When I first met and started dating my wife a few years ago, she and her friends introduced me to what would eventually become one of the banes of our relationship.  That trouble spot, one of the only we have, was a little game called “Scene It? The Movie Trivia Game.”  As a hybrid DVD-board game, my wife and her friends absolutely loved to play Scene It and would do so at all hours of the day or not, and a lot of times they were doing it while a bit drunk…I’d say “high” but I don’t want to rat anyone out just in case her parents are reading this.

What Scene It? revealed to me about my wife, her friends and her family, was how insanely competitive they all are.  I swear their games of Monopoly have broken down in to physical altercations on a number of occassions.  Since they loved Scene It? so much, and knowing that I had spent a lot of time working in film and television in a number of roles since the early 90s, they all wanted to play against me so they could show how badass they were at the game.

Unfortunately for them, I am a professional nerd and proceeded to obliterate them at every turn, no matter how many of them teamed up against me.  We played at holidays, family gatherings, whenever I came over to my wife’s place to hang out.  They brought in what they thought to be ringers (including a cousin who wanted to go to film school), but they couldn’t defeat me.

The competitiveness coming from them (and by them, I mainly mean my wife, her best friend and her sister-in-law) became so great that I quit playing the game altogether and refused to play ever again.

However, fate had other plans for me.  You see, in 2007 the evil men of Microsoft Game Studios released a version of SceneIt? for the XBOX 360.  Knowing she was a fan of the game, I proceeded to pick it up for my wife as an early Christmas present.  And, dag-nabbit, but Microsoft has put together one of the coolest, most addicting games on the market.  We threw it in for kicks at our Christmas party and I was hooked. 

The XBOX 360 version of Scene It? the movie trivia game, comes loaded with over 1800 questions, 21 different types of challenges and 3 game modes.  It also comes packed with 4 Scene It-specific controls, which add a whole new level of enjoyment to the game.  They have done an outstanding job with the entire package.

Some of the game modes are straight up trivia, but a number of them force you to rely on memorization skills or Psych-levels of visual awareness.  You may be asked to identify a movie from props, pieces of a movie poster or through a series of images related to its name.  Other puzzles have you identifying a star from his or her high school yearbook photo or coming up with a film name in a hangman-style game.  There are enough modes and varieties of questions to keep even the most encylcopedic movie buffs on their toes.  And, the Scene It? specific controls really give it that gameshow or Jeopardy type feel that will keep everyone laughing while they play.

Some reviews I checked out on the internet bring up the game’s lack of support on XBOX Live or remote play.  I really don’t see that as a downside because SceneIt? is a full on party game and is meant to be played with a group of people around you.  It is about having fun and the laughs that go with this sort of game.  I do look forward to downloadable content packs which were promised down the road.  1800 questions is a lot, but as often as we play we’ll be going through them pretty fast!

For some reason, it is a lot more fun to destroy my wife and her friends on the XBOX 360 version of Scene It? than on the old DVD version.  Maybe one day they’ll beat me, but for now I am still the champion.

-Mat N., the Nifty Nerd
http://www.TheNiftyNerd.com