Have YOU Scene It?? It’s worth a look… the DVD movie trivia game
Written: Mar 20 '04 (Updated Mar 20 '04)
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Pros: Fun, great concept, don't have to be an expert, any # of players, BIG hit!
Cons: You will want the Sequel Pack to fix some kinks in the first edition...
The Bottom Line: DVD and board game combine well in this twist on movie trivia... worth checking out if you're looking for group fun or just like movies!
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| sweets7568's Full Review: Screenlife Scene It The DVD Movie Game |
I bought Mattel’s Scene It? DVD Movie Trivia game for my husband for Christmas because he is a movie fanatic. How can you go wrong to give a man a DVD trivia game all about his favorite pastime? He gets to play with his new DVD player, watch movie clips, answer questions all the while knowing he’ll be right most of the time!! Great concept! I jumped on that band wagon and went for the pricey buy.
I am for the most part a cheap woman. I shop around and really look for the best deal. Last Christmas no store actually had these in stock by the time I realized it was the perfect gift. (It didn’t help that I had moved to a remote location… but even our visitors could not find one to bring down with them!) I turned to a shopper’s best friend - good old ebay!! Of course, you can either find great bargains there, or end up paying out of your gourd because others get bitten by the bidders bug and jack the price sky high. In this case, I ended up paying $61.00 just for the product and then $7.50 to ship it. I think in store it was running $50, but I didn’t mind the extra money because it was really what I wanted to give the hubby!
He was thrilled with the purchase and neither one of us could wait to sit down and play it. We broke it out while the in-laws were here and boy what a hoot!! When we first started it, there was a learning curve, as with any new game. This one did take a bit longer to figure out. It comes with a board that unfolds in a pretty interesting manner, 1 six-sided die (numbers), 1 eight sided die (categories), 4 metal game pieces, 30 buzz cards, 160 trivia cards, the game DVD, instructions and some reference cards to keep handy if you need them.
The object is easy – get your game piece to the “Final Cut” circle and then answer the winning question(s). The most basic way to play is to roll the dice, move your piece and play whatever trivia category you happen to throw on that die. It sounds simple enough, and it is, once you get the hang of it.
The whole game uses both the DVD and the trivia questions, depending on what the dice say. I like that because it gets you to interact with each other like a board game, but it also offers you the video clips and other trivia games that would otherwise be lost on a regular board game.
There are seven different trivia categories… My Play, All Play, Take Three, Songs and Slogans, Pop Culture, The Buzz, and Player’s Choice. My play and All play require you to use the DVD to answer questions based on visuals that are randomly shuffled by the game itself. Player’s Choice leaves it to the player to choose their favorite method of trivia. The others require someone to draw a card and read the trivia question to the player.
When you turn to the DVD, (for all play or my play) it offers you a whole other realm of trivia questions. I have to admit that it is my favorite part of this!! There are movie clips and sound bytes, puzzle pictures, fill in the letter segments – all sort of things. They even have a segment where they show you an old photo of someone and you get to guess who they are! Those are a blast!! There is honestly something for everyone on the DVD. You don’t have to have an infinite knowledge of every movie ever made in order to feel good at this game. You don’t have to know anything to get some right – just be quick and you’ve got it! Example – one of the games is where they tell you to pick the name or title that is described by the following pictures – then you see a couple of pictures – sometimes two, sometimes five – and you put the words together to make a name or title or whatever they asked for. My favorite one so far was a four picture one – a cat, a Heron, and lady’s hip, and a match burning. The other’s playing with me are slower at this part (maybe that’s why it’s my fave) and I jumped up with “Katherine Hepburn!” It’s great because as soon as someone gets it, everyone else goes “Oh man!!” and you wonder why you didn’t guess that.
The timer for the trivia cards is on the DVD and you can choose to set it for 30, 20 or 10 seconds. You have to have someone designated to run the DVD remote in order to play fairly. They have tie breakers that are hilarious! If you end up shouting your answer in sequence, you just go to tie breaker and do whatever is says. We were thinking it would be another question so we all gear up to put on our best poker face for a tough one – and what do we get? “You big babies! Whoever here has the biggest shoe size wins. Now get over it!” Funny, and a change of pace. After a while when you get close to the end, their methods of deciding who wins the tie do tend to get upsetting (if you keep losing them) but it’s different and fun.
Thing about this game is there’s a lot to it that really can’t be put on paper. There’s many different DVD games when you choose that, the trivia questions are great but typical trivia – guess the movie with these songs, who’s the actor in common with all these movies, what fashion statement were the girls making in this flick when it was made, things like that. The way you play mixes it all together and keeps it from getting boring.
Now, the moving on the board thing has sparked some controversy. The way the original rules are written, anyone can win and not answer very many questions correctly. It’s true! You roll the dice, move your piece and then take your turn. If you get it right, you get to go again. If you get it wrong, the next person rolls, and so on. I read the other review of this game and I do agree to some point of how ridiculous that part of this game is, but I had to chuckle. The thing is that you can change it up to meet your needs. The instructions even clearly give alternate playing methods. We typically play it by only moving our piece if we answer correctly. That lets the game last a bit longer and feels more challenging, too. You can also just play in party mode by simply clicking through the DVD questions without using the board and cards. We’ve been known to do that too when we don’t’ feel like going through all the set up and cards. You can make this game as hard or as easy as you want it to be.
I do have to say that by the third time we played the game we started realizing that we were getting all the same movie clips and questions. The instructions say that it doesn’t’ happen that much, but it did and it was irritating. We found that in order to get new questions, we had to play through party mode for a little bit and get farther into the DVD. Each video clip does have several questions so just because you see the same clip, it doesn’t mean you all ready know the answer. But after you’ve seen the clip 3 or 4 times, you get tired of it and you don’t look as hard. It loses interest. We never had the game repeat trivia during one game, but we played every night for a week or so and we just burned out a lot of the questions. We figured out it has to do with turning the DVD off and restarting it. It says that there is an automatic shuffle, but I don’t’ think the technology was as good as they wanted it to be when the game was released.
That brings me to my next point. When I purchased this game, I also bought “The Sequel Pack” to go along with it. Call me a moron, but I thought it was an addition to the game all about sequels. Hubby’s a sequel man so I thought what the heck? It’s actually just an addition to the original game. It isn’t up for review, but it is worth talking about briefly in this review because it influences my rating quite a bit.
The “Sequel Pack” is another DVD, another game piece and some more cards. It has all the great questions from the original game, plus a whole bunch more. You use everything that came with the original and you just add in your extra pieces and use the new DVD instead of the first one. This added a whole new quality to the game and made it extremely worth the buy!! It seems that developers of “Scene It” heard the consumers problems and came out with the Sequel to fix a lot of them. The shuffle feature is not much better, but they have pre-programmed games available for you to choose so if you have company over, you can make sure that you are getting a new set of questions. You avoid repeats that way. And there are 20 to choose from so you really do have a lot of options! You can still play the same way as the other one – without the pre-set game – if you want to. It’s up to you!
The only other issue I had with this game was the fact that I am ignorant to producers and directors and what not. I also am NOT up to speed on old movies or actors who really made a name for themselves in old movies. It’s a shame but it’s true. It’s irritating when I play with my husband because some clips neither one of us know – but when the in-laws are here, someone usually knows each question, or think they do anyways!! It would be neat to have a choice of a time frame for the movie clips or trivia questions to use.
When you get your game, you can register it online and leave comments. I answered a survey and it looks like they are all ready planning on extending this game quite a bit. You can leave suggestions and tell them which edition you’d most like to play – including things like a comedy edition, or romance edition. So they are probably all ready working towards making it more fun for specific groups. We asked for a Gen-X edition – more 80’s movies… stuff like that.
On the whole, I’d say this game is a blast!! Whether you use the game board and pieces, or you just use the DVD remote and play your own way, you can adapt this game to be fun for everyone! It really would be great for parties!! (Before or after the big game comes on TV or whatever the occasion is…) It’s worth buying, but I’d only pay up to $50 for it, and that’s if I was in a generous mood or really wanted it for a gift. If you can get it cheaper, then do! Be advised that you will probably be wanting the Sequel Pack within a short amount of time. It really does add to the game and it fixes the biggest problem we had with getting the same clips over and over. We only use the Sequel Pack DVD now because it’s a compilation of all the questions so it’s all we need. (I think the Sequel cost me about $17 on ebay, plus shipping.)
It’s a good game – extremely interesting concept and tons of fun for all involved – movie buff or not!! It’s worth giving it a shot. Make it what you want to make it. Play with the pieces, only give credit for correct answers, fold the board down and play the short way… it’s really up to you! And hey, you can even sit by yourself and scan through the questions so that you are ready for the game when the guys come over… hee-hee!! Cheating? Yes! But, oh so fun!!! Plus you really can’t get yourself acquainted with every question in there. I know because I’ve tried. I had to get some sort of edge to play against the hubby. By the way, even he – the Movie Man – gave this game a 4 by itself and a 5 with the Sequel Pack!! The questions are good, the clips are funny, and they way it gets all mixed up it never gets boring!
Oh yeah – ages 12 and up!
Thanks for reading!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 68.50
Type of Toy: Board Game
Age Range of Child: Other
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Epinions.com ID:
sweets7568
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Member: Alicia Slansky
Location: Rockledge, FL
Reviews written: 60
Trusted by: 31 members
About Me:
I am a wife, mother and preschool teacher who loves to read, write and play!
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