I WOULD LOVE TO, WOULD'NT YOU? (Wing Commander 5 - Prophecy (PC))

Member Name: brianlfc

Product:	Wing Commander 5 - Prophecy (PC)
Date:	17/01/02 (139 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good fun while it lasts

Disadvantages: Not enough questions

...Be a Millionaire that is!

Oh well, I guess you?ve all seen the programme and most of you have probably played the game, a lot of people tend to love it and a lot loathe it, I myself don?t mind it and it is the biggest game show anywhere in the world.

So what am I talking about?

Yes, you guessed it's ?Who wants to be a Millionaire? of course?

After the success of the first offering from the Eidos software team, they have now brought a second version of the game to the stores and that?s exactly what I am about to review, ?Who wants to be a Millionaire, 2nd Edition?. The game is currently on sale for £19.99 and is widely available in the shops.

For those of you that have not seen the show or played the game (I can?t believe there is anyone), here?s a very brief introduction of the game. WWTBAM (as it will be known from now on) is basically a quiz show that has took off in a big way, spreading its wings across the world; the show originated in Great Britain and is hosted by the slightly irritating Chris Tarrant.

The idea of the game is to answer 15 questions, each having a progressive reward from £100 up until the mighty £1,000,000. These questions are multiple choice, with they?re being 4 choices of answer for each question and start off from simple (The £100 question) to very hard (The £1,000,000).

You are give 3 lifelines, ask the audience, where you ask the audience to enter their answers and the results being shown in a percentage format, 50/50 where you take away two of the possible answers, leaving the correct answer and one wrong answer or phone a friend, where you get the chance to phone a friend of choice for a bit of help.

That?s basically it, you attempt to answer these 15 questions and reach the £1,000,000, should you answer incorrectly you lose the total you are on, although there is two safety positions at £1,000 and £32,000, meaning if you reach either of these, you are guar
anteed this sum of money.

Now on to the PC game, in the original PC version of the game, there was a couple of noticeable things missing, the main one being, there was not anyone asking the questions, it was just a matter of the questions being shown on the screen and you having to read it yourself, the second thing missing, but not as important was actually having your name on the cheque which was shown after the game finished, it used to just have player 1, etc.

These have now been corrected, yes you now getting Chris Tarrant actually asking you the questions, giving it a more realistic feel about it, but at the same time giving you more reason to get thoroughly sick of his voice, he even does he usually teasing, you know the ?Are you sure that?s your final answer? type of thing, this has improved the game immensely.

The game has several options available, giving you the choice of four different ways to play the game, these are as follows:

Fastest Finger:
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Just like on the pre-qualifying questions on the TV show, you are given a question and four answers, it?s your task to arrange them in the correct order, you can play this against up to three other contestants.

Team game:
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This just basically means that two of you play on the same side, giving you the chance to answer alternative questions, should you answer incorrectly, you are also letting your team-mate down.

Head-to-Head:
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Just a basic head-to-head challenge, meaning you play the game against up to three opponents, this is the most fun and in my view the best way to play the game.

Is the game any good?
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Well, yes and no, you see it has pluses and minuses, the pluses being, it?s a good way to enjoy yourself and tax your brain and is especially good when four of you play the head-to-head version of the game, the inclusion of Tarrants voice-over actually a
sking the questions makes the game a lot more realistic and the graphics (i.e. the crowd, etc) have been slightly improved. The game also seems a bit smoother running than it predecessor.

It also has bad points, well one main one really, you see upon looking at the actually CD, you?ll notice that it is actually only half full, yet the game only has about 1,000 questions in total and after playing for a while, you start to get regular repeated questions, which can be annoying, especially when your opponents in the head-to-head keep getting them. So why when the disk is only half full, can they not include at least another 1,000 questions? Yeah, money I suppose, they actually want you to get sick of the game, so you?ll buy the next version, makes sense really, doesn?t it?

I know the game (and the programme for that matter) is not everyone?s cup of tea, but I don?t mind it and playing the game is fun, but it can quickly wear off and that is WWTBAM?s main downfall, it doesn?t have much in the longevity stakes, but I suppose it?s ok for a few days. I do however think that £19.99 is a bit steep for a game that will not last too long and I think they could enable the game to be updated via the Internet or something, thus meaning you never run out of questions, but alas, this will not happen, as next year they?ll probably be a 3rd edition.

System requirements:
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Windows 95/98 or above
Direct 7.0a or above
150 MB of hard drive space
P166 or above
16MB Ram
2MB SVGA Card


Recommended System:
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500 MB of Hard Drive Space
P266 or greater processor
32MB RAM
4MB SVGA card fully DirectX 7 compatible

Summary: