Ah, Trivial Pursuit. The board game that makes people feel less guilty about all the random rubbish that accumulates in the human mind over the course of a lifetime.
Whereas in real life it’s hard to see how useful it is to know that Malta is the smallest of the EU countries, in the world of Trivial Pursuit it’s a blue wedge, and another small step to victory.
Starter for orangeIf you played last year’s Trivial Pursuit then you should know what to expect from this year’s edition.
There have been a few hundred new questions added, but in general it’s still the same game as before. Which means you roll a die, move your piece, and smugly answer a question about Lady Gaga before realising you pretend to know nothing about pop music to look cool in front of your friends.
The questions are multiple choice, so no extraneous typing of the answer is required. That isn’t to say they take the form of one of those magazine competitions where the other two answers are just made-up words, though – the level of difficulty across the categories is a decent spread between the obvious and the less-so.
In pursuit of greatnessAlongside the traditional Classic mode of gameplay (which allows for adjustments to the number of wedges and AI difficulty), there’s also a Pursuit mode, which does away with the standard board in favour of a more quiz-show-like setup.
Each level of Pursuit is laid out with a linear start and ending point, occasionally branching into different lanes as the levels become more complex.
Answering a question quickly results in a higher dice throw, the aim being to answer the final question at the end of the grid in the shortest possible time.
Arguably it’s the more satisfying single-player mode of the two, as there’s only you and the clock to beat, with medals awarded for each level dependent on your speed.
Great mindsAs a solo experience then, Trivial Pursuit: Master Edition is about as good a representation of the board game as you can get on the mobile, although it would have been more interesting if the Pursuit mode didn’t follow the (rather bland) aesthetics of the main game so closely.
While not much has changed since last year’s edition, if you didn’t purchase that version and you’re looking for some trivia questions to prove your intellectual superiority, then Master Edition is your answer
Trivial Pursuit: Master Edition Review
Not really that different from last year’s edition, but Master Edition still plays a solid and enjoyable single or multiplayer game of Trivial Pursuit
Will Wilson
Will's obsession with gaming started off with sketching Laser Squad levels on pads of paper, but recently grew into violently shouting "Tango Down!" at random strangers on the street. He now directs that positive energy into his writing (due in no small part to a binding court order).