Review: ESPN TRIVIA NIGHT Strives to Keep Non-Sports Fans Engaged
ESPN Trivia Night is a new game from Funko Games that’s great for sports fans. The new game is available now for $20 from Funko or your favorite game shop. Funko Games was kind enough to supply me with a copy to review and now that I’ve played the game, I have some thoughts.
Yes, this is a trivia game. The core of the game is answering sports trivia. However, ESPN Trivia Night does understand that not everyone likes sports, so there are fun dexterity challenges that you can do to help make up for missed questions. We’ll tackle both of these aspects in the following review. Also, I want to be up front that I do not know anything about sports, but I do know people who do and played with them.
First, let’s talk about the trivia aspect. I felt like this was handled pretty well. There are five categories that the questions can be part of, but then there are two additional special categories that cover logos & mascots and sports shows and movies. This already helps people who aren’t really into sports but may have some peripheral knowledge. The questions are also broken up by difficulty level. Of course, some of the questions will feel harder or easier depending on the person, but I felt like they were fairly accurate overall.
The other main part of the game are the dexterity challenges. Here, players use a plastic disc to pop a plastic token shaped like the sports’ ball (or puck) to complete a goal. There are four of these goals. There’s a field goal for football, a basketball hoop for basketball, a strike zone for baseball, and a hockey net for hockey. These challenges are deceptively hard, but are things you can practice and get a feel for. Overall, it’s a fun way to help those who don’t know a lot about sports still feel like a part of the game.
My one big complaint about the game is that the insert isn’t very intuitive for putting things away. It does all fit, it just takes a bit of remembering how it’s all laid out. The only other real complaint is that I kind of wish the categories had been different colors instead of all be red, but that’s branding for you.
If you’re a sports person, you’ll have a fun time with ESPN Trivia Night. If you’re not a sports person, Funko Games did a good job of incorporating ways to help you participate and still potentially have a good time.
