Trivia games seem like a no-brainer for a system looking to pull in more than just the hardcore gamers. Xbox 360 got a taste of party-ready trivia games last fall with, movie quiz title, Scene it. Gamers finally get to show off more than their cinema smarts with the unique Wits And Wagers.
Like Scene It, Wits And Wagers began as a board game before making the leap to the console market. The game is about as simple as trivia games come, for better or worse. Each game consists of seven rounds, with one question per round. The answer for each question in the game is numeric, whether a measurement, year, or age. After the question, you cycle through the available multiple-choice answers to determine the correct answer. Unfortunately, about ninety-eight percent of the time, your answer is more of a semi-educated guess than a definite response. Fortunately, most of the questions, like 'What was the fastest recorded wind speed in a tornado', are so obscure that the odds of any of the players getting it correct is rather slim.
Answering the question is only half the round, however. After each player has locked in their answer, you must then 'bet' your chips on the answer that you believe is closest to the correct one, without going over. The screen lists each answer in descending order, along with the player that entered it. In addition, the game distributes 'odds' to each response, which, like horseracing, works out to multiply your winnings on correct bets. After seeing all the responses laid out on the screen, it may sway your confidence in your own response. The game considers this by allowing you to place 'bets' on up to two answers for each round. Losing all your chips on a question is never an issue, as the game makes sure that each player has at least five chips at the start of each round.
After showing the correct response, the game pays out chips accordingly to those who bet correctly and the player who had the correct answer. Each round plays out the same; the player with the most chips in their hands at the end of round seven wins. The game is somewhat interesting, and may actually teach you a thing or two along the way, but the constant guess-and-guess-again looses its luster after a few games.
The presentation could use a little extra work. At the start of the game, each player chooses from a boatload of pre-rendered faces for their on-screen avatar, or those with the Vision Camera can take their own. The selection is heavy on real-people looking oddly surprised, and a little too light on more irreverent choices like the alien or tyrannosaurus heads. Once in the game, your avatar head sits on a clumsy marionette in different, strangely themed costumes each round. Those bored with just waiting for the next round can play around with the left-stick to make their avatar dance a bit. It has its own style, but it all looks a bit off-putting. As far as sound, the generic ticking, clicking music feels well suited for an at-home trivia game. Unfortunately, the voice work is limited to calling out the round number, leaving gamers on their own to read the questions. Either have a full voice track, or do not have one at all.
Wits And Wagers attempts to capitalize where Scene It dropped the ball, offering four or six player matches over Xbox Live for those who feel up to a quiz game when nobody else is home. While this sounds great in theory, the execution falls well short. It is incredibly fast and easy to hop online, but the game is also frustratingly quick to give up waiting for additional players. Jumping into an online game tosses you into a pre-game lobby, full of hallow controllers and a timer. As other gamers enter the lobby, the hallow controllers are filled in; but the thirty-second timer never gives you a choice as to how long to wait. When the timer hits zero, the remainder of the empty slots automatically fill with A.I. competitors. It is too frequent that you have a six-player contest with only two oxygen-breathing players.
Playing with several A.I. characters would be fine, if they took the 'intelligence' part of their title seriously. Too often, the computer selects obviously incorrect answers and takes a dart-throwing approach to betting on answers. On most of the questions, everyone is going to be guessing; but there is a fine line between picking a response out of a hat and making a smart guess. Michael Jordan did not lead the league in more seasons than he has been alive, honest. It often feels as though these additional players are there just to eat up space, rather than offer an actual challenge. The other oddity with the online play is the way the game measures you against friends. The leaderboard ranks players based on the number of 'MVP' awards they win. This would be fine if the game awarded MVP based on game performance; instead, gamers vote on the winner at the end of the game with no stats on-screen to base the vote on.
Speaking of Scene It, the game is the first new game to allow the use of their 'Big Button' game pads. Since the game's multiple-choice responses far outnumber the buttons on the controller, the big red button scrolls, awkwardly, through the list by pressing the top and bottom of it. Gamers then must hit 'A' to accept the answer, though with the 'Big Button' controllers, it never gives the audible 'click' to confirm that it got your response. The whole idea behind the controller was to make non-gamers feel comfortable playing. Scene It used them brilliantly, but they feel pointless and strange on Wits And Wagers.
If you enjoy guessing games, Wits And Wagers offers a decent amount of replay value, with seven-hundred questions in the game initially. Half the fun of a trivia game is that warm glow of superiority when you know something your friends do not. Thanks to the random-fact, numerical nature of the questions, that feeling of 'knowing' the answer does not happen often enough to warrant the, 800 Microsoft Points, price tag.
