You can call me Lorry I'm so articulated. (Drummond Park Articulate!)

Member Name: BizzyB

Product:	Drummond Park Articulate!
Date:	07/01/02 (332 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great fun - gets rowdy, Challenging

Disadvantages: Price, Need a minimum of 4 players

Twas the season to play board games...fa la la la la...

It was like returning to days of yore when I woke to find Santa had been and left me a board game this Christmas. The Xmas 2001 addition to the house board games was...Articulate.

Now, as it comes from Santa I obviously don't know how much it cost him. Having searched the internet I've found the rrp is £24.99. Fairly costly on the face of it but not unusual when compared to similar items. I have no doubt that our friends at the major chain stores, supermarkets and online shops have it at a much discounted price. If this hadn't have been a gift from the man in red and I had money for luxuries (aw bless, post Crimbo finance blues!) it is a reasonably fair price I'd be willing to play. Simply on first impressions we are talking quality. It has a quality box...yes boxes can be quality! Sturdy, glossy, its oozes a professional presentation and once inside the game pieces keep up the quality. Hats off to Drumond Park Ltd, the games producer. A strong sturdy playing board which is nicely finished unlike so many flimsy pieces of decorated cardboard some games produces have tried to fob us off with in the past (Brit Quiz - I'm looking at you). Other items: a box of 500question cards (3000 words to describe), a timer, four playing pieces and the instructions.

"So", you ask, "what's the aim?"

Articulate has the snappy by-line of 'The Fast Talking Description Game'. Indeed, the premise is very simple, it is a form of verbal charades. Or as we explained it to my neighbour before the New Years Eve inter-neighbourhood board game battle, 'it's like the last round on They Think It's All Over'.

Divided into teams, and for this reason the game can be played with a minimum of 4 players, each team has a describer and a guesser (or guessers if more than two on a team), and on their next go they swap roles. r>
The circular playing board is divided into segments each with a category from:
Object
Action
World
Person
Random
Nature
"Spade icon"

These segments are repeated so that there are 42 segments that go around the playing board from start to finish.

Each team starts on the 'start' segment (which is under an 'object' section). The aim of the game is to get around the board to the finish segment first.

PLAY

The question cards are divided up into the same categories as the board. To play the describer must describe the word on the card that corresponds to the segment their playing piece is on (object to start with). The egg timer is turned and the guessing starts. If the team guessers correctly the describer puts the card aside, gets another from the box and describes the word for the category on that card and so on till the timer runs out. When the timer runs out the team counts how many cards they guessed correctly in the time and that's the number of segments they move forward. I'll give you a taster but before that remember these are the rules:

- You can only pass once
- You can't say what letter the word begins with, or how many letters in the word
- You can't say a word that is a derivative of the word to be guessed. So you couldn't say 'the man who delivers post' for postman!
- You can't say what it sounds like or use rhyming clues

But you can:
- mime and act

So here's an example of what you might be describing under the 'object' category:
- A forehead...pah, easy
- A ledge...mmm bit difficult but we could do that
- A piano...easy peasy

"Doesn't sound too hard?" , I hear you say.

Ah but some categories are stinkers. Think how you'd describe these:
People...Homer, George Washington, Fred Trueman, Socrates
World...Peru, Mad
ame Tussaud's, Champs Elysees, Tokyo
Action...contesting, reeling, winking, dancing
Nature...a carnivore, a squid, mustard, a nightingale
Random...inhospitable, philanthropy, integrity, Pisces

Mmm, not looking so easy is it.

You also have to take into consideration whether you are on the same wavelength as your team mate(s). Consider this, I was on a team with Ron my neighbour:

Describing a fig:
Me: " A horrible fruit"
Ron: " A fig"

Team working well. But what of Ron's description of Mother Theresa:

Ron:" I think she's Italian and she does stuff for the Pope"
Me: "Sophia Loren?"

Though it pales into insignificance against:

Ron: "Australia's bar-b-q them, I think they're lizards"
Me: "Prawns?"
Ron: "No, gheckos"

And if you get a fit of the giggles, which you will, it just makes it harder. It is a game that gets you shouting, laughing and whirring your arms about as if that will somehow help. It truly leaves you tongue tied. Yet at the same time there is something quite relaxing about it as it didn't make you feel as if the structure favoured one person. There's nothing worse than playing something like Scrabble with a smart a*se. I actually feel as if Articulate was a game that leveled the field somewhat as at times it was the clear and more simple thinking that gets the results and the smart a*ses trip themselves up being clever.

This game went down so well at New Year we missed Midnight as we played three straight matches (it became a grudge match!). I laughed till my sides ached.

There are a few other play features which I'm not going to list here as I am rambling and don't want to bore you totally to tears! What is important to get across here is not a run down of the rules in full but the fact it is a great, interactive game. <
br>
It is aimed at aged 12 and over so it's a pretty grown up game. Younger players probably won't have heard of some of the famous people or places to describe. However I see it as being a great learning tool for teenagers, and adults for that matter, to play with and use vocabulary. I know I get the feeling my vocab gets very stuck in a rut and this game really woke the old grey matter up.

So here's my pro's and con's for Articulate, in a nutshell:

Pro
------
- Simple, easy concept
- Fun, interactive, a game with great spirit
- Good educational tool
- Quality presentation
- A good game for the family with older children that will also be fun to play with older generations in the family

Pro/Con
----------
Hurray - Drumond Park have produced an Articulate extra pack of 500 extra question cards.

Boo - I can't find it and of course, it'll mean more expense.

Con
-----
- As with all boardgames it seems expensive at £24.99
- There is a minimum of 4 players. Now as an only child (get ready to awww) I remember how annoying it was to get a game that needed 2 players and remember playing Monopoly?against myself! So needing 4 players will be a real pain for some people unless you come from a large family or can rope in board game playing friends.