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Dom Robinson reviews
Channel 4 DVD
- Cert:
- Cat.no: C4DVD 10116
- Running time: n/a
- Year: 2006
- Pressing: 2006
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: n/a
- Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Stereo)
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: None
- Widescreen: 1.78:1 (16:9)
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras:None
Deal Or No Dealis what every TV addict knows – the TV gameshow that has become a massive hit since last year whenit arrived on daytime TV and soon got itself an additional programme at the weekend for a while.
So, given the propensity for many a quiz to end up as an interactive DVD game this Christmas, NoelEdmonds’ comeback show has been given that status… and it sounds like a great idea… surely?
Whereas the TV show just pits one person on their own, this game also gives you the option to competeagainst another person by taking it in turns to open boxes and go for a deal, or with one of you asthe player and the other as the banker, the latter getting to choose just how much the player will begambling for.
You know what you have to do – pick a number of boxes out of the 22 available (discounting the No.5 onethat’s yours), hoping that all the amounts revealed within are low, occasionally being offered temptingamounts by the banker to ‘deal’ and end the game with more than you might end up with, depending on howyou play the game, because if you use tactics to get through it and pick the right boxes then you couldhit the jackpot and score £250,000.
Sorry, did I say tactics? I meant ‘blind luck’. There’s no skill to this release at all.
Yes, that’s the actual way in which this gameshow works because, no matter how often little Noely triesto pile on the tension on Channel 4, it won’t matter a jot as it’s a pure guessing game spread outover 45 minutes. And this works perfectly for a TV show because the simplest ideas always work the best.On a game like this, it becomes something you can see through pretty quickly and the interest level dropsvery sharply indeed if you’re just a casual viewer of this programme.
Firstly, it’s a bit cumbersome to select the boxes, scrolling through them one at a time. I played a webversion on the site of the US TV show that hosts their version and you could just click on the boxes atease, but then they’ve got to drag it out just like Mr Edmonds does, I guess. And to add to this, even ifyou do ‘Deal’, you’ll still play through to the end because otherwise the game’s got nowhere to go (whichis why you know on TV that they’re not going to deal when prompted because the end credits are a long wayoff) and the man covers this up with the caveat that it’s “just to see how you would’ve done”. Hmmm….
The stilted performance from the actors opening the boxes does grate after a while, as do Noel’scomments on each box being opened along with the clips of a group of people pretending to be the audience,because
- (a) no-one is present in the intro, and
(b) all these clips fade in and out between them.
There doesn’t seem to be that many different clips either, as two or three of them repeated withinthe first game I played.
When the crunch comes, as well as being given the option to deal or not, you can also “Ask advice” fromthe people opening the boxes, but it’s just another pre-recorded clip that serves little purpose andyou can see in their eyes that they’re not really putting their Equity card to its best use.
Overall, I can only recommend you buy this if you’re such a fan of the show there’s nothing else inyour life you need to do. And with so many interactive games on the market in time for Christmas, itmakes you wonder where things will end up next year.
Also, the concept came from the ubiquitous Endemol, so how about a version of Big Brother whereyou can force-feed BB7’s Nikki with fizzy drinks and sweets full of E-numbers until her brain explodes?
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.