Jewel Case Release
| Genre: Trivia |
CDs: 1 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: Ubi Soft Entertainment, Inc. |
Released: March 26, 2002 |
| Developer: Starsphere Interactive, Inc. |
UPC: 0 08888 31036 5 |
| Sony ID: SLUS-01445 |
PSRM: 023970 |
| Players: 1 to 4 Players |
Memory: 2 Blocks |
| Accessories: Vibration, Multi-Tap |
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| ESRB: Everyone – No Descriptors |
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| Box Copy:
Think You Got Game? Time to put up or shut up with Power Play Sports Trivia!
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Variants
- There are no known variants.
Misprints
- There are no known misprints.
Review
I can guarantee this review is longer than the actual game known as Power Play Sports Trivia. Not that that’s a bad thing. Released on the PlayStation in early 2002, Ubisoft’s brain-teasing bonanza was developed by Starsphere Interactive. You know that name from the PlayStation conversions of You Don’t Know Jack and its sequel.
Unlike the former’s sassy attitude and irreverent behavior toward the player, Power Play Sports Trivia comes across more like a mobile game that snuck its way onto a console. That’s not a bad thing either, believe me. But after running through the game several times, it’s clear there are only two situations in which this can be enjoyed the way it was meant to be.
Armchair athletes will be right at home with the subject matter, which covers four sports – Baseball, Football, Basketball, and Hockey. Each sport can be – if you’ll pardon the pun – tackled individually, or the player can go helmet-first into a barrage of questions from all four.
Questions are presented with 4 possible choices, each tied to one of the 4 action buttons on the controller. Choosing your answer is as easy as moving a thumb, which introduces an odd speedrunning angle to the game. It’s roughly 2 to 5 minutes in solo mode, so getting your trigger finger prepped is the easy part. It’s the random generation of the questions that will get you.
For the two included modes, we have Tournament and Last Man Standing. In the former, up to four players will each be asked a series of 10 questions. Each question can be worth between 100 to 300 points. If you guess right, you get the points added – guess wrong, and they’re subtracted.
Successfully answering sequential questions will trigger a streak. Each correctly answered question’s points will be multiplied by the streak counter. Once the 10 questions are up, all scores are tallied, and the winner is chosen in a medal screen. After bragging rights have been completed, they’ll appear in the high score table. Players also get assigned a rank as they move up and down the scoreboard. Starting at Pee-Wee and maxing out at Legend.
In the Last Man Standing mode, it’s more like the schoolyard game of HORSE. Only one player is active at a time – if you answer correctly, points and streak counter are yours. If you miss, you lose points and get a strike against your Miss counter. Once the Miss counter maxes out, they’re ejected from the game. Once down to the final player, they win! If you play a solo mode, you play until you’re out of misses. Difficulty is handled by the number of misses allowed.
As someone who barely follows sports, it’s refreshing to see that a lot of the questions are simple, if not a bit easy on the brain. There are some guaranteed brain teasers in there, even for sports junkies, but I was getting enough right to feel like I could still be part of the fun. You can even use the answer guide if you want to just steamroll through it.
And that’s about it. Power Play Sports Trivia is one of those rare oddities where the game is more accessory than a video game. It has trivia about sports, and does what it was programmed to do. I can’t really fault it, but I can’t give it a crazy glowing review. That said, I did admit that there were two instances where this game would shine. Those two moments would be either at a tailgate party or a digital appetizer while friends waited for the real Sunday game to start at home. Last Man Standing allows the people in line to sip drinks and eat snacks, while the Tournament builds up the competition vibe before the real-life event starts.
As of the posting of this review in December 2025, the game still goes for its original release price of $9.99 or less. And that includes shipping! Unless you’re going for a specific set, as a whole, Power Play Sports Trivia is that odd piece of filler. It’s simple and fast enough to be a quick romp every so often, but the target audience has likely moved on to more current trivia and knowledge.
The Good
- Great question variety
- Four sports to choose from
- Pick up and play, 5-minute game
The Bad
- No real pizazz
- Dated Material
- Maybe too simple
Final Score: 5/10 – Average
Power Play Sports Trivia is by no means a bad game, but unless there’s a group of friends to play with, this one will sit on the bench.
Screenshots
Videos
A full run through both trivia modes. The entire game can be played in less than 5 minutes.
Trivia
- Depending on the user’s speed in answering questions, a game could last as short as 3 minutes, and that’s with the credits roll!
Guide
- The game’s entire question & answer suite is now available as a searchable guide here. You, too, can now become the ace of outdated sports trivia.
