Reviewed: June 2, 2002
Reviewed by: Mark Smith
Publisher
Ubisoft
Developer
Ubisoft
Released: May 7, 2002
Genre: Sports Trivia
Players: 4
ESRB: Everyone
7
4
4
8
6.8
Supported Features:
I love trivia games and I love party games. South Park: Chef’s Love Shack is still one of my favorite party games and one of the few reasons I blow the dust of my Dreamcast when friends drop by. But trivia games are only good if you happen to know the subject on which the questions are based. Give me a movie trivia game and I will rule the world - give me a sports trivia game and I’ll turn into the biggest idiot in the world.
POWER PLAY: Sports Trivia features more than 4,000 brain-bruising questions from the wide, wide world of football, basketball, baseball, and hockey, challenging players to climb the ranking ladder, reach the hall of fame, and become a trivia legend. Featuring two tenacious trivia modes, POWER PLAY: Sports Trivia brings sports fans and fanatics alike to their knees as they compete with up to three opponents in a virtual tournament.
Players can choose questions exclusively from baseball, football, basketball and hockey, or let the game randomly choose for them from all four sports. POWER PLAY: Sports Trivia features both single player and multiplayer modes, allowing you to share the fun with friends or play alone. In tournament mode, up to 4 players face off to decide who's the sports guru with the fastest fingers and the biggest brain. With last man standing mode, your goal is to avoid five wrong answers and go for the longest winning streak in history as you build your sports knowledge.
I play several 10-question rounds and out of the 100 or so questions presented, I actually knew about 6 of the answered and correctly guessed on maybe 20 others. It is multiple-choice, so when in doubt, just close your eyes and hit a button and you have a 25% chance of getting it right.
There are over 4,000 questions so it will be impossible to memorize the entire game unless you have a freakish memory, in which case you should probably be doing something other than playing video games.
This is definitely a no-frills game. No fancy CGI movies or 3D rendered backgrounds. This is a pure and simple text game where questions pop onto the screen and you pick the answer.
Again, this is strictly a budget title. You have a typical sports-sounding intro and a repetitive track that increases in tempo (to increase tension) as the timer counts down and you get further into the question list. You can easily mute this game and play at your next party without disturbing anyone. Wrong answers are even signaled by a rumbling of the controller.
This game will provide countless hours of entertainment. The questions seem to be randomized very well. I never got the same question twice out of the 100 I answered and by the time I do get a duplicate I will have probably forgotten the answer.
This is another one of those $10 budget titles springing up for the aging PSX system, and this one offers a surprising amount of fun for 1-4 players. If you love trivia and you have the slightest interest in sports then you probably won’t want to pass this title up.
