- Any number of people can play together
- Questions move along at a reasonable pace
- Stays true to the game play from the show
- No introduction or on-screen instructions
- Questions tend to be repeated through subsequent games
- You need special bingo cards to play, and only a few are provided
- Distributed by Imagination Games
- Released in October, 2008
- Based on the main game from the GSN game show
- Players answer trivia questions for points, while also checking off tiles on a bingo card
- The winner of the main round is the first person to get a "bingo" on his or her card
- The bonus round consists of picking random numbers to reveal point scores, until a match is made and points are awarded
- Players need to have special score cards, which are included with the game and can be printed out online
On television, Bingo America is a two-player game that combines trivia with classic bingo, adding a play-at-home element. The DVD version attempts to combine all of these angles, which makes it both challenging and somewhat confusing.
The main round consists of answering trivia questions and recording your score, and marking off a bingo score card along the way. Balls are drawn before each question, which provide both the bingo numbers and the scoring amounts. For example, if O74 is called, players mark that number off on their cards, and the answer is worth 74 points.
Though the box says that this game is for 1 or more players, playing the Bingo America DVD game by myself wasn't very interesting, and I don't recommend it for solo play. There's no challenge in getting the answers out quickly, and you know that you'll be moving on to the bonus round with no competition.
With two or more players, the game becomes a lot more fun. The simple task of calling out correct answers before your competitors is the star of the show here. Each time we played it took a long time to get a full line on our bingo cards, so we ended up getting several repeats of many of the trivia questions. The scores seem almost arbitrary, and this is an issue with the actual game show as well, as you can answer a tricky question and only get 5 points for it, or snag an easy one for 75 points.
In the bonus round, the winner of the main game selects numbers from a board which reveal point amounts. This round continues until two identical amounts are revealed, and then rewarded to the player. It wasn't very exciting, and seems to be almost an afterthought.
The main problem here is a lack of guidance. It all starts off right away, and the pause button isn't enabled to allow players time to read the printed instruction sheet.
