If you can escape the fact that The Price is Right is purely shovelware, there’s enough here to keep the game interesting. After all, this is a show that’s been on the air since 1972, the pricing games are iconic, and everyone knows how to play them. In a sense, it’s a perfect fit for the growing Wii audience.
In fact, it would be difficult to screw this up in any manner. If the old saying “first impressions aren’t everything” needs something to back it up, this game is it. While the music is there, the visuals are an absolute disaster. The character models (of only eight are selectable) are horrific zombie-like 2-D models with zero animation. Their facial expressions never represent excitement or sorrow at a lost game.
Worse, Bob Barker and Drew Carey are absent in their entirety. The only notable name is Rich Fields, the announcer. At the very least, “Come on Down” isn’t a pale imitation.
For its first console debut (and the first version since a PC edition back in 1990), Price is Right’s style needs to change. Obviously, you can’t have people sitting back waiting to be called to contestant’s row.
Instead, you play every round, and you have three strikes to make it to the Showcase Showdown. Each game consists of contestants row, playing a pricing game, spinning the wheel, and repeat one more time, replacing the wheel with the Showdown. There is a classic game mode doesn’t follow the more traditional path as the manual may suggest either. It simply allows for more mistakes.
Of course, Price is Right is made for multi-player. Four players can sit on contestants row, and you only need one Wii Remote to make it work. Regardless of who wins contestants row, everyone plays a different pricing game. All that matters here is the total amount of money won at the end of the final Showdown, which is played with the highest winning players up to that point.
There are a total of 16 pricing games, the majority of which play fine. Video or still pictures show off the items you’re bidding or playing with, and all are impressively licensed. Sadly, video is stuck inside a small window, and on smaller TVs, may even be hard to make out.
Games such as Plinko work wonderfully. Dropping the chips is a simple and accurate process. Others, such as Hole in One, suffer from impossibly touchy motion controls that can make it harder to play than it should be. In fact, should you guess the items correctly and move closer to the hole, it’s harder to put the ball in since gaining full power is easier than a soft touch. Thankfully, spinning the big wheel is handled well.
Unlockables come later the more you play. These include funny video clips from the show’s history (and end up being bigger than those used in the game), and the ability to play all of the mini-games individually. Things unlock quickly and some of the clips are genuinely funny.
While the video game will hardly be as well remembered as the show that spawned it, this harmless game show adaptation is enjoyable purely to be able to compete in all of those games we know and love. With a few small exceptions and an occasionally off-course presentation, Price is Right succeeds where it needs to. Oh, and Plinko is simply too much fun to pass up.
Tags: bob barker, drew carey, game show contestant timer, price is right wav, rachel reynolds price is right, the price is right, theme wav game show, wii locate
