Despite the difficulties of translating the nuances of the television show to mobile format, Hollywood Squares for mobile is a good game that bombards you with options. In fact, the sheer number of things to do and check out in the menu screen is really entertaining. The gameplay is fun too, but it boils down to a cross between tic-tac-toe and trivia, and it misses one of the most interesting aspects of the show. Hollywood Squares may not have the same value as its TV counterpart, but it's an amazingly well-built and thoughtful trivia game.
Hollywood Squares, or celebrity tic-tac-toe, is a long-running game show that takes B- and C-list movie stars, older celebrities, and other minor Hollywood nobles, and allows them to test out their acting skills in public yet again. In the show, celebrities are asked a variety of trivia questions that they must answer as convincingly as possible. The player, who is either representing the Xs or the Os, must decide if the celebrity is right and then complete a game of tic-tac-toe in the process. It becomes a combination of not just trivia knowledge, but also a guessing game about the intelligence and acting ability of celebrities. In the mobile game, there are a variety of celebrities at your disposal, such as Joan Rivers, Telly Savalas, Gilbert Gottfried, Isaac Hayes, and David Hasselhoff, but they are merely figureheads--they don't try to act or fool you. Consequently, you must answer the trivia questions without their aid, and then complete tic-tac-toe against a computer opponent who never gets a question wrong on both the medium and hard difficulty settings. The voices and the caricatured images of the celebrities are very well done, and they really give the game quite a bit of personality. However, if you play the game quite a bit, you're going to hear the same celebrities over and over again. The game does offer new downloadable celebrity content, though, and you can sign up to be notified via text message when it becomes available.
One thing that you won't find repetitive are the trivia questions, which are not only original, but also come in a variety of different category packs that you can download for free. This is a great touch, because it allows you to play the kind of trivia you want to play, instead of imposing categories on you that you have no knowledge of or interest in. The categories include a trivia mix, celebrities, movies and TV, '80s, sports, and more. There are also leaderboards, both local and nationwide (local, meaning your phone only), which you can use to check the quality of your scores.
There is two player pass-and-play, which is a welcome relief from the incessantly correct computer opponent. The questions are in a multiple-choice format, but if you get it wrong, the opponent gets the square. This makes the games quick and painful if you're unfamiliar with the trivia category. Also, you aren't given the correct answer if you get the question wrong, which is unfortunate in some ways. But it also means that if you ever happen to get the question again, you won't automatically get it right that time either.
The game looks and sounds really good, and it's pretty stylistic. The characters are cartoony and cute, with oversized heads and big toothy grins. The front end is easy to navigate, and it appears to be very in step with the Hollywood Squares TV theme. The sound effects are also good, even though, as mentioned earlier, they get repetitive after awhile. This could have been remedied if celebs had been given a few different voice samples, instead of the stock ones in the game. All in all, Hollywood Squares does justice to the classic game show, even if the gameplay is slightly different. If you're a fan of Hollywood Squares or trivia in general, you're going to be a fan of this mobile game.
