RRP: £19.99
Our Price: £2.62 (subject to change)
Great family fun
Review date: 2006-01-11 Rating: 10 out of 10
This was the first time I'd tried an interactive DVD game and I have to say that I was very impressed! Good, challenging questions for children and adults and it really seemed like you were in the hot seat on the TV with Chris giving a great performance as always. I thought the lifelines were good as they often gave a helping hand but didn't always automatically guarantee you the right answer. I had great fun with the family over Christmas playing this.
If you plan to use it on the TV in the lounge then ideally (essential if you don't want to sit next to the DVD player) you need a DVD player that has a remote control as it is very interactive.
If you like this game on the TV, then you will have a lot of fun - it is just like you are taking turn in the hot seat talking to Chris T.
Unless you play this in a PC, which almost certainly defeats the object of the game as one for family participation, it is very slow and clunky. Worse, on some players, not necessarily the oldest or cheapest, it is prone to sticking, and there's no remedy other than to eject or power off. The sight of Chris Tarrant's crumpled face frozen permanently is not a pretty one.
On to the game itself, which up to four people or teams can play. The choice of adult or junior questions is a good idea, but beware, the junior ones are not all that easy - in our "test drive" tricky questions on children's TV programmes and, in one case, Latin words, came up. On the adult side some questions up to £1,000 seemed trickier than on the real show, and up to £32,000 definitely so, and had a high proportion of questions on movies (OK if you're a film buff, but not otherwise). Beyond £32K all the questions are picture ones, and I actually found these easier, so once beyond the second "guaranteed" level the chances are that I make the virtual million. Although there are 1500 questions available we found that they started to be repeated after two completed games (about 50 questions).
The "lifelines" are distinctly less helpful than on the real thing. The audience tend to be evenly split most of the time, the 50-50 leaves the two most likely answers, and the "phone a friend" gives a choice of three people, two of which are usually children.
It did admitedly keep the family amused for a couple of hours one afternoon during the festive season, but I sense that we will quickly become frustrated with the slowness of the game, and will equally quickly run out of a decent sequence of previously unseen questions.