TRIVIAL PURSUIT

 The prospect of reviewing TRIVIAL PURSUIT excited me. After years of playing
the board game and running an online TRIVIAL PURSUIT contest in The Gamers'
Forum, I was sure this piece would be a snap to write. My enthusiasm waned
slightly when my copy of the game turned out to be a bit buggy: TRIVIAL PURSUIT
is heavily key-disk protected, which causes some systems to hang. A quick call
to Parker Brothers resulted in a polite apology, an explanation regarding the
copy protection, and the promise of a new key-disk. A week later, I received
both a new program disk and a new questions disk. (This review is based on the
IBM-PC version.)

 Thanks to a hard-drive install option, TP was quickly up and running. However,
I suffered another disappointment when I saw the graphics: Only CGA, EGA, and
Tandy graphics are supported (nowhere does it mention whether Tandy's 16-color
palette is supported). The EGA graphics look like CGA with color added. Touted
as "state-of-the-art graphics," they're anything but. The pictures on the back
of the box are true representations of the quality of the EGA graphics.

 One thing to be careful about: The hard-drive install program replaces your
CONFIG.SYS file with a new one that contains only a FILES=20 statement. I
strongly suggest that you rename CONFIG.SYS to CONFIG.SAV before running the
install program, so that you don't lose your original file!

 The final disappointment came when I played my first game of TP against a
computer opponent. Instead of typing in the answer and receiving a "You got it"
or "Sorry, that's incorrect" message, you're supposed to say your answer aloud
(or, if you're afraid of being committed for talking to a computer, say it
silently to yourself); then, you hit any key to reveal the correct response, and
press "Y" or "N" to indicate whether you answered the question correctly.
Naturally, this makes it incredibly easy to cheat when playing against the
computer. Of course, when competing against friends, you'll say your answer
aloud -- as you would with the board version -- before finding out the correct
response. Ho-hum.

 TRIVIAL PURSUIT does have one thing going for it: There are 30 question sets in
six categories, ranging from Post-Beatles Music to Sports Nicknames.
Additionally, you can extract questions from among these 30 files to compile
your own specialized question sets. The question files are all in ASCII text
format, viewable from within a text editor or word processor. While I've not
done so, it appears possible to add your own questions to these files (perhaps
from your TRIVIAL PURSUIT board game cards).

 When you start a game of TP, you're asked to enter the names of the players
(the first player must be a human). You can do one of three things: enter the
names of up to three human players; select up to three additional players from
among six computer players; or enter a combination of both. Each computer player
has his or her own skill level and category of expertise. ("Holly Wood" is
well-versed in movie lore, while "Deke Athlon" is a real sports fanatic.) A
maximum of four players is permitted.

 After entering the players' names or numbers, you select up to six of the 30
available sets of questions from any of the six categories. There are various
ways to select these sets: You can let the computer randomly pick six; if you
don't like the sets the computer assigns, you can ask for another random
selection, or you can exchange one or two of the question sets; you may also
select one of your personally created question sets.

 The human player always goes first. You can enter "H" for the Help menu, from
which you can save the game in progress, quit, toggle the music/sound effects on
or off (off is recommended -- there's no soundcard support), or view the game
statistics thus far. The statistics indicate the number of questions you and
your opponent(s) have answered or missed in the individual categories during the
game.

 You press the spacebar to roll the die. Then, depending on the number you've
rolled and your current position on the board (all players' pieces are white,
making it difficult to tell them apart), the computer displays your available
moves with numbers. You select the number to which you want to move, then press
the Enter key to reveal your question. If you land in the center circle, the
computer randomly selects a question for you. "Roll Again" spaces are marked by
little dice. These and the tiny triangles indicating "pie wedge" question spots
are the only pictures on the game board.

 If you answer a question correctly, you'll get a terse message ("How did you
know that?"); if you miss a question, you usually receive "You missed a tough
one." Winning the game is easy (if you cheat) and rather anti-climactic. A
simple "Barb wins the game!" was my only reward for trudging through this
yawner.

 The TP game box contains: two 5-1/4" diskettes; a short, to-the-point leaflet
describing gameplay (the instructions take all of three pages, and the fourth is
devoted to warranty and conditions information); and a registration card. I'm
not sure whether a 3-1/2" program disk is available, but the copy protection
obviously prevents you from copying the 5-1/4" disks to a 3-1/2" disk yourself.
You'll need 384K of RAM, and DOS 2.0 or higher to run the game.

 It may be too late to save Parker Brothers from making similar mistakes in
future game releases: Although a "How do you like it?" survey card is included,
there aren't any pertinent questions regarding the game -- just the usual bunch
of statistical questions about you and your computer, and three narrow lines for
your comments. If you really want to influence Parker Brothers' game design
plans or let them know what you think of this product, you'll need to write them
a letter.

 Bottom line: TRIVIAL PURSUIT is a faithful translation of the original board
game in every sense of the word. If you want to play TRIVIAL PURSUIT by yourself
(and you can trust yourself not to cheat), you'll enjoy this one; otherwise,
stick with the board game.

 TRIVIAL PURSUIT is published and distributed by Parker Brothers.

*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253