Back to the Bar

Countdown Interactive DVD Game

The Amazon blurb says:

"COUNTDOWN GAME can either be played in single player mode--battling conundrums against the clock--or in a team of one to four, playing letters, numbers and conunrum rounds. Over 300 rounds to choose from. "

Hang on!

... no, that's fair enough.

How does it work?

There are two different modes: Classic Countdown and the Conundrum Challenge. In the Conundrums, you race to solve five conundrums as fast as you can and then you are given a ranking at the end. Classic Countdown plays like the TV show - three rounds of five games each, normally four letters and a number game, but the third round is three letters, a number game and the Conundrum. The DVD player keeps track of the scores.

Is it good?

The box promises 300 rounds. We#re going to assume their version of a round is five games, in which case you've got a lot of game here.

Des Lynam is very good in front of the camera, cracking jokes in that very comfortable way of his. Carol Vorderman appears to be a deer caught in headlights in comparison.

The gameplay isn't terrubly good. You don't get to pick numbers or letters, instead you see Carol put up the letters at random. Once everyone has written them down (oh, you can play up to four payers incedentally, although as Des mentions the word "both" in the How to Play segment, I think it's safe to assume this is a late addition) Des starts the clock. The clock comes up and ticks away. The selection that has been made has disappeared from the screen at this point, which is stupid. After the time, you tell the DVD player how many letters each person had. Des pops up to tell everyone the biggest word on the board, and occasionally some of the smaller ones as well - but not what these words mean or anything like that. You are advised to have an Oxford English Dictionary to hand, but it is assumed all your words are legal, once inputted into the player, there's no way to penalise somebody for coming up with an illegal word. Stupid. The numbers games work similarly - Carol picks six numbers from the board, CECIL gives the target and you have to write everything down because they disappear when Des starts the clock. After everyone has told the DVD player how far away they were, Carol reveals her method on the board.

For the Conundrum, everyone writes down the anagram, Des says his piece and then you can press a button on the DVD player to stop the clock and tell it when someone has got it. Although there's not much you can do if the guess is wrong.

You are given a periodic score update after a set of letters games and after the numbers game in each round.

Basically, the presentation side is actually pretty good, but if you want to play a decent game of Countdown, this isn't it. It's only been half thought out as to how to work on the DVD format. Which is a shame.

I want one!

Amazon have it in two varieties, with pencils and paper and without pencils and paper. Although in all honesty, if you can live with no Des and no Carol, the box game is cheap and plays a decent game. You might be able to find a slightly more expensive deluxe version with replica clock, too.