Mattel Friends Scene It? DVD Game

I am a die hard Friends fan and was gutted when E4 stopped showing the series, but I still get my fix through this Scene It game, which is an interactive game that can provide a lot of fun for Friends fans.

Scene It, if you’ve never heard of them before, are a series of themed games that are interactive and are ideal for parties and groups, although they can be played with just two people. I also have the Harry Potter version and they are available in everything from Disney films to The Simpsons and from James Bond to Movie Classics. You need a DVD player, TV and remote control – quite amusingly the box tells you that these three things aren’t included!

We bought this particular version from The Works and paid just £9.99 which was an absolute bargain as far as I’m concerned as I have played it plenty of times and the game has been different every time. There are around 900 trivia questions and over 100 clips from all ten series of the show, so it makes it reusable enough. I have seen the game on sale in Toys R Us for around £30 which I think is probably still just about good value for money.

There is a game board which is designed to be Central Perk and it folds out in two ways so that you can play both a short and longer version of the game. When we have played it has almost always been just the two of us and even then I think that the short game is just too short – by the time you have got into it, it’s over. The longer game we have found takes about an hour to play on average and I have always found that I haven’t been bored of it and that I could have carried on for longer.

You start the game by choosing one of the game pieces which include things significant to the show such as an oversized coffee cup and a barker lounger (not sure if that is how you spell it sorry!). There are four tokens so obviously you can have a maximum of either four people or four teams playing at once. I imagine it would be a lot of fun playing with four teams because of the interactive element, but you’d probably struggle to find enough Friends fans to make up four teams.

Once you have decided who goes first (the highest roller of the dice), the aim is to be the first to get around the board. Along the way you have to answer various questions depending on what you roll with the category dice. The different sorts of questions are:

My Play – This is one that involves playing the DVD and is just for the person that rolled the dice. There are various types of challenges, including answering questions following a clip (good for those who aren’t addicts of the show), guessing who is missing from the picture, answering a crossword puzzle from clues and guessing who is speaking. There is also a couple of challenges that involve multiple choice answers which are again much easier for those who aren’t big fans.

All Play – This includes all of the challenges that My Play does, but this time anyone can answer the question and the first one to do so takes control of the board.

Trivia Cards – These are split into three different categories and you answer depending on what you threw with the category dice. The three categories are The One with the Details, The One With The Dialogue and The One With The Pop Culture. The first category is based on the show and deals with who, what, when, where and why questions. These questions are probably the easiest for people who like the show. The second category is pretty self explanatory and they are my favourite because they pose a bit more of a challenge, having to remember exact words and scenes. The last category is not about the show apart from the fact that it involves actors who starred in the show (both regulars and cameos). These are the hardest questions as they can be quite obscure although people who don’t watch the show will have a good chance at answering these ones.

Buzz Cards – These are a bit like chance cards in Monopoly and tend to have you jumping forward or moving back depending on what fate has befallen you.

Players Choice – This simply means that you can choose whichever category you want from those above.

The DVD is easy to set up and follow. Between questions the DVD plays the Friends theme which whilst good at first, wears a bit thin later on. The DVD is automatically set to random, so there is a chance of repeating questions within a game, although this hasn’t yet happened to me. You can get round this though by selecting Pre-Set Gameplay, which is a programmed game that guarantees no repetition. There is also a party play option where you don’t use the board at all and the DVD simply plays the party games one after another and you don’t have to press any buttons or anything. This is great when you are being too lazy to play properly, or you just want a quick Friends burst.

Overall I would highly recommend the game to all Friends fans especially if you can find it as cheaply as we did. It’s not great for people who don’t like the show, although there are enough questions for them to answer that you can make a game of it. It’s a lot of fun and the interactive element is simple to use and very effective. Makes a great gift idea.