By Chad MosherThe holiday season is in high gear! Hopefully you've gotten all of your purchasing done but if you can't find what to get for the game show nut in the family, I've got a suggestion for you. Buy the loved one an iPhone or iPod touch and get them an iTunes card! Okay, maybe just one of those. A plethora of game show game applications have been released in the past few weeks at very inexpensive prices, and as a proud owner of an iPod touch, I'll review three of the more prominent ones: Cash Cab, Family Feud, and Who Wants to be a Millionaire.
Cash Cab is a game from Capcom Interactive, based on the Discovery Channel show of the same name. If you're not familiar with the show, the object of Cash Cab is to get as many answers correct as you can before reaching your destination in a taxi cab. Three strikes and your butt is booted out. For a game based on a taxi cab, Capcom brings the experience over fairly well. You get to pick from a bevy of "friends", each with a set of specialties and interests, who you can get advice from as he/she sits next you in the cab. Then you're shown a map and you've got to pick your destination; the farther away your drop-off spot, the longer the game will last. All questions have four choices and, as they are on the show, are of reasonable difficulty. The more your question is worth, the harder it will be. All features of the show are in, like the street shoutout help and the big money Red Light Challenges. Full motion video and full music/sound effects bring the TV experience to your device, especially with the video bonus question at the end. Capcom really brought the goods to this game... but that should be no surprise, as we continue to cover later.
Family Feud is the first in a series of ports by Ludia of their fall 2009 releases. The game is faithful to the pre-Bullseye format, down to round five (and beyond, if necessary) being sudden death. If both families can't provide a correct face-off answer, the question is thrown out. During the Fast Money round (in which you're given 90 seconds, a bit too high in my opinion) the point values of the answers you gave will be revealed even if you reach 200. Unless you gave it, the #1 answers are not revealed. The two game modes are Party Mode and Single Mode. Single player mode's goal is to win twelve episodes, each against a family with a small backstory. It's a solid, if not repetitive mode, nothing too fancy. While the music used in the menu is the Combs music, most music in-game is from the Karn era. Each episode you successfully complete earns you extra pieces for the avatar. When it comes down to your family, the captain is your created avatar; the other three members are randomly assigned.
A nice touch is that when you touch the screen to buzz in, your character actually smacks their plunger, even if you're a little too late. The recognition system is usually really good... almost too good. (Example: In one question, I typed in "rock"; it gave me "Accident" on the board which, I assume is because it's a synonym for "wreck" which kind of sounds like "rock." ) On a related note, it did not give me "yard stick" when I typed "yardstick" and on one question, no "cop" for "police officer." To avoid this, I recommend using the built-in autocomplete feature. I hope you're not looking for anything graphically spectacular, because you won't find it in this game. All in all, in terms of material, a pretty nice effort by Ludia.
Last, but not least, my favorite game of the bunch: Who Wants to be a Millionaire 2010 is building off of the original Millionaire released by Capcom. The only negatives are the aforementioned clock stoppage along with the fact that the new money tree isn't in the game. But it's really not a big deal. The game has 500 questions (plus 250 fastest finger questions you can play by yourself) and has a meter so you can see how many of them you've exhausted. They advertise that more expansion packs will be available in the iTunes Store, which is good since 500 isn't really that many questions for someone who would play the game a lot.
Everything else in the game is done very well. The graphics and the videos are both beautiful and fluid. All proper music and sound effects are in. Just like the last game, the Ask the Expert provides real text commentary from nine experts like Ogi Ogas, Pat Kiernan, and our own Jeff Gross. Each question now has its own category, so even though there might be similar themes in a category tree, you won't get "Presidents" three questions in a row. Being able to brag on Facebook and the worldwide leaderboards are really cool touches implemented. This game gives you way more than your five dollars' worth. If you've got an iPhone or an iPod touch, I recommend getting the game.
Chad Mosher is a past game show contestant, and has experience in many aspects of the game show industry. He contributes a weekly column here at About.com Game Shows, answering your questions and tackling all facets of the game show genre. If you have questions for Chad, you can post them here in the comments, or contact him directly through the link in his bio.
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