Well, maybe not, but TV Show King
is a saccharine sweet, inoffensive game show-styled video game that will have
you inviting friends over for an evening of general knowledge questions
and good times. It is fun, when you have the right group of people playing
with you and by that I mean other like-minded people who have a penchant for
normally useless knowledge and an affinity for some good fun. Yes, I suppose
that is a loaded statement. but like anything, if you set yourself up for
success then usually it happens. And in this case, if you can get friends who
dig on this sort of game to play with you, then you’re aces baby.
TV King is a game show style-video
game that reminded me of those trivia games you can play in sports bars. Adult
readers will remember the game with its random choice answers that reward the
first person to answer the question first (correctly) with the most points. TV
King operates in a similar way with you playing against three other players
(either real or A.I.), whoever answers correct first gets the biggest point
reward. Thus penalizing those players who just follow what the know-it-all in
the room does, only to come up a bit short in the points total.
The great equalizer in the game
comes in the form of a giant wheel that players spin between the 3, 6 or 9
rounds you can select to play. The wheel can be spun by you, if you like, and
depending on your total score can help or hurt you. Money totals litter the
wheel, but so does slats that indicates money loss, money swap and money
trades both in your favor and not. So, you must weigh your options carefully,
if you are neck-and-neck with the top person, it may be in your best interests
to spin the wheel in the hopes of adding a large dollar total to your score,
but be aware, the A.I. will always pick the highest dollar score to take money
from if the spin indicates. I know this may sound complicated but it isn’t.
Just understand that you could rock your way through six rounds and have a
huge dollar score, only to have the last-place person spin the wheel and land
on the slat that says they can swap any other players score for their own.
Sometimes life just isn’t fair.
The game does a real bang-up job
of making some smart graphics. First you can use your Mii’s as the players but
the game takes all of your other Miis and puts them in the audience, then the
prototypical smarmy game show host comes out and calls the play by play. The
show set looks good, the big giant wheel is very similar to another famous
game show wheel and the look of the game is really spot-on. Since the game is
based in the word of the Mii’s, you can expect some simple yet decent
graphics, the game is designed to be light-hearted fun and it looks the part.
To answer the actual questions, you quickly read them (the host does not) and
you can select from four answers below by pointing at it with the Wiimote and
hitting the "A" button. If you don’t like your answer you only have seconds to
change it. Often, the game’s A.I. will give you a couple moments’ head start,
but the higher the difficulty, the faster you need to be reading one of 3000
questions premade for the game.
Since the game has the look of a
game show it also has the sounds. The host has a good tone and the clap-track
of the audience is lifted straight out of Jeopardy. Crisp sounds, clever,
subtle sound effects and good voice work make this game better sounding then
it has a right to be.
If you plan on having friends over
to play, you had better have four Wiimotes since each player needs one to
point at the screen. Interestingly enough, random bonus questions pop-up that
are worth even more money and the later rounds have answers obscured by
graphics that you must scratch away or use a tiny window to read the possible
answers adding a little something extra to the game, not that it needed it.
The final portion of the game takes the two highest-scoring characters and
pits them against one another in a race to see who can answer five questions
first. If both players answer correctly, its the player who answered it first
who gets the win. Once that occurs, 50% of the losers total goes to the
winner, so even if you are down $73,000, you can still win the game by having
your opponents’ 50% and your measley $13,000 for a winning total $49,500.
One has to ask, the only way a
video game that is a game show works, is if the game show could actually be
played in real life by contestants and be successful. In my opinion, this
really could be a game show. The fact that four players could duke it out is
intriguing since most game shows feature three contestants. Would I watch?
Probably; the winning dollar totals can be in the hundreds of thousands of
dollars, so it is totally in line of what other game shows are doling out to
their contestants.
On a side note, the game also has
a single-player bonus game where you answer questions to see how many you can
get right in a row. It’s just a little something extra that you can do, it
doesn’t add anything to the game, but it is something. In fact, at this point
you should understand that this title is something that is best played with
other people and not so much against the A.I. It’s all right at the beginning
but there is nothing like live competition in a game-show atmosphere. Dare I
say this is practically a party game. I dare and it is.
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Gameplay: 7.2
Point at the answer, spin the
wheel; it is not the most demanding of Wii games, but what it does, it does
pretty good.
Graphics: 7.0
Fun, upbeat atmosphere of a game
show – everything is nice and bright, easy to read questions and moron A.I.
Sound: 7.1
Fun sound effects and game-show
music with snappy sound effects.
Difficulty: Medium
Your best competition will come
from your friends and family.
Concept: 6.5
There have been other game-show
games, but this one does a good job of meshing other concepts into something
new. Too bad there is only 3,000 questions.
Multiplayer: 7.5
The game should really only be
played in multiplayer mode.
Overall: 6.7
While things are great with
friends around, this won’t be a title you’ll be running home to play by
yourself. Snappy graphics and zany sound, but just not enough challenge and
depth, still, a worthy entry in the party game mix.
