So barely into the new year and I'm already late with my 2nd blog entry. It isn't even because of lack of things I want to talk about, it's just the same ole laziness I've always had when it comes to blogs. But maybe tonight I can get this one done.
I'm going to review Cardinal's Star Wars Trivia Game.
We celebrated my Mother's birthday yesterday and while my wife and I were out shopping I found this game at Kmart for 19.99. It looked like it might be fun, my Mom, Sister-In-Law, and I are all Star Wars fans and it seemed like it had some decent components.
So we pick it up and headed over last night, and after dinner and gifts, we pulled out the game and lets just say I was underwhelmed by the components. All of the dry erase disk where already slightly bent, and seemed to be just barely above dollar store grade cardboard. The materials for the trivia and timeline cards are pretty cheap as well. I know they have a lot of cards in this game and they needed to keep cost down, but they feel like cardstock at best, and they aren't seeled at all. The edges are also square so be ready for bent cards sooner rather than later.
They also cram 3 questions onto the trivia cards so if you need reading glasses I'd be sure to have them on hand. The timeline cards suffer from being rather dark, and I mean that as in hard to make out. With a fews of the images being mostly black (Luke defeating Darth Vader in Episode 6, spoiler alearts for anyone who hasn't seen a movie that's over 20 years old.) making it hard to tell what is going on.
The game does have some things going for it though. The score keeping element is pretty cool in that you use a lightsaber hilt, and slowly add/subtract sections as you get questions right or wrong. It's made out of foam and I believe it should be of high enough quality that it will last a while. The pieces lock in nicely but they can come apart easily as well. I know that seems contradictory but trust me if you pick up the game you'll understand, the foam has enough friction to hold the pieces together but with hardly any force it will give allowing you to pull them apart.
The questions and timeline cards cover both the Original Trilogy and the Prequels. However I wish that they would have made the trivia cards into two seperate categories, that way if you have someone who hasn't seen the Prequels, or in a weird twist of fate, has never seen the originals, you can focus on the cards that pertain to a specific trilogy.
Gameplay is farely simple. Each player roles a die at the start of their turn. The die is six sided with three of the sides being an outline of Yoda's face and the other three being Darth Vaders. The die is really crappy, with the details just being a label that was wrapped on a six sided die. A poorly made six sided die at that. Yoda means that you answer a trivia question while vader means you play a timeline card.
Timeline cards are pretty straigtforward, there is an image with a breif description of the scene on one side, with the same image and a number on the other side. The number is X.Y, where X is the number the corresponds with the Episode number and Y is it's point in the number of cards for that Episode. Players without looking at the numbered side decide where their card belongs in the time lane in comparison to the other cards already in play for the time line.
The timeline part of the game is going to be a toss up for some. To me it was really it's own seperate game, and really it could be, you could play this as a straight up trivia game totally ignoring the timeline part, but the same could be said for the timeline part of the game.
As for if you should buy it or not, I'd say that depends on if you don't have any other Star Wars games and you have a strong desire to just go out and grab the first Star Wars game you can. Personally, I'd look around online for another one.
Just a quick search on ebay and I found a few options I imagine are a better way to spend your money.
Trivial Pursuit DVD Star Wars Saga, looks like it covers all 6 movies and it's Trivial Pursuit, pretty much the King of trivia games.
Trivial Pursuit Collectors Edition Original Saga Edition, I actually have this one and I highly recommend it. Instead of a die it comes with an eltronic toy R2D2 which you press on his head and he has an LED display that shows the result.
Cardinal has a Trivia Question only version of this same game, so if you don't want the Timeline aspect go for this one. This one is only the trivia cards so no foam lightsabers.
Target seems to have some game called Star Wars Pictopia, I have no information about it though.
No matter what, I don't recommend buying this game in store. It can be found cheaper on Amazon, and really the game didn't seem worth the 20 bucks I spend on it at Kmart. All in all, I'd recommend passing this one, or get the trivia card only version that's only 9.99 on Amazon. Sure you miss out on the lightsaber pieces and the dry erase boards but those are really just a gimick to boost the price of the trivia game.
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