Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that while this is a good family trivia game, the questions are not appropriate for kids under age 8. Also, while it's a multimedia game, it doesn't present much multimedia -- most questions simply involve reading them as they appear on the screen. Also, at $50, this game is expensive for a Wii game. However, it has both a competitive and cooperative mode; and the questions adjust the difficulty to the age of the participants. The "Games" category frequently focuses on video games, so older players will be out of luck if they are new to video games.
Families can talk about whether they prefer to play the competitive or the cooperative multiplayer mode. Does anyone in your family play the single player mode, and if they do, does that give them an edge when playing with the family? Does this game make you to feel smart or stupid, or neither? Why do you think trivia games are so popular on TV?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Jinny Gudmundsen
Many families play trivia games as a way of bonding across generations. SMARTY PANTS for the Nintendo Wii is a game that helps support that kind of play.
Similar to trivia games like Jeopardy, the game allows family members or friends to buzz in to answer questions by simply raising their hand holding the Wii remote. The first person to raise his hand will hear and feel the buzzer go off in the remote signaling him to use the controller to point at the screen and select the answer. Each question has four multiple choice answer possibilities.
While Smarty Pants has a single-person mode, this is a trivia game best explored in the two multiplayer modes.
Choose the "Friends Mode" if you want a competitive, fast-paced game for up to four players. Within that mode you can select two scoring methods: Countdown (the point value of a question drops as time passes and no one answers) or Wager (a shooting minigame that allows you to control the amount of points a question is worth). Players take turns spinning a category wheel that includes art, books, entertainment, fashion, games, places and people, science and sports. The wheel also provides chances to win Challenge cards, which allow you to steal a question from another player, make another player's question more difficult, or even provide you with the ability to eliminate wrong answers. And if one player is trigger-happy, raising his controller before the question has finished displaying, and then gets the question wrong, he is sent to jail and can't answer for one turn.
For a more cooperative, friendly environment, choose "Family Mode." Instead of using the category wheel, players are given a number of questions to answer in a specific amount of time. Families can control the speed at which the time burns down as well as the number of questions asked.
What makes this a good game across generations is that the game adjusts the difficulty of the questions based on the age of the participants. When you sign in, you are asked to enter your age. (The questions aren't formatted for kids under age 8.) As you play, the game keeps track of your progress, and adjusts the difficulty of the questions to your performance. This filtering works best in the Family Mode, in which players can be assigned individual questions. In Friends Mode, everyone is trying to answer the same questions, so filtering won't work as well. Friends Mode is best played with people who have similar trivia abilities.
Smarty Pants is a good but not a great trivia game. The 20,000 questions that are filtered by age is a plus, as is the method of buzzing in by raising your arm. But, for a multimedia game there's very little multimedia, as most questions are just written across the screen and then show four possible written answers. The game incorporates some use of the motion-sensitive controller attributes in minigames like the one that has players facing off in a tug-of-war when they both buzz in at the same time; but most of time these attributes are left untapped. And the worst problem with the game is its price: $50. For what you get, this game should have been priced in the $20 to $30 range.
Bottom Line: If you own a Wii, are looking for fun ways to entertain a family group, and price is not an issue, pick this one up.
For another good family trivia option, consider b=Family Game Bundle, which is played by using your DVD player. Also fun is Scene It for the Xbox 360 and Buzz: The Mega Quiz for the PlayStation 2.
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Educational ValuePlayers learn by trying to answer the trivia questions in the following categories: art, books, entertainment, fashion, games, places and people, science and sports. |
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