Janie. We’re through, babe.)
Scene-It? Bright Lights! Big Screen!
Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive
Developer: Artificial Mind & Movement
Style: Trivia
Rating: Try to borrow
Platform: PS3, 360, Wii
Scene It? is a bit of a mix bag, getting some of the essentials right, whilst still managing to trip up in numerous other ways.
Focussing on the positive for the time being, Scene It? does at least succeed at doing what it’s meant to, which is to ask (mostly) interesting film questions. In fact, it offers just under 3000 questions in a variety styles, ranging from video-based ones (most of which focus around reasonably old clips) to the shit-ton of obligatory text-based ones. Enjoyably, many of the question types, such as identifying the film based on a cartoonish or pixelated rendition of one of its famous scenes, are not only fun, but quite amusing too.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for all the round types. For instance, the anagram round tests your film knowledge about as much as a sudoku puzzle tests your physical prowess. Likewise, the audio round is reasonably inaudible thanks to the presence of a background track. While the film association round fixates itself so much on one title, if you haven’t seen it, you’re screwed.
Annoyingly, the issues don’t stop there; the animated host is unfunny, horribly synced and causes the game to have some horrible load times. The end of round star system awards stars in such a frustratingly arbitrary way that it will no doubt create some heated arguments when the scores are close. Finally, thanks in most part to its Wii heritage, the visuals are a little lacking. When you also consider the fact that they chose to map the topmost answer to the lowest button on the controller, you can start to tell they didn’t put a large amount of effort into this port.
All that said, play this game with the right options (no host, no star system and penalising wrong answers) and it’s still good fun to play among friends. Unfortunately, given that most party games these days come out with their own peripherals, you might not have the required hardware to play with more than about one good friend, so here’s hoping that not many of your mates are film buffs.
