Deal Or No Deal
is what every TV addict knows - the TV gameshow that has become a massive hit since last year when
it arrived on daytime TV and soon got itself an additional programme at the weekend for a while.
So, given the propensity for many a quiz to end up as an interactive DVD game this Christmas, Noel
Edmonds' comeback show has been given that status... and it sounds like a great idea... surely?
Whereas the TV show just pits one person on their own, this game also gives you the option to compete
against another person by taking it in turns to open boxes and go for a deal, or with one of you as
the player and the other as the banker, the latter getting to choose just how much the player will be
gambling for.
You know what you have to do - pick a number of boxes out of the 22 available (discounting the No.5 one
that's yours), hoping that all the amounts revealed within are low, occasionally being offered tempting
amounts by the banker to 'deal' and end the game with more than you might end up with, depending on how
you play the game, because if you use tactics to get through it and pick the right boxes then you could
hit the jackpot and score £250,000.
Sorry, did I say tactics? I meant 'blind luck'. There's no skill to this release at all.
Yes, that's the actual way in which this gameshow works because, no matter how often little Noely tries
to pile on the tension on Channel 4, it won't matter a jot as it's a pure guessing game spread out
over 45 minutes. And this works perfectly for a TV show because the simplest ideas always work the best.
On a game like this, it becomes something you can see through pretty quickly and the interest level drops
very sharply indeed if you're just a casual viewer of this programme.
Firstly, it's a bit cumbersome to select the boxes, scrolling through them one at a time. I played a web
version on the site of the US TV show that hosts their version and you could just click on the boxes at
ease, but then they've got to drag it out just like Mr Edmonds does, I guess. And to add to this, even if
you do 'Deal', you'll still play through to the end because otherwise the game's got nowhere to go (which
is why you know on TV that they're not going to deal when prompted because the end credits are a long way
off) and the man covers this up with the caveat that it's "just to see how you would've done". Hmmm....
The stilted performance from the actors opening the boxes does grate after a while, as do Noel's
comments on each box being opened along with the clips of a group of people pretending to be the audience,
because
(a) no-one is present in the intro, and
(b) all these clips fade in and out between them.
There doesn't seem to be that many different clips either, as two or three of them repeated within
the first game I played.
When the crunch comes, as well as being given the option to deal or not, you can also "Ask advice" from
the people opening the boxes, but it's just another pre-recorded clip that serves little purpose and
you can see in their eyes that they're not really putting their Equity card to its best use.
Overall, I can only recommend you buy this if you're such a fan of the show there's nothing else in
your life you need to do. And with so many interactive games on the market in time for Christmas, it
makes you wonder where things will end up next year.
Also, the concept came from the ubiquitous Endemol, so how about a version of Big Brother where
you can force-feed BB7's Nikki with fizzy drinks and sweets full of E-numbers until her brain explodes?
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
