Subject: ScienceCategory: Nature
Ages: 8 and up
# of players: 2 to 5
Time to play: 45 minutes
Mechanics/Game Type: Trivia
Ratings (1 to 5)
Educational Value: 5
Gaming value: 2
Aesthetic value: 4
Price value: 4 (or less for more expensive versions)
Ease of play: 5
Younger adaptability: 3
My comments: This game is like most DVD games on the market, except that this one is based on the visually spectacular Discovery series, Planet Earth. The object of the game is to complete a jigsaw puzzle by answering trivia questions. The board is like Trivial Pursuit in that it has 6 special spaces that require you to answer a question from a particular Planet Earth episode, and a correct answer earns you as many puzzle pieces as the narrator tells you. Unlike TP, you don't have to answer one question from each episode--you get a chance to earn pieces every time you land on any of these spaces. Otherwise the board is designed such that you get a question every turn.
It has the inherent limitations of a trivia game, and I cannot find any listing of how many total questions the game has. On the second playing I already had around 5 repeated questions. The game can be played cooperatively, everyone giving answers with an objective to complete the puzzle. The puzzle is actually double-sided with two pictures that are similar enough that it is difficult to tell which side needs to be up.
The beauty of this game is the DVD footage. If you have never seen Planet Earth, go to Discovery Streaming, sign up for a free 30 day trial, and watch. You will be awed.
As someone on BGG put it, Scene It meets Trivial Pursuit at the Discovery Channel...
BoardGameGeek.com link to this game: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/34395
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