Most LSU students have been around for at least 20 years. In fact it’s safe to say the majority are older than 21, according to personal identification documents. So when Trivial Pursuit created its 20th Anniversary Edition to span over the last two decades, I thought my generation had the game beat before the box ever opened.
College students lived through the ’80s; girls tied their bedazzled Gem t-shirts to the side and boys played with Transformers and watched Thundercats. Those in their 20s spent their adolescence in the 1990s. Nirvana, Beavis and Butthead, the Macarena and Beanie Babies were the “bomb diggity” back in high school.
But guess what? After three hours of playing Trivial Pursuit 20th Anniversary Edition, none of that mattered. Unless one wrote the Almanac, Guinness Book of World Records and Time magazine over the entire span of their life and attended a few U.N. conferences in between, there is no way an average college student will attain all six pie pieces within the next ten years. It’s impossible.
One is seduced into confidence by the shiny gold and blue box cover but do not be deceived. Inside lies the demise of your intelligence.
This edition plays just like the traditional Trivial Pursuit but it comes with a few extras. One bonus is the “Special Anniversary Deluxe Card Dispenser” that might seem unnecessary at first but it keeps the unused cards from mingling with used ones and prevents cards from getting bent. There are three 200-card packets, that’s 3,600 questions to keep your ego deflated for hours of trivia fun.
The best addition to this edition is the winning “Be a Question in the Trivial Pursuit Game” question. If the queries weren’t obscure enough, Riley McLincha of Clio, Michigan won the opportunity to have a question about his life published in the 20th Anniversary Edition. He was chosen out of 800 entries because of his ability to dribble and juggle basketballs in the ever popular sport “drubbling.”
Mr. McLincha’s question can be found on the orange colored “Game Time” category. Pink questions are “Sound & Screen”, blue is “Global View”, yellow is “News”, brown is “Written Word” and green is “Innovations.” And they are all difficult to answer.
Within the introduction of this special edition, Trivial Pursuit published a Web site allowing visitors to play a preview of the 20th Anniversary game, win a game autographed by the one of the inventors or purchase one directly from the site. The Web site will offer soon the choice to play Trivial Pursuit for money.
Trivial Pursuit 20th Anniversary Edition costs about $30 and most students have paid less to feel like an idiot. It can be enjoyable still to the intellectually challenged, as the rare occurrence of a right answer always calls for a celebration of some sort. But overall stick to the crossword on the inside back page; it’s free.
For more information about the game, check out www. trivialpursuit.com.