Common Sense Media Review
By Marc Saltzman
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Amusing, funny trivia game fuses console with mobile.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 13+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Play
Videos and Photos
Knowledge Is Power
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's It About?
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER is a "combative" trivia game and the latest Playlink game for the PlayStation 4, which means it uses an app for smartphones or tablets (iOS or Android) as a controller. After players choose an on-screen avatar and take a selfie of themselves, up to six players answer a variety of trivia questions by theme. These include topics like pop culture, sports, geography, science, and more, and you'll want to outsmart your opponents by correctly answering the multiple-choice questions. As you play through the game and aim to get on top of the pyramid of knowledge, you'll encounter speed rounds and touchscreen challenges (on your mobile device), and you must choose ways to distract and attack your opponents with humorous hazards, including flinging goop over answers and erasing letters to make it more difficult for your friends (hence the "combative" descriptor).
Is It Any Good?
As trivia games go, this is a refreshing take on the genre, with its tablet/console functionality and its questions combined with competitive hazards, speed rounds, and mini-challenges. Overall, it's a fun and relatively inexpensive social/party game for up to six players in front of a TV. There's a huge variety in questions and topics, with little repetition. That said, some questions might seem overly tough -- like one tied to a European TV show and another about an obscure video game reference -- but the majority of the content will be relevant to most audiences. Another minor issue: assorted control issues with gestures on smartphones or tablets, at times -- for example, with gestures not registering quickly enough with the PS4 -- but it did work well more often than not.
On the production front, Knowledge Is Power feels like a televised game show, with an entertaining cartoon host, upbeat music, and flashy graphics to keep you visually stimulated as you make your way through the 11 rounds to crown a winner. If you like trivia games, have friends or family over often, and own a PS4, Knowledge Is Power is a fun, funny, and challenging pick that won't break the bank.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about marketing to kids. Is it a good idea for a console game to require a smartphone or tablet as a controller? Does it assume most teens have one or the other? Or does this make an unfair assumption, suggesting a certain level of affluence? What if someone shows up at a friend's house and everyone wants to play, but someone doesn't have an iPhone, iPad, or Android device?
Talk about the seeming resurgence of multiplayer video games you play with other people who are there in the room with you. Why might this be a preferable experience to playing against random people over the internet? Why and how do you think people might behave differently when they know one another?
Game Details
- Platform : PlayStation 4
- Pricing structure : Paid
- Available online? : Available online
- Publisher : Sony Interactive Entertainment
- Release date : November 3, 2017
- Genre : Strategy
- Topics : Arts , Book Characters , History , Holidays , STEM
- ESRB rating :
- Last updated : September 30, 2025
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