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review :: smarty pants

Smarty Pants

Reviewed on: Wii
Available on: Wii

It's Sale of the Century meets Wheel of Fortune meets Dancing with the Stars with a good dose of UK Television and Soccer thrown in for good measure!

Players: 1 - 4 Players
Genre: Trivia
Release: 2007-11-22
Developer: EA Los Angeles / Planet Moon Studios
Distributor: EA

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(The following is to be read using the voice of David Attenborough of National Geographic fame)

Everyone is competitive in some way, shape or form, there's no doubting the fact. Sports people, Musicians, Actors, Politicians, Brett and Oracle, the guys from Jackass - every one of them is always trying better their peers.

But there is one creature that is more competitive than any other.

They don't use steroids.

They don't get Breast Implants, Collagen Lip Injections or Plastic Surgery (although a few of them should)

They don't seek out torrid stories about visits to Vegas Strip Clubs from years ago.

They don't add weights to the front of their Bobsleds.

That's not their style.

These creatures are armed with mobile phones, PDAs and reference material; carefully hidden away from the eyes of the ever-watching Quizmaster.

They are a vicious, vindictive animal, keen to dominate their own kind and above all, seek ways to prove the Quizmaster wrong.

These creatures are known as Pub Trivia Players.

(You can drop the accent now)



Better put your Science Pants on for this round


A few of you may know that I run Trivia Nights in my local area. I have been doing it for about four years and I have come to the assumption that there are two types of players: Those who just happened to drop in on the night, have a few drinks and play for the chance to win a bit of a bar tab, or those who come with a structured group of various knowledge bases, bring their own pens and notepads and don't drink much other than soft drink, water or the free coffee from the pokies room, which always makes a publican really happy. These guys know everything. If you are even slightly wrong with an answer, they let you have it and they don't let you forget it. Ever. They are quite happy to remind you that you screwed up, even months after the event. The internet is a lovely place to find quiz questions, but as we all know you can't trust everything you read on the web. Let me tell you now, those people I see every Thursday night at my local won't be getting to play Smarty Pants with me because it's about time I got play the game and not deliver it. I'd give them the intellectual beating they all deserve anyway. You don't run quiz nights for four years and not learn a thing or two.

EA's Smarty Pants is a fun little trivia game with a few twists. Being on the Wii, the game uses your created Miis for your profile. These retain statistics on your question answering abilities on the eight categories: Food & Drink, TV & Film, Arts & Literature, The World, Sports & Games, Science & Nature, Music and my favourite The UK. With approximately 2000 questions in store there is a pretty good mix, but tends to be a little "Pommy-Heavy", so if you are not up with what's going down in Her Majesty's hood, you may struggle. Hopefully, Nintendo and EA can get together and work out something where the WiiShop can be used to purchase extra questions, or maybe an Aussie themed set. The one thing that is good about the questions issued to a player is that when you register you Mii as a player you are asked your age. This "slightly" fashions the question set to your age bracket, making the game accessible to family groups. I was actually a little ticked off that my Mii ends up looking like a reject from an Emo band, as it has a short sleeved black shirt with a white neck tie.

Although Smarty Pants has a solo mode (which is nothing more than a race against the clock) and there's nothing quite like beating yourself (or so Oracle tells me), the game is, of course, best played with friends or family. The Family mode sees you and your clan trying to answer as many questions as you think is possible in a set timeframe, with fun little mini games during the session to increase the time on the clock. This is really a cooperative style of play as opposed to Friends mode where it is competitive and where the real fun starts. There are two choices for game play with your friends: Wager and Countdown. Wager, my personal favourite, has players using the point and shoot functionality of the WiiMote, once the category has been chosen. Three rows of targets pass by with positive and negative scores on them, just like the shooting gallery at your local Primary School Fete. Good at the chosen question set? Well shoot straight and may your eye be true! Absolutely crap at that subject and the guy next to your kicks at it? Screw him over but hitting all the negatives. In a Countdown style game, the point value of your answer depends on how quickly you choose the correct answer after the choices are displayed. All the questions in Friends mode are chosen by the spin of a wheel, which not only chooses the category, but also offers the chance of winning a bonus card. These cards have various effects on the game play, changing it from a stagnant trivia game. One type of bonus is a score multiplier that can be achieved by dancing around like an uncoordinated git. Answer eliminations (like 50/50 on Eddie's Millionaire), a subject change, answer steals and other perks can also be obtained by picking up these cards. The only downfall about these cards is the ease at which they can be obtained. As the wheel starts to slow down after you have spun it, you can -nudge- it to move it to a preferred spot and you have ten nudges per spin. Pretty damn good odds for a wheel that has only sixteen sections! Now where's the challenge in that?



Better put your Dance Pants on for this round


Okay, you've got your category, spun the wheel, you're armed with a bonus card now here come the questions. There's no big, red button to push, just your good old WiiMote. Think you have it? Well push the A button and raise your hand in the air like it's the second grade and you forgot to use the amenities at recess because you were too busy playing doctors and nurses behind the shelter sheds. The first one in gets four answers presented to them. Choose, point, click and your done. Get it right and you score points. Get it wrong then you lose points and your opponents get to have a crack. Jump in before the question has finished scrolling on the screen and get it wrong, well for your impatience for not only lose points, but you "Go to Jail". This means bars are put over the image of your Mii and you are not allowed to answer further questions until they disappear. So the game continues for the duration you chose: 15, 30 or 60 minutes. Come the end of the game, it tells who the victor is. They are titled The Smarty Pants, although those who place after them to get mini awards such as fastest answer and category champion, titles I would much prefer.

Final Verdict

If this is your type of thing and you have a Wii and someone to play against, this is $75 well spent. The visuals are pretty tame compared to it's adversary on the Playstation 2, but has enough interesting differences to hold its own. Not a Mario Party quality party game, but good for a change of pace.. and if Tony Barber never called you up for a trip the Channel 9 studios in Richmond.

Pros
No extra controllers or buzzers needed like other games of this genre. Mini Games mean you're not just planted in your seat. Bonus Cards make a nice difference. Age dictates the question set. I have played a dozen competitive games and haven't had a repeated question.
Cons
UK question set and the UK content throughout. Spinning the wheel is a little frustrating if you aren't doing it right. Wheel bumping for bonus cards eliminates the luck factor.

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