Previous Next

Contrary to popular belief, people don't go to pubs to meet friends, play darts or even get drunk. Well, at least Code Masters don't. Their ideal pub is frequented by greedy intellectuals whose sole purpose is to win loads of money out of the quiz machine. The punters stick their 10ps in, answer a few easy questions, and - just when they are about to win a cash price - the machine invariably comes up with a gem like "What was the name of the first President of San Marino's goldfish?"

Still, at least you can't lose any real money in Pub Trivia Simulator. The only purpose of winning imaginary cash is to extend your credit for a really high score. The questions are all multiple choice - use the joystick to move your hand over either the 'A', 'B' or 'C' button to answer inside the time limit.

Questions come in four categories - Sport, Pop Music, Showbiz and General Trivia - which appear in a pyramid of question cards. Correctly answer a card at the bottom and you can select either of the two cards above it. Get the top card question right and you're transported to the 'money maze' - another pyramid of questions, but this time some of them carry a cash prize (10p!) for the correct answer.

Despite the conspicuous lack of alcohol in the Zzap office, Pub Trivia Simulator kept the whole team interested for an afternoon of enjoyable trivia. As with other quiz games the questions inevitably start repeating after a while, but even when they do, the multiple choice answers are cleverly jumbled up to make them appear different. And there are two extra question blocks on the tape, giving an impressive total of 2,000 questions to keep any trivia buff happy for a while.