Nat Geo Quiz! Wild Life

Let's be honest, quality quiz games on the Xbox 360 are few and far between. While our Sony cousins have all manner of Buzz! shenanigans to give their brains a workout, we've been left with very little to keep our minds finely sharpened. The movie quiz title Scene It! and its follow-up were a good start, but they were painfully limited in scope, and left quiz lovers aching for something more to test their grey matter. Now we have something new to add to the brain-teaser buffet, and while it's equally single-minded as the Scene It! franchise, Nat Geo Quiz! Wild Life adds something extra by being both fun and genuinely educational.

Making a successful quiz game usually relies on a few standard unwritten rules, many of which Nat Geo Quiz! Wild Life completely ignores, but somehow the game still manages to pull it off to a large extent. Firstly, don't expect any of the garish, boisterous game show atmosphere you would associate with quiz games. Don't look for flashing colours and a thumping theme song to get your nerves tingling and blood pumping while you sit on the edge of your seat waiting for the next question; and while there is an occasionally annoying announcer and narrator, don't expect him to be slinging corny catchphrases and wacky one-liners as the questions come flying at you from all angles. Instead, everything here moves at a sedate, relaxed pace, there is little sense of urgency or tension, and this atmosphere suits the subject matter perfectly.

The bulk of the quiz action is divided into four sections, Series, Amazing Planet, Predators vs Prey, Aquatic Life and Dangerous Encounters, each consisting somewhere around a thousand questions. Add to this a host of jigsaw puzzles and picture slider puzzles, and there really is a lot here to keep the avid wild life lover occupied, and that counts for both young and old. Even though Nat Geo Quiz! Wild Life is largely an educational product, that doesn't mean it's just for the kids, because there is plenty here for grown-ups to enjoy, provided you have an interest in geography, nature and wild life.

Your starting point, if you are planning on taking this one on alone, is the Quest mode, which is the quiz game variant of a career mode. You start off with one Series unlocked, presented on a rotating Earth globe dotted with challenges, and you work your way through the various episodes and puzzles, unlocking more as you go. Each episode consists of ten questions on a specific topic, things like Dangerous Weather, Oceans, Elephants and so on, and you need a minimum of seven correct answers to unlock further episodes. There are also picture slider puzzles to solve, and jigsaw puzzles to put together, some of which start off as incomplete sets and require you to unlock the rest of the pieces by doing well in the quiz episodes. While there is a timer running for the jigsaw and slider puzzles, you are only competing against your own best times so there isn't much stress involved. The same goes for the quiz episodes. In Quest Mode there is no penalty for taking your time, and it makes for quite a relaxing atmosphere. In fact, I spent a lot longer than I'd like to admit just staring at the beautiful images and video clips of nature, with the tranquil soundtrack playing softly in the background, it's a really peaceful experience.

Questions are presented in various ways, but the majority of them are basic multiple choice with four options. The exceptions to this include questions where you need to identify a distorted image or point out on a map where various animals are found and so on, but there really isn't much variation to the basic theme. Halfway through each episode a narrated video clip gives further insight into the chosen topic, followed by more questions based directly on the clip. These are really easy, provided you listened carefully, and are less about your nature knowledge and more about your ability to concentrate and remember. Eventually after unlocking enough episodes and puzzles, the rest of the Series' are unlocked as well, opening up all kinds of new topics to explore. What I found strange though is that as you get deeper into the game and unlock more episodes, you'll soon notice quite a lot of repetition in the video clips, using the same bits of footage edited together with new stuff. You would think that with a source of reference as huge as National Geographic there should be no shortage of material. Also unfortunate is the fact that not all the video footage is of equal quality, and while most of it is stunningly clear and breathtaking for nature lovers, some seems old and even blurry and doesn't mesh well with the high quality elements.

Gamers who aren't really interested in a leisurely stroll around our beautiful planet, but are more interested in showing their friends just how smart they are, will probably give the Quest Mode a skip and head straight to the Quiz Mode, which is home to the primary multiplayer element of the game. This mode acts as a simplified version of the Quest Mode, in that there is no calm cruise around the world map, selecting puzzles and episodes which suit your mood. Instead, you and up to three other players are given a randomly selected set of ten questions, again on a particular topic, and it's a good old 'fastest fingers first' button bashing session. Points are awarded for correct answers, with bonuses for getting them right as quickly as possible. This mode can become quite competitive with the right friends, but there really isn't enough depth to the different question styles to hold a groups interest for long. Again, this comes down to personal tastes, and if you have friends who collect butterflies and wear straw hats and so on, they'll have countless hours of fun here. Strangely, the subject matter is what keeps things from becoming too exciting. It's as if nature just doesn't lend itself well to the whole crazy gameshow atmosphere. I got far more pleasure out of quietly looking through the images, staring at the often breathtaking videos, and working my way through the jigsaw puzzles in my own time, than I did from the frantic 'fingers on the buzzers!' gameplay of the multiplayer experience. On the subject of buzzers, the games manual mentions the use of the Big Button controllers which came with the Scene It! games, but for the life of me I couldn't get mine to register with the game, so I was left playing with the standard controllers. It really doesn't make all that much difference, and it's probably more to do with me doing something wrong than the game being at fault. But since this is aimed at casual gamers, I suspect a little more development into the 'plug and play' portion is needed.

The last game style on offer is Stat Attax, a very basic card game based heavily on those Top Trumps games you may have played as a child. The premise is simple: each player is given a stack of animal cards which lists a few statistics, and the idea is to select the stat on your card which you think will be higher than that of your opponent. Get it right and you claim your opponent's card, and this goes on until one of you has run out of cards. While the Stat Attax mode is lumped together with Quiz Mode and Quest Mode on the main menu, it really comes off as a distraction from the main events and not much else.

Being a National Geographic branded product, presentation is for the most part of a high standard, even if it may take itself a bit seriously for a quiz game sometimes. Menu screens, icons and everything else are somewhat spartan in design, with everything very neatly laid out and accessible. The word that springs to mind is 'functional'. With the exception of the occasionally lower quality video, and the aforementioned repetition of some of the video clips, everything else is worthy of carrying the Nat Geo name. In terms of sound, again it's a case of using it where it's needed and nowhere else. The narrator who responds to your answers is unobtrusive, even if his rebuttals to your incorrect guesses can grate slightly after a while, but overall you hardly even notice him. The soundtrack is subtle and serene, and while it fits the calm nature of the Quest Mode perfectly, it would have been nice to have something a little more up tempo to keep things exciting when playing against friends.

Nat Geo Quiz! Wild Life stands alone among its quiz brethren by being one of the few such titles which is actually more rewarding to play alone than with friends, because this is more a sedate learning experience than it is a fun way to show off your general knowledge. Even though the topics are limited to nature and wild life, there is enough variation within that theme to keep gamers with a penchant for the great outdoors entertained. However, if you have no interest in the world and its creatures, then you needn't bother. For the rest of you, Nat Geo Quiz! Wild Life is a well presented and informative way to learn.

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