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Deal or No Deal Interactive DVD Game

The Amazon blurb says:

"Interactive game in which contestants are given a sealed box containing an undisclosed sum of money. They then have the opportunity to open 22 boxes, each containing a different amount. By process of elimination, they must decide whether to sell their box to the banker, or play on. Based on the TV series DEAL OR NO DEAL."

How does it work?

Three modes, but all play basically the same. The main mode is the one that's just like on the telly - you are given box five by default, you then select the other boxes to open by scrolling through them all and clicking continue. The box is opened by a previous contestant (hilariously, the boxes are empty and the DVD player adds a sticker after the box is open). After each box, you get to look at the gameboard. After the usual amount of boxes (five in the first round, three after), the banker phones up with his offer. You are given the choice to ask the advice of Noel and the other contestants, to look at the gameboard, to deal or to no deal. If you deal, you play on to see how good your deal was.

You can also play player vs player, where you take it in turns to play two seperate games, or you can go player vs banker, where a second player decides the offers by picking from a pre-picked selection of figures.

Is it good?

If your idea of fun is playing the game of Deal or No Deal without any of the risk and reward involved, you will probably get something out of it. The Banker's rather stingier than usual, I think. And the whole thing hasn't been filmed in front of an audience which gives it a rather empty feel.

The big problem is the game is sooooo slllooooowww. Scrolling through the boxes to pick one is an absolute nightmare - I guarantee you that after you've done it a few times, you'll just take the first one that gets offered to you. This puts a very large dampener on the game. And I largely suspect that the values aren't given boxes and are randomly picked every time a box gets opened anyway.

It's nice to see many old faces from Contestant's Row back to open boxes, give advice and do some hilariously comic reacting to whatever numbers come up. They don't seem to have filmed enough links for Noel, so they'll be repeating quite regularly.

And the DVD doesn't seem to work in all players. Really, I understand it's pushing the DVD players to their limits but more thought had to go into this game, particularly the selecting boxes aspect, as it completely ruins the flow and rhythm.

Buy from Amazon!