Interactive Who Wants To Be A Millionaire 3 (DVD)

...about that!

Interactive DVDs seem to be the talk of the town at the moment. Some, such as Family Fortunes or Bullseye, I just don't get. How can you can play these games on a DVD? WWTBAM on the other hand fits superbly.

** What's in the Box?**

Don't go expecting fancy game kit here. You'll get a standard DVD and a very brief instruction booklet that tells you how to control the gameplay. That's it. no ...
.../> **Game Play**

This isn't one of those games that people are going to open on Christmas day only to find that the next hour is spent trying to dicipher the instructions. It really is as simple as it gets: turn on the TV, turn on the DVD player, put the disk in the slot and away you go.

The disk self-starts, looping around an intro sequence until you have managed to locate your DVD remote control and press ENTER to ... more

Most people are familiar with the TV show "Who Want's To Be A Millionaire" and I'm sure I'm not alone when I confess to shouting at the TV screen "it's A" or some-such as the contestants fumble over what we think of as easy questions. Time to do something about that!

Interactive DVDs seem to be the talk of the town at the moment. Some, such as Family Fortunes or Bullseye, I just don't get. How can you can play these games on a DVD? WWTBAM on the other hand fits superbly.

** What's in the Box?**

Don't go expecting fancy game kit here. You'll get a standard DVD and a very brief instruction booklet that tells you how to control the gameplay. That's it. no flashing lights, no tall stools and no Tarrant.

**Game Play**

This isn't one of those games that people are going to open on Christmas day only to find that the next hour is spent trying to dicipher the instructions. It really is as simple as it gets: turn on the TV, turn on the DVD player, put the disk in the slot and away you go.

The disk self-starts, looping around an intro sequence until you have managed to locate your DVD remote control and press ENTER to move on to the next scene.

At this point you will be asked to state how many players (up to 4 teams) and whether you want to play the junior or adult version. The joy of this DVD is that the whole family can play as equals - player 1 might be junior, player 2 might be adult. You can mix and match to suit your group's needs. Having selected team numbers and levels you're on your way.

From here on, the game runs fairly true to the TV format. An introduction from Chris Tarrant, a little bit of haunting music and then you're into the questions.

Each question is introduced by Tarrant, whose face then freeze-frames as the question is brought up. Some of the shots freeze-frame at rather interesting moments and this can leave you with a slightly haunting image.

The easy questions (up to the £1000 level) simply appear on screen without the question being read out. Each player gets a different question and players take it in turns to select A, B, C or D with the remote control (using the left/right and up/down arrows). It really is terribly intuitive.

For the next set of questions, up to £32,000 there is a little more interaction, with sound clips of "Are you sure?", "Is one answer more appealing?" and so on being played. There is also audio with the questions.

It is at this point that you are most likely to want or need to use your lifelines. The three standard lifelines are available: 50:50, Ask the Audience, and Phone a Friend. As with the TV show, Ask the Audience will elicit different responses depending on how far through the game you are. The easier the question the clearer the consesus in the audience. Once you get above about £16,000 the audience view becomes rather irrelevant as you may find that you get two options both with 40% or similar.

Phone a Friend is very well done. No phone calls are involved, however! You get the option of picking from three possible PaF's who may be junior or adult players. A picture of the PaF, their age and interests are shown on screen to help you decide who it would be best to ask. The PaF then gives you their verdict which may or may not be right. Sometimes, just as in the real game, you won't get an answer at all!

During the run from £1,000 to £32,000 there is a chance that you will get a picture question thrown in. For the picture questions you will be shown a picture which relates to the question. In order to answer the question, chances are you will need to know who, or what the picture is of. For example, you might be shown a picture of Queen Elizabeth I and the question might be "What is the name of this person's father?".

It is here we hit the first problem. The pictures are not that big and so it is not always easy to see what they are. This is particularly an issue if you are seated a long way from the TV screen. A minor annoyance.

If you reach the heady heights of £32,000 you'll get to see that famous cheque before the game continues with the now standard "you might as well play the next question, you have nothing to lose".

Questions from £32,000 up the the magic million are all picture questions. Each question continues to be introduced by Tarrant and there is audio for each one.

Just as in the real game, you can walk away at any time. Your score is saved and the other players can carry on. Again, as with the real game, you will lose your money if you get a question wrong dropping to zero, £1,000 or £32,000 depending on the stage you have reached.

At the end of the game you can toggle through the individual player's scores... just in case you've forgotten what you won!

**So How Hard Is It?**

I would say that the adult version is pretty much the same as the TV show. As with the show, the questions above £1,000 are only really easy if you know the answer.

The junior version would be easily playable by anyone over about the age of 7, but would probably continue to suit up to around 14. We've got to the million on the junior questions, but not on the adult ones.

Sometimes you do get a bit of a googlie - a hard question in an easy section or an easy question in the hard. However, this might be as much to do with "if you know the answer..." as with how hard the questions really are.

**Surely the Questions Repeat**

I'm sure that over time you will become familiar with some of the questions. However, the joy of this game is that it uses technology which randomly selects questions at each level (rather like those old horse racing records used to do). This does cause the game to slow slightly at times as the laser picks up the new path, but otherwise ensures a good few games without repeat.

**The Million**

You'll get the paper raining down on you - well, on screen at least! And the music, and the glory, but sadly not the Million. If you do make it all the way there is the option of entering an sms text competition to win a number of prizes. This is going to cost you though and I suspect the odds aren't good!

**Overall**

I'd recommend this as a good bit of family fun that's rather more satisfying than just shouting at the TV and/or claiming that "that's what I said" as the answers are revealed.

The ability to play with mixed levels in the same game opens up the opportunities for adults to play against children on a level. Game-play is easy and so everyone from child to grandparent should be able to get involved from the comfort of the sofa. It's also a bit more educational than simply watching repeats of the Two Ronnies.

On the downside, the game can be a bit slow at times as Tarrant's face is frozen and the laser picks out the next question. You are also unable to fast forward through the introduction and so this can get a bit monotonous.

Another, minor annoyance, is that if you chose to take the money and run you don't get to find out what the correct answer was. Annoying, but not disasterous.

Retailing at around £15 by virtue of quite a few special offers, this game is widely available online and in the high street (our own copy came from HMV).

DVD quality is good, with good graphics and good sound. I haven't had a problem with the DVD locking or jumping. Best viewed on widescreen or 4:3 as other options can lose some of the answers off the screen.

I can see us having fun with this over Christmas. It probably won't get played much during the year, but it's good for a bit of family fun.

8/10 

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