105 lines
6.2 KiB
Plaintext
105 lines
6.2 KiB
Plaintext
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TRIVIAL PURSUIT
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The prospect of reviewing TRIVIAL PURSUIT excited me. After years of playing
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the board game and running an online TRIVIAL PURSUIT contest in The Gamers'
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Forum, I was sure this piece would be a snap to write. My enthusiasm waned
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slightly when my copy of the game turned out to be a bit buggy: TRIVIAL PURSUIT
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is heavily key-disk protected, which causes some systems to hang. A quick call
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to Parker Brothers resulted in a polite apology, an explanation regarding the
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copy protection, and the promise of a new key-disk. A week later, I received
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both a new program disk and a new questions disk. (This review is based on the
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IBM-PC version.)
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Thanks to a hard-drive install option, TP was quickly up and running. However,
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I suffered another disappointment when I saw the graphics: Only CGA, EGA, and
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Tandy graphics are supported (nowhere does it mention whether Tandy's 16-color
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palette is supported). The EGA graphics look like CGA with color added. Touted
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as "state-of-the-art graphics," they're anything but. The pictures on the back
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of the box are true representations of the quality of the EGA graphics.
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One thing to be careful about: The hard-drive install program replaces your
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CONFIG.SYS file with a new one that contains only a FILES=20 statement. I
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strongly suggest that you rename CONFIG.SYS to CONFIG.SAV before running the
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install program, so that you don't lose your original file!
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The final disappointment came when I played my first game of TP against a
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computer opponent. Instead of typing in the answer and receiving a "You got it"
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or "Sorry, that's incorrect" message, you're supposed to say your answer aloud
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(or, if you're afraid of being committed for talking to a computer, say it
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silently to yourself); then, you hit any key to reveal the correct response, and
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press "Y" or "N" to indicate whether you answered the question correctly.
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Naturally, this makes it incredibly easy to cheat when playing against the
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computer. Of course, when competing against friends, you'll say your answer
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aloud -- as you would with the board version -- before finding out the correct
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response. Ho-hum.
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TRIVIAL PURSUIT does have one thing going for it: There are 30 question sets in
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six categories, ranging from Post-Beatles Music to Sports Nicknames.
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Additionally, you can extract questions from among these 30 files to compile
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your own specialized question sets. The question files are all in ASCII text
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format, viewable from within a text editor or word processor. While I've not
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done so, it appears possible to add your own questions to these files (perhaps
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from your TRIVIAL PURSUIT board game cards).
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When you start a game of TP, you're asked to enter the names of the players
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(the first player must be a human). You can do one of three things: enter the
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names of up to three human players; select up to three additional players from
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among six computer players; or enter a combination of both. Each computer player
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has his or her own skill level and category of expertise. ("Holly Wood" is
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well-versed in movie lore, while "Deke Athlon" is a real sports fanatic.) A
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maximum of four players is permitted.
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After entering the players' names or numbers, you select up to six of the 30
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available sets of questions from any of the six categories. There are various
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ways to select these sets: You can let the computer randomly pick six; if you
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don't like the sets the computer assigns, you can ask for another random
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selection, or you can exchange one or two of the question sets; you may also
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select one of your personally created question sets.
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The human player always goes first. You can enter "H" for the Help menu, from
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which you can save the game in progress, quit, toggle the music/sound effects on
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or off (off is recommended -- there's no soundcard support), or view the game
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statistics thus far. The statistics indicate the number of questions you and
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your opponent(s) have answered or missed in the individual categories during the
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game.
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You press the spacebar to roll the die. Then, depending on the number you've
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rolled and your current position on the board (all players' pieces are white,
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making it difficult to tell them apart), the computer displays your available
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moves with numbers. You select the number to which you want to move, then press
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the Enter key to reveal your question. If you land in the center circle, the
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computer randomly selects a question for you. "Roll Again" spaces are marked by
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little dice. These and the tiny triangles indicating "pie wedge" question spots
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are the only pictures on the game board.
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If you answer a question correctly, you'll get a terse message ("How did you
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know that?"); if you miss a question, you usually receive "You missed a tough
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one." Winning the game is easy (if you cheat) and rather anti-climactic. A
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simple "Barb wins the game!" was my only reward for trudging through this
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yawner.
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The TP game box contains: two 5-1/4" diskettes; a short, to-the-point leaflet
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describing gameplay (the instructions take all of three pages, and the fourth is
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devoted to warranty and conditions information); and a registration card. I'm
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not sure whether a 3-1/2" program disk is available, but the copy protection
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obviously prevents you from copying the 5-1/4" disks to a 3-1/2" disk yourself.
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You'll need 384K of RAM, and DOS 2.0 or higher to run the game.
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It may be too late to save Parker Brothers from making similar mistakes in
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future game releases: Although a "How do you like it?" survey card is included,
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there aren't any pertinent questions regarding the game -- just the usual bunch
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of statistical questions about you and your computer, and three narrow lines for
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your comments. If you really want to influence Parker Brothers' game design
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plans or let them know what you think of this product, you'll need to write them
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a letter.
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Bottom line: TRIVIAL PURSUIT is a faithful translation of the original board
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game in every sense of the word. If you want to play TRIVIAL PURSUIT by yourself
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(and you can trust yourself not to cheat), you'll enjoy this one; otherwise,
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stick with the board game.
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TRIVIAL PURSUIT is published and distributed by Parker Brothers.
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*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253
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