One of the most famous TV shows is now inviting you to be a contestant (Again). With over 6800 questions divided into more than a dozen subjects, you’ll have increasingly difficult questions. ‘Are you Smarter Than a 5th Grader?’ will allow up to 8 players to play at once in this game show that will ask you really easy questions, but the hard part is if you remember them? We hope you paid attention during your Elementary school!
Published by Handy Games and THQ Nordic, you can play ‘Are you Smarter Than a 5th Grader?’ on PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One and Series X|S, Nintendo Switch and PC. Released on August 23, 2022, the game has been challenging people all over the globe with a vast question bank. Here’s how we felt about the game!
Maybe it is too Realistic.
‘Are you Smarter Than a 5th Grader’ is not the first of its series. Earlier, ‘Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader: Back to School and ‘Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader: Make the Grade’ came out all the way back in 2008 for the Nintendo Wii, Playstation 2 and PC. Even back then, the games offered up to 6000 questions.
However, one thing in all of these games didn’t change throughout the years. It still pushes itself to make it feel more like a TV show than an actual quiz game. The time between answering 2 different questions is filled with animations, unwanted transitions and many other factors that just add more ‘content’ time over actual gameplay.
This might be okay if it had been released a decade ago when people were more excited to see the technology breaking through and creators creating a similar experience as the TV. But today, people look more forward to actual gameplay and interaction over sitting and watching awkward transitions and fillers.
The idea of having 2 show hosts never made sense. Each show host swaps after questioning 2 questions. And after each segment, the classmate changes as well. While classmates are essential to the cheat system in the game, it never really made sense to have to rotate the classmates after each segment over and over again. And, it does not stop there. After each question, the classmate is asked by the host to tell a fact about them. The facts are interesting, like ‘I can tell the day of any date given to me. Which is fascinating! But quite the opposite if it’s going to happen every time, with each classmate, in each playthrough. 6800 Questions? Maybe, but with 6800 Facts.
Out of Syllabus?
The game offers a variety of subjects. This includes vocabulary, life sciences, biology, spelling, measurements, maths and many more. Each has a set of questions for themselves. Right at the start of the game, you are asked if you know about US history, which makes sense since many people outside the US do not.
Choosing no will allow the game not to ask your US tradition-related questions. However, the reading/literature subject will still ask you texts and story questions that you might have not heard ever in your life. This comes naturally as each country has its own set of literature that is followed at elementary school. Therefore, having a family game with an audience from all over the world, literature should not have been incorporated, and instead, grammar questions could’ve made more sense here.
Additionally, some questions require you to geographically tell their location. The game gives you a screen with the world map and a crosshair on the map to mark the location. Personally, we were taught about many countries but until 5th grade, we focused on our own country and their states in terms of marking them on the map. One of the questions will ask you to mark Geneva, Scotland on the Map. However, while playing handheld, it’s absolutely tough to mark it with the tiny crosshair as there is no way to zoom it on the screen. Questions like these could’ve at least zoomed at the continent or region to facilitate marking instead of providing the entire world map in each question.
The Cosmetics
To be fair, there is no true progression system in the game. The only things that you can unlock are more desks that will be in your POV while you game, students and their costumes. You will also unlock badges and achievements as you progress. But you will not unlock a different format or style. The game will remain the same, you can only choose to play Solo or with your friends on couch co-op.
This will allow you to equip more items, but this really hits out on the game’s replayability. Right after 2 or 3 sessions of the game, you will be too bored to go again. The game starts out really easy but suddenly grasps up the difficulty. And providing even one wrong answer means game over. Which really fails the point of having a point system.
This would’ve been better if the game allowed to level up or enhances a child’s learning curve by grinding levels. However, you unlock Halloween costumes or new children to partner up with. This again also hits out on the stereotypical factor of having a kid who is good at certain subjects. Each student should have his/her unique self. A good example in this situation would be to work only with one student. At first, they could be shy and give wrong answers. But as you help them and answer the right questions, by the end game they become confident and help you with correct answers.
There could be many things that could’ve been done along with the base game show however, apart from cosmetics there isn’t much to offer.
Real Talk
‘Are you Smarter Than a 5th Grader’ is a party game allowing you to play up to 8 players at once on the Nintendo Switch. The game is inspired by the TV show with a similar name and has a lot of fans around the world, especially during the 2019 John Cena reboot. But the game has a very childish approach to the UI and systems that barely helps in retention and replayability.
The game tried to mirror most of the things that happened on the TV. But when it’s a game, it needs to be engaging and should ask more questions. But it has priority towards the animations and transitions. Even if you consider playing it with friends and family, they might choose other games as an option.
Final Rating: Avoid