Like many others, I spent a lot of time in my formative years chasing a red fedora-and-trenchcoat clad woman around the world, answering geography questions to recover stolen monuments. Nowadays, while I still like doing the occasional globe-trotting, I'm not sure I could handle the pressure of possibly losing the Sydney Opera House to a vast criminal organization. Still, should you have a yen for social studies trivia, Trip Around The Globe, an arcade game by SymbioDigital, will more than satisfy that worldy desire. It's a simple game of collecting trivia questions, then driving a (somewhat difficult to maneuver) car to the proper location to score points. The graphics are pretty (if a little CPU-intensive will full effects on), the questions are goofy, but clever, and while the game take only a couple of minutes to play, they'll be good minutes. All that's missing is Rockapella on the soundtrack.
Review
Game of the week
"somewhat difficult to maneuver"???
Sort of like saying the Titanic bumped a couple of left-over ice cubes.
Cute premise, impossible mechanics.
Totally agree with JustMe...
And, playing a second time right on (without reloading) makes it ssslllooowww.
and some of the questions / answers are a bit iffy too.
>and some of the questions / answers are a bit iffy too.
Yeah, like: "What discount are you granted if you make out a travel insurance policy with ČSOB Pojišťovna online?"
The concept is great, but it could use better controls and reasonable questions. I'm not asking them to dumb it down for Americans, just... ask stuff that makes sense.
Wonderful concept. Just ruined it with poor game play.
Take it back to the drawing board. Improve the driving. Dont tell us where the country is, as that should be part of the game. Have the country outlines light up as you pass over them and have us select the country that we think answers the question.
Also set the globe to reflect the N/S orientation that we all know.
The focus should be the geography not the tricks that prevent success.
The questions should also test geographical knowledge, not movies or language etc.
You could include world events, national holidays, famous (or well known) buildings, bridges, dams etc. As long as the point is to find the right country.
The timer limits the game to having a play value of ninety seconds. Get rid of it.
I would play for hours if knowledge was the focus and I could learn something along the way.
Having said all that, I really appreciate the concept and hope to see the game again in future.
@phdavoid, I agree with almost everything you've said. It's almost a great game, but not quite.
The lag on the second play is unbearable?! Why is it so slow to play second time round?
"What internationally known swedish band"
Then it gives answers like AABB or ABAB.
Wut?
And I hate timers...
[Answer: ABBA. Pretty obvious to me, and I thought everyone would know that one. :) -Jay]
Am I missing something? It asked for the star on the flag of Israel, and I answered
Star of David
and it marked me wrong. It also marked me wrong for the meanings of Casablanca, House of the Rising ???, and other questions that I know perfectly well (I do admit though, I am a little fuzzy on my eastern european travel policy insurers)
Exactly what phdavoid said. I actually got so annoyed with the gameplay that I quit after two questions.
I would rather just play on and on and see how much I really do know, rather than how bad I drive a virtual car/van.
Yeah, the questions are nonsense, or wrong, or the game is marking them incorrectly. Can't tell whether the whole thing is meant to be a joke.
They've fixed it since my earlier post. A couple of answers I had marked wrong originally were marked right when I replayed it just now.
Update