Top Android Games by Category

When your family and friends challenge you to a friendly game of trivia, are you unflinching in your desire to dominate all comers?

Have others accused you of wasting valuable brain real estate with useless, but amazing, facts about the Harry Potter series, Star Wars movies, sports figures and stats, or the physical features and capitals of every country on Earth?

If so, your Android device can help you get your trivia on anywhere, anytime. This weeks’ list of some of the very best trivia and quiz apps will keep you at the top of your game, put you in the running to win actual prizes, and (let’s be honest) earning you stares of scorn and awe as you crush your competitors.

ANDROID APPS REVIEWED THIS WEEK

Trivia Burst: Put your all-around trivia knowledge to the test, climb the online leader boards, and win Amazon gift certificates. Bring it!

Trivial Droid (Quiz Game): Offers hundreds of questions delivered in several modes, offering the ability to post your results to an online ranking system. Do you have what it takes?

Trivia Mania: You’ll need to read your newspaper, keep up with your RSS feeds, and be an all-around trivia nut to keep up with this often-updated trivia offering.

Brain Cafe | Geo Quiz: Go global and test your knowledge of the planet and the countries we call home. Geography buffs, have at it!

Brain Cafe | Food Quiz: Hungry? Test your knowledge of local and global cuisine in this tasty Android offering.

Read all of my Apple iPad and Google Android application reviews at Appolicious and Yahoo! Tech.

DROID REVIEWS

Trivia Burst (FREE)

The list of features for this free trivia challenger is impressive: 22,000 questions in 22 categories, online ranking system, frequent updates, and more. The highlight? Make it to the top of the heap and you could earn yourself Amazon gift certificates. It’s time to put your money where your Android is!

The downside? The app sources its questions from an open Web source that contains user-submitted content that isn’t always correct. Be sure to flag any incorrect questions you stumble upon right in the app, and join me in working our way to the top! Now, what is a group of cows called again?

Trivial Droid (Quiz Game) (FREE)
Trivial Droid may have only a few hundred questions stored in its rusty innards (see what I did there, Star Wars fans?), but what it lacks in depth and updates, it more than makes up for in features. Bring your A game to this app and you could rise to the top of its global leader boards! Choose to play in Normal mode (20 seconds per question, get ranked), Passive mode (progressive difficulty, limited time/lives, no online ranking), or Marathon Game (limited time/lives, unlimited questions, no ranking.) The sound effects are a nice touch, the questions span dozens of topics, and the ads are visible but not distracting. More regular updates of the questions (once every six months?) would go a long way in making this app a full 5-star experience.

Trivia Mania ($.99)
The developers at AA Team have compiled an impressive set of fresh, timely trivia questions in their Trivia Mania app. While many offerings offer a set list of questions that tend to get stale, Trivia Mania is updated every few weeks with fresh queries. You’ll need to read your newspaper, keep up with your RSS feeds, and be an all-around trivia nut to keep up with this engaging title. Comes with multiplayer functionality that operates via Bluetooth, making this app perfect for long car trips and vacations where wifi may not be generally available. With hundreds of questions built-in, and regular updates on the way, the .99 price tag is right on the money in my book.

Brain Cafe | GeoQuiz (FREE)
Let’s face it. We could all use a good refresher in geography. This free app will take you around the world in far fewer than 80 smart phone taps, presenting breathtaking images leading to the main Quiz categories: Great Explorers, People, Capital Cities, Countries, and Flags. Each quiz is made up of 20 questions, and there’s four answers to choose from for each query. Stumped? No worries. A wrong answer leads to additional information about the question, along with a handy (if not entirely vetted or editorially-reviewed) link to the topic in Wikipedia. As a free app, its relatively small set of questions is less a hindrance as a fact of life with a no-cost offering.

Brain Cafe | Food Quiz (FREE)
Who doesn’t love to eat? If you’re an adventurous eater, like I am, Brain Cafe’s Food Quiz is your go-to app for pairing your love of good eats with a challenging set of global quizzes to test your foodie knowledge. The interface is easy to navigate, and the images of everything from soup to nuts and everything in between is a treat for your senses. After nailing a tough set of questions about your favorite region’s offerings, be sure to post your results to Twitter or Facebook to amaze (and hunger) your friends no matter where they may roam. You’ll learn something new every time you fire up this tasty little morsel.