Trivial Pursuit

Here’s a stumper: Can you put out a multiplayer game in this day and age with no Live support…and actually expect it to sell? Like Monopoly before it, Trivial Pursuit is inexplicably — and unforgivably! — stranded in the pre-internet era, but at least EA had the wisdom to stick in a fast, irresistibly fun new version of this classic board game that completely hooked us.

Standard Trivial Pursuit of course awaits you, and there’s even an odd, pointless single-player game that mostly seems like a way to memorize questions before your friends come over. Skip all that and go straight to the Facts & Friends mode, a madcap battle where you share one wheel and take turns competing for wedges. It’s too complicated to fully explain here, but there’s betting, mini-games, cool power-ups, and a duel-to-the death finish. It essentially modernizes Trivial Pursuit in an ingenious way, and it’s really the only reason to spend an excessive $40 for this game now, instead of waiting for the inevitable Xbox Live Arcade version.