Christmas time is about the only time we play board games as a family. This year, my sister decided to make things a bit easier than a board game and all its bits and pieces and turned up with an interactive DVD of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. All of us enjoy the show, although I don't watch it as regularly as I used to, and looked forward to our first game. Generally, it was very enjoyable and we will certainly use it again in the future - but I think it has a few niggles that will make it a Christmas game rather than something we use on a regular basis.
The game is, as you would expect, very similar to the television programme, but for the sake of those that aren't familiar with it, I'll explain the whole process from the beginning. If you don't like Chris Tarrant, this is a bit of a problem, because he pops up left, right and centre. His first appearance is to explain the concept of the game, which is slightly different from the television programme in that it is for more than one person at a time. The game is for up to four individuals/teams; each team chooses a topic, of which there is a choice of three - general knowledge, entertainment and sport. Each team also has a choice of adult or junior questions, which makes it ideal for families with children. All choices are made by using the remote control in the same way that you would choose a chapter or episode on a DVD.
Like the TV show, each individual/team has three lifelines; ask the audience, phone a friend and 50/50. Ask the audience involves Chris asking the fake audience to choose an one of four answers, which is then shown in the form of a graph. The team then has to decide whether to agree with the audience or not. If you choose to phone a friend, you are given the choice of three people with varying interests, for example, one may be interested in extreme sports, cinema and reading, and you then have to choose which one is most likely to know the answer. The person chosen will then have a bash at the answer; sometimes they know it, sometimes they don't - it is just pot luck. 50/50 involves taking away two of the wrong answers.
When the questions begin, they are graded according to the value of the question, which increases as the questions progress. There are 14 questions, starting with £100 and ending with the £1,000,000 question. Once you have reached £1,000, you get to keep the money, whether you fail to answer later questions or not. The same happens when you reach £32,000. Should you manage to get to the £1,000,000 question, there is apparently a competition that you can enter to win some real money, but none of us got that far, so I can't comment on that.
The questions are posed to each team in turn, so each team is at the same level until such a time when they get an answer wrong or decide to leave the game by taking the money. Chris appears on screen to make a comment at the beginning of each question, or after the answer has been given, but the actual question and multiple choice answers are shown on screen only, so you need to have reasonable eyesight.
When everyone has been knocked out, Chris returns to give a rundown of everyone's position.
If you like the television programme, then the chances are that you'll like this. It does have some annoying bits, which I will describe in more detail below, but on the whole, it is an entertaining way of spending a couple of hours when the Christmas television gets too much. There were four of us, which made it fun, but I think it would work equally well with just one or two players.
Unfortunately, there are quite a few negatives. The main one as far as I am concerned is the length of time that it takes for everything to happen. Before each stage, there is a pause while the disc finds its place, and we were often left with a still of Chris Tarrant's face. Now, I quite like Chris Tarrant, but I still found this annoying, so if you don't like him, there's not much hope you will enjoy it. Also, no matter how much we adjusted the colour control on the TV, Chris' face remained an unattractive shade of orange! In addition, Chris' comments, although varied, are still repeated quite frequently, so we got a bit fed up of him constantly saying things like "it's early in the game to get one wrong...but you haven't!". Had we not been partially drunk and not bright enough to get very far into any of the games we played, I would probably have got really annoyed.
On the question of repetitiveness, there are 1500 questions, which sounds quite a lot, but I found that many of the questions were repeats. On more than one occasion, the questions I had were repeated and I won a couple of times because I remembered the answers from a previous time. Far more questions are needed for it to be a really good game. However, there are other editions to choose from if the questions get too much too quickly.
A final negative is that there were only three subjects to choose from. I would have preferred to have either a few more subjects or just one general knowledge option that included questions on sport and entertainment. I'm sure the topics have been thought up because it encourages people to play; those that are not good on general knowledge will almost certainly have a knowledge of sport or entertainment, but I personally found it a bit limiting.
On the whole, for a game that we are only likely to use once a year, it is fairly enjoyable. And after all, I didn't buy it, so I can't complain all that much. For something to be used more frequently though, I don't think it is really an option - it would certainly drive me mad.
My sister bought our version from HMV in Covent Garden, but it is available on play.com for £14.99.
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