Trivial Pursuit Review

The game of Trivial Pursuit has been released under so many guises that you'd almost believe it was a perishable item that has to be replaced every few months, rather than a box left to gather dust in a corner somewhere.

Even on mobile, we've seen versions focused on all sorts of different subjects, from celebrities to music.

This version of the game brings the subject categories back to those of the classic game - Geography, Entertainment, History, Arts & Literature, Science & Nature and Sports.

Obviously, the main game mode is a recreation of the original boardgame: tou take it in turns against an opponent to roll a dice and move out onto the board. Each square is linked to one of the question categories, apart from the re-roll squares.

Answering the question correctly will get you a coloured wedge to add to your play piece. Depending on how you set the game up, you'll need to collect a certain amount of these before returning to the centre square in order to win.

In this mobile version, you can set the enemy AI, how many wedges you need and whether every square gains you a wedge or just the larger category HQ squares - of which there is only one per category on the board. All these options are available from the outset.

The Classic mode is best suited to multiplayer pass-the-handset sessions, though. Although perhaps not quite as faithful to the original Trivial Pursuit experience, the secondary Pursuit mode is a little more fun if playing on your own.

Here, you make your way across a path of question squares that gets longer and more complicated as you pass through the levels. You don't roll the die as such, though. Instead, the die acts as a timer, counting down from six as you answer the question.

You can win gold, silver and bronze medals for getting to the end of the path within a certain number of turns, and can only progress if you win at least the bronze.

There are also bonus star squares that give you extra squares of movement or let you choose the category of your question, among other extras.

The standard Classic mode can seem a little underwhelming when played against the computer, but the Pursuit mode fills in this gap perfectly. It's almost a pity that it's tied to the visually sobre stylings of the boardgame when it could in theory explode out into a quiz adventure that would make better use of the level-based structure.

Still, the presentation is strong, with clear and crisp visuals and smooth animations that make the Trivial Pursuit board look about as good as could reasonably be expected without veering off into territory too removed from the original.

This new version doesn't move the game on dramatically. However, the Pursuit mode nudges it towards a point where it's just as valid a single player game as a multiplayer one. It may not quite be there yet, but it's pretty close.