All the abuse! (The Weakest Link (PS2))

Member Name: Boonoiy

Product:	The Weakest Link (PS2)
Date:	05/09/02 (122 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Can be a laugh if there's a good group playing, The insults can be really funny

Disadvantages: Annoying contestants, Takes ages to get loaded up, Annoying game all round!

"Single player game? Have you got no friends then?" What a way to start eh? The beginning of the actual game renders the player drenched in gloom and despair and there you go; feeling useless before you've even started.

Anyway, let's get on with it.

I bought this game alongside Tony Hawk's Skateboarding 3, taking advantage of the 2 for £30 offer from HMV over the weekend. The PS2 is brand new in my life so I love to see offers like this to tempt me into newbies. I readily handed over my card and hurried on home to have a play. Skating over I decided to have a go on the Weakest Link for a bit!

Impressed I was not!

Let's start at the beginning - the loading takes forever. Once you've shoved the CD in the hole, made a cup of tea, had a lengthy bowel movement and put the cat out for the evening you'll only have another half hour to wait before you're about ready to go.

Anyway, that aside (blame my impatience - not really all that long), the game itself needs some comment really eh?

Getting started:
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Mmmmm, nice cuppa.

We begin with the intro bit, Anne Robinson's cheery face lights up the TV screen with her radiant good looks - OK, stop sniggering at the back there - and does a bit of a spiel to say welcome to (dramatic pause) the Weakest Link.

Then there's the options page - what do you want to do? Play the Single player game? - prepare to be insulted upon choosing this option - Play the multi player game? Play the championship game?

Once you've chosen you will get to pick who you want to be - simply move the little cursor thing over your chosen player (there's about 30 of them, all equally annoying and with a little piece to say about themselves when you've got the cursor over them) and press the X button to confirm your choice. With multi player you simply pass the controller on until all
the places are filled with either real players (all your mates sat around the TV) or computer controlled players. Then it's on to the Normal, Easy or Junior screen so as you can pick your difficulty level for the game you're about to play.

So, we're off then.

Play begins with the player who's name is first alphabetically and moves round clockwise through all 7 players. Multiple choice questions, the first letter of the answers is shown so you can make your choice by pressing the relevant button on the controller. Simple really.

Pass the controller on from one to the next and get as many as you can right to amass the highest possible score - pressing the "bank" button before your question is asked (the word "Bank" flashes while you've still got this option) claims the cash you've amassed so far so it can't be lost with a wrong answer.

Overall thoughts on this game:
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I think that the Weakest Link is a great gameshow, I love Anne Robinson's scathing comments and the whole format of the show. It just does not go well on the PS2.

Why? I hear you cry! Well I'll tell you why:

The questions are never really at a consistent level - you'll get something like "What is the colour of a red apple" to intense questions on Nuclear Physics or Geometric velocities! Can be quite scary.

The movements of the contestants is incredibly annoying - very jerky and wooden movements what really do nothing for the game at all. Stock still would be better.

Anne Robinson - she's really mean :¬( - no, this is a plus and can be really funny at times.

The contestants themselves - they must have done a survey to find the type of person that I would really hate to look at or listen to for more than 5 seconds. Stupid little comments come from each of them and they only get more annoying as th
e game progresses! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.

The unfairness of it all - this is tied in with the contestant thing quite a bit, albeit just when controlled by the computer. They get the very easy answers wrong (must be on purpose), they refuse to bank any cash and keep the score low and the really hard ones that come along always seem to be a doddle to them! Weird really, I thought that there would've been more thought into what a certain person would get right than this! Ho-Hum.



A final note then - this game is quite similar to the real thing on TV (bit jerkier), you do feel somewhat part of the action and a member of a backstabbing, cash crazed team and it can be quite good when you get all the way up to the head to head. I just found it SO ANNOYING to put up with. I think it's going to have to be relegated to the drawer until Christmas time when we can fill all 7 places and have some decent family rows develop.

Cheers all.

And the redesign isn't really all that bad now we've got used to it, is it?

Boon ;¬)

Summary: