An interesting quiz format, recreated on the DS
User Rating: 5 | Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? DS
It's quite hard to review game-show based computer games. They usually involve simple question based formats, so the obvious thing to do on the DS is present the question, and you touch the answer using the touch-screen. One thing that is harder to recreate is the suspense and the atmosphere of the TV show. This game features the original host using the Act Imagine technology to render the video footage, so this game excels here. There are 5 children too, but its disappointing that the same children appear every time you play, rather than being randomly selected from a pool. Each child has their own specialities and are more likely to save you in their preferred subjects. If you aren't familiar with the format, you select a child, then proceed to answer 2 questions from the subjects on the board. After this, the process is repeated until you reached the final question. The questions are a mix of 'true & false', and 'multiple choice', apart from the final question which you have to type in using the on screen keyboard. You have 3 'cheats'; peek, copy and save. 'Peek' means you look at the child's answer and then decide if you should go with them or choose your own. 'Copy' means you have to commit to the child's answer. 'Save' is when you get the question wrong but the child gets it right. All 3 cheats can only be used once. There are no extra features in this game, but a leader board of your previous successes is saved. Annoyingly, every time you play, the game goes through the introduction sequence although you can skip the majority of it. Overall, I'd say this game is good for what it's trying to do, but it can never be a great game.
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