Review - Press Your Luck 2010 Edition (Wii)

Seriously, Ludia. You can do better than this. (Or can you?)

There are so many other problems with this game that I couldn't bring up, either because they were hard to recreate on video or it didn't fit into the other points I brought up about the game. So here's a brief summary of the OTHER things that are wrong with this game:

- The Whammies have no voices. Contributes to their flatness.
- Some of the questions are of the "Which of these is a so-and-so?" variety, meaning you'll have no idea what the answer is unless you see the choices.
- Because all the trips look the same, of course they're also worth the same. Round 1 trips are $3000, and Round 2 trips are worth $4000. Takes a lot of the surprise and decision-making out of the game.
- The character descriptions make it sound as if both the opponents are teaming up against you. Not that it matters, given how stupid they all are. Not once did any computer opponent earn more than two spins in a single round in any game I played, and on multiple occasions one of the players would have no spins to play with.
- Speaking of the character descriptions, some of them are just plain bizarre. Like one that says "Charles likes to take a bite out of life while Carol would take a bite out of anyone." Is Carol a zombie or something?
- There's a SECRET code that unlocks all the wardrobe items in the game, which you can get by entering the SECRET password on the wardrobe screen. What's the SECRET password? I can't tell you - it's a SECRET. (Didn't Hackers make mention of the fact that "SECRET" is one of the worst possible choices for a password?)

So there you go. The guy I borrowed this from is one of the absolute biggest fans of Press Your Luck out there, and even he didn't think this game was all that hot. That ought to tell you something.

The worst thing about all of this is that prior to this game's release, there were quite a few amateur versions of Press Your Luck for the PC that were, by all accounts, vastly superior. And yet, they all got C&D'ed by Fremantle's legal team to pave the way for this abomination. I was very much tempted to invoke the "Negative Personal" rule for the first time on this game, but decided against it because I'd already been harsh enough on it.

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• press
• your
• luck
• pyl
• whammy
• whammie
• whammies
• big
• bucks
• peter
• tomarken
• michael
• larsen
• ludia
• ubisoft
• nintendo

[thewakkydude]

I watched a video from something called the "gameshow congress 7" recently and I could SWEAR you were hosting the press your luck game there! Was that you?

[Loogaroo1]

@thewakkydude That was indeed yours truly hosting several games of Press Your Luck for GSC7. A shame that's the only game that was recorded (camera troubles rendered my tapes unusuable). We're doing more games for Strategicon this summer; we'll see if we can get some video of it.

[WarioBarker88]

A few more things wrong with this game --

* The board sound used is the original, which only lasted for THE FIRST THIRTY-TWO EPISODES.

* The theme music is from the PILOT. Fremantle lost the master recording of the series theme and forbade Ludia from using one of the full-length CLEAN copies on the internet.

* Big Bucks, at least in Round 1, goes to a TRIP instead of Square #4.

* Should you Whammy-Out against the CPU, the game IMMEDIATELY ENDS.

You should also review the DVD Game. It's worse.

[Loogaroo1]

@WarioBarker88 The only thing anyone needs to know about the DVD game is that when you "stop" the board, it lights up six different squares and chooses one as the one you end up landing on. Ugh.

[thegreatwhamini]

Great review! Ironic, b/c a Ludia represenative went to Game Show forums to get input from fans. The fans gave them EVERYTHING they wanted in the game. And still this Wii game blows. Fans thought they had access to an insider who was on their side. Ludia fails big time to duplicate a game that ametuers with no bankrolls but a lot of computer savvy made much better themselves. Even the first Curt King game is superior.

[flokatirug]

Why play a dead-accurate version that's free when you can play a God-awful version that's expensive?

[telewatcher89]

I don't think it was too bad. If they only used the actual theme (but that was Freemantle's fault), looped the board sound, made the questions and the AI competition more challenging, and have you type in your answers.

Also it would have been better if they had got Don Bishop to announce because he sounds like the late Rod Roddy and would have made the game an even more authentic true to show 80's experience.

[KingOfKatamari]

"You fool!" Speaking of which, have you done one for Hollywood Squares?

[Angie2343]

@thegreatwhamini Yeah. :( If only we could pull Peter and Rod's souls back to Earth and make them alive again.

[Angie2343]

@Loogaroo1 Let's hope you can be as good as Peter is/was/always will be. :)

[Angie2343]

@Loogaroo1 And Todd Newton is a SHITTY host, even though he is one of Peter's BIGGEST fans.

[Angie2343]

Also, Peter Tomarken's gone, as is Rod Roddy and Michael Larson. THEY WOULD HAVE LOVED THIS GAME.

[jhshifris1]

Oh, wow. That's horrible. I will not be buying that one.

[Ephraim225]

I watched another video of this game, and the announcer once spouted this: "BIG BUCKS! You've won...you've won a trip!" ...To the department of redundancy department!