Knowledge is Power (2017)

I love Knowledge is Power. It is the ultimate party game of choice when friends or family come to visit. It is easy to play, hilarious and overall, just a good way to spend some time.

The game is just a 10 round quiz with two minigames and a finale, in which you answer questions about a certain theme, that is chosen by the majority of the players. An app is used to interact with the game on screen, which is loaded via the PlayStation.

You got so called Power Plays to hinder other players, in which you blur their screens with slime, freeze answers so they need to tap through the ice and many others. My favorite one are the little bombs that one must avoid when tapping on the answer. If a bomb is tapped, the ugly face of the player who gave it to you is displayed Fullscreen.

After 10 rounds, you play the finale on the “Pyramid of Knowledge” and the players answer questions as fast as possible. The one who is the fastest, jumps up five ladders on the stairs. The winner gets a scroll with a random fact that you probably never heard of.

It is good fun and after one game, another one starts immediately most of the time. Grab a beer and lets go.

Graphicly, Knowledge is Power looks jolly and colorful. There are some fancy effects and fireworks in the background and the animations are funny.

Sound wise, the game is fine, the same music track loops over and over again, but with enough variation that it does not drive you mad. The voice acting of the host and the silly sound effects are on point.

There are some small issues with the game. You got some instability issues sometimes between the connection of the phone and the PlayStation, character faces are not always replaced by the hideous selfie that you took to play as that character, and sometimes, your screen just does not respond very well.

Then there is the slow pacing of the game. The intro, the explanations, the animations of the Power Plays, it takes forever. This is especially frustrating in the finale, where every player gets targeted by at least four or five of the Power Plays and you need to watch every animation of every character before moving on.

But overall, Knowledge is power is just a great party game and I would recommend it to everyone.

I absolutely love trivia and party games, but even I have limits. The powers to be used on other players can essentially block a player from really playing at all. The last round is especially unbalanced, in that all progress in the game up to that point is just tossed out the window. Increasing stakes as a game goes on makes sense, making only the final round relevant to the outcome does not.

Personal score : 4/10

Critical score : 5.5/10