Game Gear - Sports Trivia: Championship Edition

Format
Game Gear
Publisher
Sega
Developer
Adrenalin
Release date
1995
Genre
Trivia

Sports Trivia : Championship Edition

By David Rasmussen
21st Mar 08

Once again we’re back to Game Gear reviews, this week’s theme being entirely set on sports or gambling related things (I.e. everything you can do or bet on during your next trip to Vegas or some other gambling mecca which believes in betting on American sports (like Baseball or Sports Trivia Football). This week’s shout out goes to Doug (which is often as he supplies 19 out of the first 25 reviews we’re going through these first weeks of Game Gear reviews!)

Are you a legend… perhaps even a god(dess) at your local pub’s Sports Trivia Night competitions (if your pub of choice actually has such a thing going on)?
Does the pub owner keep a large glossy of you hanging over the bar, with the words “SPORTS TRIVIA MASTER (or MISTRESS if you’re a female)?
Are you banned from Sports Trivia Night to allow other people to win once in awhile?
If you are not that kind of person… then why are you looking at this game?
No, really, why are you looking. Stop it.

If the words “Championship Edition” wasn’t enough words to signify the humiliation you are about to face playing this game then consider this… no, wait, forget it, nothing to consider, this game is insufferably hard.

Too bad too, because it is one of the few games that takes two different genres and tries to meld them together with rather successful results. And here I thought that Quiz & Dragons was the only game that combined trivia with another element (RPG), this game follows suit by combining a trivia (quiz) style game with a Sports game. In this case you are playing American NFL Football “quiz style”.

Instead of roughing it Madden style, you’ll make your plays by how well (or poorly) you answer tough (and I mean melt your brain oh god these are hard) tough questions! Yes, most players can at least get 10% right on the first run, and if you stick to the game you’ll master at least 50%-75% of it’s trivia in a week or so (since the questions will eventually repeat as you play) but the amount of patience, memory retention (of even the most seemingly mundane sports fact like who went to college where and who won what and what happened to what team when) is still the domain of only the most die hard sports trivia buff. And so it will probably be only them who will want to stick it out with this game for any long period of time, the difficulty of the game will drive lesser people away too quickly before even the most half hearted player learns enough of the game to get something out of the game.

Buzzing in early is penalized as the game refuses to show you the full answer.
Wrong answers causes you to fail plays, or (if your running defense) allows the opposition (the computer AI) to play well. And nothing is quite as a motivation killer as watching yourself get pummeled by a relentlessly cruel AI.
A lot of the questions are general knowledge for the 90’s Sports Trivia buff, which mans (like Quiz & Dragons) you’ll have to set your mind to the time being asked in order to do well, and know a lot of info that only a true Sports Trivia buff would know… again, another lack of motivation for a neophyte.

This won’t give the game a bad score though.
If you are a die hard true fan of sports and ever wanted to sink your teeth into something impressively challenging to wrack your brains against… and, you know, you happen to also be an owner of a SEGA Game Gear? Then this is for you.
Challenging questions, set in the mode of a football game where the strongest mind (or one capable of absorbing all the facts in this game and retaining said information) will prevail on the gridiron.

So for being everything a die hard trivia fan of sports will love, and yet be something that can be picked up by a lesser trivia mind (if he or she is willing to invest the time and effort to master the trivia and all the facts within said game) then this is the game for you.

4 Sports Trivia Nights down at the local pub out of 5.
Don’t forget to assign a designated driver before playing!

Huh? Oh, right… if you think finding a die hard master sports trivia player is hard, try to find two who also happen to be SEGA Game Gear owners… I.e. even if this game had multiplayer you’ll never find the two people with Game Gears and this game in order to play multiplayer. Sorry.

-- David Rasmussen 21st Mar 08

Game Gear Sports Trivia: Championship Edition Images