Again, not really much of note, there are Wipeouts and Million Pound Drops on, pick of the week is probably Push the Button (7:20-8:35pm, Saturday, ITV1) which returns in a new live slot and from the description basically appears to have morphed into Saturday Night Takeaway minus the advert element. Edit: I’ve also discovered National Lottery: Secret Fortune, where Nick Knowles cruelly destroys envelopes in on next Saturday as well.
Still, Survivor returns week after next. I might start doing this “properly” again soon.
And on Monday night on Twitter , I’ll probably be doing another highbrow competition after University Challenge to make up for Only Connect being off our screens. Twonkey Donkey?
Edit Edit: Maybe I should have done this in the traditional style after all, next Saturday is also the first Wetten Dass…? since the live accident on ZDF in Germany, and the new You Don’t Know Jack gets released on Tuesday in the US. Saw this yesterday, think it looks good (it’s the entirety of the third episode of about 70).
Edit Edit Edit: Oh, and Accumulate! on Friday, obviously.
Wetten, Dass..? on Saturday as well, although that’ll probably conflict with PTB. It’ll be fun to watch the new death-defying stunts they’ve got lined up like stringing popcorn for Christmas tree decor and the always risky shoe-wearing stunt.
Thanks, I will edit that in.
Next week’s Board of Excitement is VERY EXCITING INDEED, especially if you a) have Sky and b) wondered whatever happened to the set of Desert Forges.
The line-up for the Qualification and Elimination QFs on Uni Chal is as follows:
QQF1: Oxford Brookes v Sheffield
EQF1: Christ’s Cambridge v Magdalen Oxford
QQF2: Peterhouse Cambridge v Queens’ Cambridge
EQF2: York v Bristol
QQF1 tomorrow night pits together two teams who have had one easy match and two not-so-easy ones.
Oxford Brookes’ easy match was against debutants the University of the Arts London, winning 320-100. Before that, they needed a big comeback to force a 210-all tie against Cardiff and then get the third breaking starter, and four weeks ago, they had to rely on their buzzer skills to beat Christ’s, 185-160. Sarah Johnson is still their best buzzer, with 15 starters.
Sheffield’s first match was their easy one, tonking Newcastle 315-70. Their next two, however, were absolute classics – edging past UCL 250-230 and then, two weeks ago, beating Magdalen on the last starter, 230-225. Cynics may say they got lucky in the latter, as they were behind by 10 going into that last starter, but an incorrect interruption by Will Cudmore let them in. Best buzzer is Tris Cole with 20 starters; only Peterhouse’s Ben Slingo has more.
The first semi-final place is the prize for the winners, and one would have to fancy that those winners will be Sheffield, given those two epics. However, if Brookes pulled off what would be a surprise victory, they would become just the second 1992 university, after London Metropolitan in 2003/4, to reach the last four.
It should be another very good game, though, in what’s turning out to be another excellent series. But could it happen AGAIN that the losers will score more than 200?!
YDKJ looks very, very good. Anyone work out what the Wrong Answer of the Game was?
It looks like it’s got some fun ways to make up for (presumably) dropping the Gibberish and fill in the blank questions – I’ve seen “Who’s the dummy?” where Cookie the host reads the question and answers in the style of a bad ventriloquist. Hopefully it’s got lots of good ideas! My only complaint really is that $4k a question for the Jack Attack feels a bit on the high side, but it’s not the end of the world.
Personally I also hope they bring back the Roadkill and Bingo questions from The Ride, as they were great question formats.
If you have never played The Ride (I think it’s the best US Jack, and it will work on Windows 7 if you can find a copy), Roadkill is a buzz-in word association question where you get two things and then a number of words speed along the road, buzz in when the correct thing is in the headlights, and the bonus is working out what links all the correct answers. Bingo involves buzzing in when the dancing light is on the correct first letter of the answer, if you can claim all five letters you win a big bonus.
Heartily agree with Brig, The Ride is the best by far.
Any idea if they’ve brought back the “Screw you” type questions where there’s no possible answer?
Do like the fact they got rid of the lockouts- it’s no fun if some can dominate by buzzing in every time- and according to a screenshot on the official website, they might have a Fastest Finger-type of question as well…and I read someplace that at least on PS3 and XBOX360, they plan to have some DLC later on in the year (the plan is to have 3 or 4 question packs with about 10 episodes in each)
Yes, I’m interested to see how removing the buzzers effects gameplay – suspect scores will be much closer, and that tactical screwing becomes more important. I note screws aren’t replenished in Round 2.
Something else I’ve noticed is that screws work a bit differently here – previously there was no real reward for successfully screwing someone over other than the fact that they lose points – now if you screw and they they miss, you gain the cash they lose and then everyone remaining gets the opportunity to answer minus the chosen wrong answer. Used effectively, you get to double dip on a question. STRATEGY!
My copy is now in the post, expected delivery date is next Tuesday. I hope it works!
I enjoyed watching the YDKJ video as well, I just could not stop laughing at the ‘Cookie’s Fortune Cookie Fortunes With Cookie ‘Fortune Cookie’ Masterson’ song 😀
It’s a shame the Wii isn’t region-free as I would specifically import this game if it was.
There’s always the PC version.
If the game will work on UK machines, there’s no guarantee we’ll be able to download the extra content because they don’t want our money for whatever reason.
Yeah, I’m looking into grabbing some of the PC versions, and after reading these comments, The Ride is at the top of my list.
I’m sure there’s a market over here for American games. The Wii, DS and Xbox 360 have Biggest Loser games based off the American version. With any luck, the Xbox 360 version of YDKJ will work for you, although I have the uncanny feeling you’re right about the DLC not working.
Yes, although I think in this instance the cultural differences (in a game that is based around cultural references) make trivia games difficult to export – we did have our own localised version in the 90s let’s not forget.
Saying that, there was nothing in that video you couldn’t answer from a UK perspective. i had a quick blast of The Ride this evening, apart from a round on US Politics, the vast majority of it could be exported fairly easily.
Another thing going for these games is that it doesn’t matter if you get it wrong, you still get some humourous comments for giving a wrong answer.
Are they indeed releasing a PC version of the new one? I thought it was only going on PS3/Wii/XBoite.
DVD-ROM, I believe.
Which, irony of ironies, doesn’t help me at all, because my PC basically is my console, but my DVD drive doesn’t even recognize DVDs anymore. It acts as if there’s nothing in the drive when you put a DVD in there. Works just fine with CDs though. Read, rip, burn CDs without a problem, but it just doesn’t like DVDs anymore.
Actually Art, I think you might have another out because I’m pretty sure they’ve said it’s getting a Steam release.
Say WHAAA?!? Are you sure that wasn’t just me speculatingly whining months ago?
No, they mentioned it on Facebook/Twitter. I don’t know if it’s immediately though.
Sounds like it’s hit US Steam right now. I wonder what will happen if I change my proxy?
Yes, all major formats including the DS.
Okay, bought the Steam version and started giving it a try. It’s YDKJ, alright. Everything appears to be an eleven-question game (where the eleventh question is the Jack Attack). Which is a bit disappointing, because I thought older versions let you choose between 11, 21, and some other length (7, perhaps?), and 11 questions just feels really short. Being on Steam, I’m limited to two-player play, and at that, keyboard only (I would love to use some USB controllers to bump that up to 4), so that takes a lot of the “party” out of the party game. Still, I’m trying to resist playing this game too much so I can actually play it with friends. Because it’s still a fun game. It just really lacks customizability. Perhaps it’s because inclusion on Steam is already a huge concession, and they couldn’t really expand the options too greatly without reinventing the game, but it’s still a bit of a letdown on that front. I dunno. More in a blog post later if/when I get around to it.
Old games were either 7 or 21 questions, except for The Ride which was uniformly 13, and I forget 5th Dementia. The Lost Gold was uniformly 7. The netshow was 15.
The online game was only 7.
Right, I’ve ordered myself the PC version of the new YDKJ, and according to Amazon, it won’t be while March until I get it! Bleh… Also bleh is that there’s no system requirements anywhere for the game, so I’ll have to suck it and see to find out if I have an awesome trivia game or a £25 coaster…
I’ve also got 3 versions of the older games to work on my XP machine: 1, 5th Dementia and The Lost Gold. I’ll look into getting some of the others after work.
Update – Just got The Ride working, so I’ll be able to see if it’s as good as Brig says 🙂 Also got XL to work too. Just getting hold of Vol.3 as well.
Really? I’ve got Louder! Faster! Funnier! at home and I’m sure that was 15. I’m going to have to go and check now, and by ‘now’ I mean ‘when I’ve got a spare moment when not at work’.
Here we go, quote:
“Most versions of YDKJ offer the choice of playing a 7- or 21-question game; some versions offer only 15 questions (Netshow, LFF, 5th Dementia), and others offer only 13 questions (The Ride) or 11 questions (HeadRush, “YDKJ-2011″). The latest games are now only 7 questions (The Lost Gold, online game).”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Don%27t_Know_Jack_(video_game)
I think what you’ve hilariously done is not considered that YDKJ (The Netshow) in the 90s was also a game you could play online with a new episode each week back when this sort of thing was quite exciting. Offline and Louder, Faster, Funnier! were collections of these online only episodes. I can’t remember if I’ve got Offline, but I’ve deffo got LFF and that’s split into episodes similar to The Ride or YDKJ’11 – the April Fool’s episode of which is a thing of comedic beauty.
I had no idea what the netshow was. Thought it was the online game.
Somebody needs to give Jamie Theakston a proper presenting job. Look at the poor fellow, reduced to hawking Actively Appalling Yoghurt. To anyone reading this who has the power, get him on a daytime quiz and give the man his dignity back!
He’s got a very big radio presenting gig, in fairness.
For the first time since series 4 i am not that excited by Survivor…. Why? The return of Rob and Russell 🙁
Whilst I know what you mean, I’m intrigued to find out how Redemption Island plays out.
So I was watching the Family Fortunes marathon on Challenge earlier, and couldn’t help noticing two of the episodes had the exact same final Big Money questions / answers.
Did they recycle the final questions often?
I’m surprised two shows had the same Big Money questions. It might not be that they recycle the questions, but that someone accidentally used the same set of questions twice. Good question though. Anyone ‘proper’ know?
That must be either accidental or there was a technical glitch with the ‘real’ questions on the first take and they just decided to reuse an old set as a spare. I’m fairly sure it wasn’t a regular practice.
PS3 version confirmed as region free, although you’ll need a US account to download the DLC.
I couldn’t find it in the comment thread above, but I know someone asked about the Fastest Finger-esque “put these things in order” question… Unfortunately, it’s still a 4-choice multiple choice question, but (at least in the question I got), it’s “so difficult that we’re throwing in an extra $1000 if anyone gets it right.” (It actually is kinda hard.)