It's difficult to ignore the Twilight phenomenon, which has swept through pop culture like wildfire and captured the attention and hearts of women of all ages. The passionate romance between the sparkly 100-year-old vampire Edward Cullen--who looks 17--and the delicate, warm-blooded Bella Swan is now one of the most talked-about love stories. The four-book series by author Stephanie Meyer has garnered a rabid fan following, and Twilight fans everywhere were eager to watch their favorite characters come to life on the big screen. Scene It? Twilight tests even the most devoted of fans with multiple-choice trivia questions that will surely leave everyone who hasn't seen the first movie scratching their heads. It's unfortunate that beneath the attractive allure of a movie-based trivia game, the presentation is incredibly lackluster and there isn't enough content to keep you fixated. Scene It? Twilight will leave you thirsty for more.
Originally a DVD game brand, Scene It? has made the transition to consoles successfully. Up to four players compete for the highest score by answering multiple-choice questions the fastest or coming up with the correct answer first. Scene It? Twilight is limited in terms of substance, because it's based only on a two-hour movie, while other Scene It? games are jam-packed with trivia questions about film or pop culture that span decades. That doesn't mean there aren't random facts or interesting tidbits to discover from the game's 500-plus questions, but it gets old faster than the time it takes for Edward to run to Bella's house.
Only two modes are available, so you can either play through four rounds of puzzles or select to answer 10, 20, or 30 questions for the highest score. The formatting of the questions is random and cycles through 10 types. One question type is Alice's Vision, where you guess the location being drawn, and you can speed up the sketch by shaking the Wii Remote. It's similar to Upon Reflection, in which you try to identify the character who is masked behind a shimmering wall of stars as the image progressively becomes clearer. The first person to shake the remote and press A will get a chance to guess correctly; if that player's answer is incorrect, another player can take a stab at it. Depending on the type, there are also questions where everyone can answer together by pressing a direction on the D pad that corresponds to the correct answer. The point total as well as a time bar that ticks away are at the bottom of the screen to indicate how much time you have left to answer and how many points you'll earn if you chose correctly. Having a quick trigger finger and being lucky at your guesses can bring you into the lead, but guessing can take you only so far, because in the fourth "Twilightning" round you are docked points for wrong answers. Other formats include answering a question that follows a movie clip, recognizing the character or object missing from the scene, rearranging movie stills in the order that they appear in the film, and identifying the person who said a particular line in the movie.
It takes several rounds of play before questions start to repeat, but you'll burn through the content far too quickly. Unfortunately, the dull presentation doesn't help spruce things up, either. Movie clips and sketches are two of the more engaging ways the trivia is presented, but a majority of the questions are presented as a line of text with answers along the side of the screen. Without any visual aid or still image of a hunky or beautiful vampire to make it more interesting, all you're left with is a giant box of text to read through as quickly as possible.
The bland presentation is only marginally improved with snippets of music from the movie. Peter Facinelli, who plays Dr. Carlisle Cullen in the movie, lends his soothing voice to guide you through the menus, but after a few rounds you realize that he has only a handful of lines. A few gloomy background images from the movie set the stage for the questions, accurately representing the tone and feel of Forks, Washington, where the story takes place. What's more depressing than the dreary weather, is that the bonus material you unlock as you play through the game consists of production stills from the movie, and while nice to look at, they offer very little to Twilight fans hoping for at least some juicy information or new images from the recently released movie, New Moon.
Scene It? Twilight does a decent job of making trivia interactive and allows fans of the first movie to get together and challenge one another to see who's more obsessed, but the game is just too bare. The brazen $50 price tag is very hard to justify, even for those who can't get enough of Bella and Edward exchanging awkward, longing glances. Regardless of whether or not you think vampires should sparkle in the sunlight, the content is limited, and with only two modes of play available, there isn't a reason to answer Twilight-related trivia unless you have several friends who cannot get enough of Edward's dreamy eyes. But even then, the game is so shallow beneath the movie-poster box art that you're better off getting your Twilight fix somewhere else.
