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IGN Review of Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader: Make the Grade
Despite not being a tremendous trivia nut, I can recognize the potential for trivia/quiz games and why they would be so addictive to info junkies. Unfortunately, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? Make the Grade is not only a poor trivia game but it's just not well put together in any way. There's really something to be said when I reviewed my notes before writing this article and found that all of my comments were listed in the "negative" section and the "positive" section was blank.
If you're not familiar with the Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? television show, Jeff Foxworthy hosts and guides one contestant through a series of grade school questions for money. A "class" of school kids is on standby and come up one at a time to help the contestant answer questions, which are categorized by subject. During the course of the game, the contestant can fall back on a few "cheat" options, including peeking at his or her 5th grader's answer, copying it directly (which automatically locks him or her into that answer) or the contestant can just be saved once by the fifth grader if the contestant answers incorrectly but his temporary partner is right.
This is essentially the structure of Make the Grade, but there are a few additional multiplayer elements thrown into the mix as well. For the most part, this is a very boring and poorly executed game. First of all, the only reward you get for playing Make the Grade is earning imaginary money. Besides the hope of getting entered into the Honor Roll, I see no incentive for playing this game beyond the satisfaction one would receive for answering questions correctly. Every main Homeroom game plays out like a condensed version of the TV show and at the end you either walk away with nothing or a fistful of imaginary cash.
The most obvious problem with Make the Grade are the atrocious visuals, which are terribly buggy, at best. Character animation and facial expressions are laughable and when the school children run out onto the stage I couldn't help but imagine them as zombies -- the sprinting variety from Snyder's Dawn of the Dead remake. Other hysterical instances include a 5th grader not properly walking up to the podium and teleporting into place last minute as the camera initially showed an empty spot. Or, when one of the kids ran up to my contestant to give him a high five and he just stood there, ignoring her. I laughed, even though I cried a little inside for the girl.
More problematic is the incredibly repetitious gameplay. Recent trivia games like Buzz! and Scene It? not only offer a slick presentation but also spice up question types and keep things exciting throughout. That's not the case with Make the Grade. And during only an hour or two with the game, I already started seeing some question repetition, which is embarrassing.
And while I'm well aware that the game is supposed to be asking grade school problems, some of the questions are silly and really have no reason for being kept in the game, including the classic true or false gem: an adult is bigger than a newborn baby. Yikes.
If all this wasn't enough to discourage you from playing Make the Grade, the sound clips are identical in almost every game, meaning you'll hear Foxworthy and the contestant spout the same three or four lines constantly. It's truly an exercise in annoyance.
Multiplayer does little to brighten the experience. You can play a normal bout of the Homeroom game and pass the controller around, hotseat style, or you can engage in a game of Flashcards or Spelling Bee, which pit two players against each other in timed matches. It's a bit more exciting than the single-player option because a competitive element has been introduced into the equation, but I'd never have the desire to play it again.
©2008-11-03, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
If you're not familiar with the Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? television show, Jeff Foxworthy hosts and guides one contestant through a series of grade school questions for money. A "class" of school kids is on standby and come up one at a time to help the contestant answer questions, which are categorized by subject. During the course of the game, the contestant can fall back on a few "cheat" options, including peeking at his or her 5th grader's answer, copying it directly (which automatically locks him or her into that answer) or the contestant can just be saved once by the fifth grader if the contestant answers incorrectly but his temporary partner is right.
This is essentially the structure of Make the Grade, but there are a few additional multiplayer elements thrown into the mix as well. For the most part, this is a very boring and poorly executed game. First of all, the only reward you get for playing Make the Grade is earning imaginary money. Besides the hope of getting entered into the Honor Roll, I see no incentive for playing this game beyond the satisfaction one would receive for answering questions correctly. Every main Homeroom game plays out like a condensed version of the TV show and at the end you either walk away with nothing or a fistful of imaginary cash.
The most obvious problem with Make the Grade are the atrocious visuals, which are terribly buggy, at best. Character animation and facial expressions are laughable and when the school children run out onto the stage I couldn't help but imagine them as zombies -- the sprinting variety from Snyder's Dawn of the Dead remake. Other hysterical instances include a 5th grader not properly walking up to the podium and teleporting into place last minute as the camera initially showed an empty spot. Or, when one of the kids ran up to my contestant to give him a high five and he just stood there, ignoring her. I laughed, even though I cried a little inside for the girl.
More problematic is the incredibly repetitious gameplay. Recent trivia games like Buzz! and Scene It? not only offer a slick presentation but also spice up question types and keep things exciting throughout. That's not the case with Make the Grade. And during only an hour or two with the game, I already started seeing some question repetition, which is embarrassing.
And while I'm well aware that the game is supposed to be asking grade school problems, some of the questions are silly and really have no reason for being kept in the game, including the classic true or false gem: an adult is bigger than a newborn baby. Yikes.
If all this wasn't enough to discourage you from playing Make the Grade, the sound clips are identical in almost every game, meaning you'll hear Foxworthy and the contestant spout the same three or four lines constantly. It's truly an exercise in annoyance.
Multiplayer does little to brighten the experience. You can play a normal bout of the Homeroom game and pass the controller around, hotseat style, or you can engage in a game of Flashcards or Spelling Bee, which pit two players against each other in timed matches. It's a bit more exciting than the single-player option because a competitive element has been introduced into the equation, but I'd never have the desire to play it again.
©2008-11-03, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved