Game: Wits & Wagers

Thread: Re: Wits & Wagers Xbox Review...

sugarlicious — 2008-05-09T06:11:02+00:00

Nice review.

One correction: you can play 6 human players via Xbox LIVE. Could be you just got in games where the hosting player started the game before the other spots were filled in with human players.

Thread: Wits & Wagers Xbox Review...

budsticky — 2008-05-08T08:25:59+00:00

Last night I logged into my Xbox for some good ol' shoot 'em up fun with Call of Duty. Much to my delight I saw an advertisement to try out the new Wits & Wagers Xbox game! I knew this game was coming to Xbox, but I didn't know yesterday was the release date. I wasted no time in downloading the demo. After trying it out I immediately purchased the game. I have never played Wits & Wagers, but I am always delighted when any new board game gets released on Xbox. I love Catan and Carcassone, and just a few short weeks ago Lost Cities was released for Xbox. Things are looking good for Xbox owners with a board game addiction!

Since I never played Wits & Wagers I didn't know any of the rules. There is a quick tutorial, and I'm glad to report that this game couldn't be any more simple. You are asked a trivia question, which always requires some sort of numerical answer. After giving your answer all of the player's answers are displayed from highest to lowest. You then bet on the answer you feel is correct. This may or may not be the answer you have given. You receive higher odds on the answers that are at the high and low end of the answers given. Lower odds are reserved for those answers that are more in the middle of what people have guessed. You can place any amount of your chips on up to two different answers. After the answer is revealed a winning answer is selected by determining who answered most closely without going over. You get a bonus if you have the winning answer and then chips are paid out based on the odds for those that bet on the winning answer. You get more of a pay-out if you happen to bet on the answers that are more towards the high/low extreme if they happen to be right. The game is played in seven rounds, one question per round with a corresponding betting session on the question. At the end the person with the most chips is the winner.

As far as the questions go, they are for the most part fiendishly difficult. Many of them deal with percentage responses, sort of Family Feud style. Others deal with dates. Basically, anything that can have a number put to it is fair game. Forgive me if I'm not wording some of these exactly as they are; I'm trying to go on memory. Some examples of questions I received:

-How many wins did Muhammad Ali have in his boxing career?
-How many official languages are recognized by the United Nations?
-When elected, Theodore Roosevelt became the youngest president in U.S. history. How old was he?
-How many acts appeared on the main stage at the original Woodstock festival?
-In what year was the first news broadcast sent over telegraph wire?
-According to a 2004 poll, what percentage of Americans said they returned at least one of the Christmas gifts they received that year?

I will not spoil the game and give away the answers, but these are examples of the types of questions you are asked. Mostly they seem designed towards people either having a general idea about the answer but not knowing for sure, or having no clue and needing to make a wild guess. This works perfectly since you have the betting mechanism in place after answering the questions. If you have no idea on an answer and you see that most other players are clustered around a specific number you might want to bet on one of those to try and get some chips. However, there is no guarantee they will be right. Perhaps your wild guess ends up being correct. I think it's a wonderful design.

The Xbox version comes with 700 questions. When you are loading up a game it asks you which question pack you wish to use. Obviously right now you can only use question pack number one. However, there are 5 other slots dimmed out, which suggests that many other question packs are sure to follow. I've played about 10 games and have seen a couple repeat questions. To be honest, that doesn't always help you. Some of the questions are so obscure, you're bound to forget the exact answer. In fact, this came back to bite me in the ass on one occasion. I had a question that I had seen before and was so certain that I remembered it that I answered and bet all my chips on my own answer. To my dismay, my memory failed me and I was over by a couple and lost everything. So you will get repeats if you play a lot, and eventually you'll get questions you remember, but 700 questions is a good amount to start with, and if more question packs are released on a regular basis this game's lasting appeal could be infinite.

Another thing that makes this game cool is the little avatars you can select to represent yourself. There are a bunch of faces you can choose from. Some are very silly. For example, there is a dinosaur looking face, a 70s smiley face, a skeleton face, and a face that is a television set. However, the majority of the faces are human faces. One of them looks alarmingly similar to Dick Vitale, but I digress. In any event, you can use your right stick to make these characters do goofy dances between rounds, and when waiting for others to finish answering and betting on questions. This is no big deal, but it's pretty funny. It's a nice little touch, and it gives the game a personality that I feel was lacking in the Lost Cities Xbox release. These characters give you some idea of the question that is about to be asked as well. Each round they are wearing different outfits. These outfits are themed to the question you are about to be asked. So, for example, if you're about to be asked a sports question the characters will be outfitted with anything from referee shirts to hockey jerseys.

This game isn't meant to be played alone, but there is an A.I. if you wish to play it solo. It serves its purpose I suppose. I'm not even sure how to rate an A.I. in a game like this. Sometimes it will do well, other times it won't. I did notice that A.I. characters will often let you back in the game. If they get an early chip lead they will often bet all their chips in a future round. Often this results in them losing everything. Overall I didn't feel the A.I. cheated in any way so I guess that's good.

If you want the full fun of this game though, you need to play with other people. In that regard the game supports up to 4 players locally, as well as on Xbox Live. I've had fun games with people on the Live service. If you get the right group it can be a very enjoyable experience. Fortunately the game lets you continue with a group you are playing with if you wish. So, if you find some fun people you can play multiple games. I suppose there is the risk that some people will eventually start to memorize the questions, and go on Xbox just to get the silly satisfaction of trouncing everyone they play; however if question packs are released fairly regularly you can avoid this. Still, if you find the right group of people, or if you know people you can play with the game is incredibly fun. One thing I was dismayed about was the lack of 6 player support on Xbox Live. Maybe I was missing something, or there wasn't enough people on when I was playing but all my games were filled out with A.I. players as the 5th and 6th players. Maybe somebody can correct me, but I think that 4 is all that is allowed. It is even advertised as supporting 2-4 players on Xbox Live. This isn't a huge deal, but the more human players you have the more fun this game seems to be. Playing with three other live people and having two A.I. players is a bit of a bummer. It certainly doesn't kill the experience, but I feel I should bring it up for the purposes of this review.

One thing I forgot to mention is the way you answer questions. This was a concern of mine when I first heard about the game. Being a trivia game, I didn't want to spend the time to spell things out with some on-screen keypad. I also didn't want a simple A, B, C, D multiple choice scenario. This game handles the questions perfectly. You are given a huge list of numbers to scroll through. You can select an answer and continue scrolling, in effect bluffing your answer. The correct answers are not always necessarily in the middle range of the numbers they give you either. Sometimes they are in the higher range of numbers, sometimes in the lower. And the numbers they give you are such a large range that the game never feels like it is tipping you off or trying to lead you to the correct answer. For percentage questions they obviously just give you 0-100. They really did a nice job of implementing the answering phase into the game. This is vitally important, as this implementation can really either make or break a trivia based game. There is also a timer for answering and betting on questions. It gives you enough time to give a question some though, but not enough for some unscrupulous people to look up answers on the internet while they are playing the game.

In summary, I enjoy the hell out of Wits & Wagers on the Xbox. If the measure of a good board game to video game conversion is that it makes a person want to go out and buy the actual game then this is indeed a good board game conversion. I can see how this could be a great party game, and I will now purchase it for just those occasions. I'd be interested to find out if the Xbox questions are the same ones as in the board game. If so, that will dampen my enthusiasm to purchase the game a little. However, as it stands I love this game. The Lost Cities Xbox conversion left me a little flat as far as board games on Xbox Arcade go. However, I love Catan and Carcassone, and now I can add Wits & Wagers to that list. If you're an Xbox owner I fully recommend this game. The only reason I can see to not purchase this game is if you own the board game, and if in fact the questions are simply repeats of the board game. If you've played the board game a ton and know some of the questions this game might not be for you. That being said, they are surely going to expand this game with more question packs so at some point this game will likely appeal to even those who own the board game. Enough with reading this review...go out and buy this game now! Look for me, and lets play! My gamer tag is: Frrruncus

Thread: Re: Microsoft finally announces the release of W&W on the Xbox!

riledguy — 2008-05-07T06:47:16+00:00

I hope it does well for you and as you said... hope it drives traffic to the board game.

Thread: Re: Microsoft finally announces the release of W&W on the Xbox!

kevinb9n — 2008-05-07T05:38:54+00:00

From the Post article:

Wits & Wagers isn't the only board game getting the video game treatment; Electronic Arts has said that it is developing new versions of Monopoly and Scrabble for game consoles. The two games are scheduled for release this year.

Funny that they choose these two instead of any of the board games that have *already* been made into video games!

Thread: Re: ran out of chips in 6 player game?

domcrap — 2008-05-07T02:51:04+00:00

watcher_b wrote:
My brother is the type of guy who will push the limits of the rules and try to find every loop hole in the game.

I honestly don't think there is a loop hole in this game. Not answering is NEVER a smart thing. Yes, you may still bet, but you will not have a chance to collect the 3 point bonus.

watcher_b wrote:
(for example in this game, if he knew someone else knew the answer he would write on his card "What dad says" or something, claiming that the answer is a number.

:laugh: I guess it's your call, but that doesn't sound like a number to me. If he does that again, you should just start writing "the right answer" on your card.

watcher_b wrote:
I think we all found an acceptable way to play for everyone, but not in retrospect I'm thinking through the rules and figuring out what the "optimal" way to play is.

See my [url=http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/92412]strategy [/url]article. There are 3 important aspects to playing Wits & Wagers, and I do a pretty good job of outlining them... Cheers!

Thread: Re: Microsoft finally announces the release of W&W on the Xbox!

domcrap — 2008-05-06T08:58:56+00:00

Thanks to everyone for all of the support. I doubt we'll make "mad moola", but if it helps bring attention to the board game at Target, then we should be doing fine! :D

Thread: Re: ran out of chips in 6 player game?

watcher_b — 2008-05-06T08:10:08+00:00

domcrap wrote:
We don't have an official penalty for being late on the answering or the betting. The rules say that you have 30 seconds to get in your answer. I guess if you're playing high stakes Wits & Wagers (like for a prize or for pride or something) then you could simply not accept late answers. We usually play for fun, so we're pretty lax about it (which I think is more fun).
But then if someone doesn't answer, are they still allowed to bet? I guess if the odds are changed when someone doesn't answer, it all works out.

My brother is the type of guy who will push the limits of the rules and try to find every loop hole in the game. (for example in this game, if he knew someone else knew the answer he would write on his card "What dad says" or something, claiming that the answer is a number. He's fun like that) Team games are fun with him because the game quickly becomes an exercise in creativity.

So games with my family tend to be pretty relaxed. I think we all found an acceptable way to play for everyone, but not in retrospect I'm thinking through the rules and figuring out what the "optimal" way to play is. Like you said, being lax about things makes it more fun though :)

Thread: Re: ran out of chips in 6 player game?

domcrap — 2008-05-06T06:30:40+00:00

watcher_b wrote:
I think that was part of the problem too. Everyone was talking over the answers before placing the bets. I got rid of the timer in the game because everyone was having more fun talking about the question than actually playing the game.

Yeah, I do the same unless someone obviously wants to keep the focus on teh game (which I usually think is less fun).

watcher_b wrote:
I did have a question though concerning that, what penalty is there if someone doesn't write their answer quick enough? Do people have to write an answer? Strategically it makes some sense to write an answer, but is there a penalty?

We don't have an official penalty for being late on the answering or the betting. The rules say that you have 30 seconds to get in your answer. I guess if you're playing high stakes Wits & Wagers (like for a prize or for pride or something) then you could simply not accept late answers. We usually play for fun, so we're pretty lax about it (which I think is more fun).

Thread: Re: Microsoft finally announces the release of W&W on the Xbox!

KrisVerbeeck — 2008-05-06T03:02:00+00:00

Valien wrote:
Just saw the info posted on Kotaku with a screenie. Not bad. Now only if it would come out for WiiWare then it would be complete. Oh well. :(

Hope it sells a ton and you guys make mad moola!

Same here except i own a PS3. Normally I visit Kotaku more often together with joystiq.

some really good boardgames now on xboxlive.