Show Discussion: Rolling In It

By | August 7, 2020
64 Comments
#hostholdingaquestioncoin

Saturdays, 6:25pm,
ITV

Here we are then, Stephen Mulhern (almost wrote Merchant then, must be the heat) brand new (filmed a year ago) arcade machine quiz where three celeb/civilian pairs of contestants answer multiple choice questions and roll giant coins down a giant coin rolling machine in the hope of avoiding the bankrupts and going home with thousands and thousands of pounds.

We were at the pilot August 2018 and the game needed a fair amount of tightening up, but from a production value standpoint felt pretty much ready to go.

Watched it? Let us know what you thought in the comments.

Hosts That Get Rather Friendly With The Contestants

By | August 5, 2020
14 Comments

Sure, why not.

Can I request a new post on the Bar?!

A random thought popped into my head with the news that Tipping Point is resuming in a socially distanced manner

‘Hosts that get rather friendly with contestants’

Bens hugs on Tipping Point and Les ‘put your arm around me’ Dennis are the starters for 10

John R, in a comment

The correct answer is Richard Dawson on Family Feud.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNrTUaIuVUE

Bother’s Bar Plays Badly: Fall Guys

By | August 4, 2020
8 Comments

Something we’ve been keeping our eye on for a while, Fall Guys is released today on Steam and PS4 (in fact you can play for free if you have PS Plus). They’ve been having server issues all afternoon, but we managed to get a couple of games in. It’s Takeshi’s Castle as a battle royale game, basically. As such it’s fun, but it’s also pretty light. Presumably they can create anything in their physics engine now, so how long it remains relevant is largely going to depend on the imagination of the production house in coming up with new courses and events in the long term.

Rock ‘n’ Rollergames

By | August 1, 2020
15 Comments

Two posts in one day? Blimey. However I was alerted to the existence of one-year wonder 1990 roller derby show Rollergames by US gameshow fandom legend @lambertman on Twitter, and looking it up on Youtube I love it, and also feel no real need to watch any more than an episode of it.

I only have a basic understanding of what’s going on, you get points for getting high up the banked wall and jumping over the jump and your frontman lapping your opponents (the Wikipedia article is here), basically it’s an excuse for lots of drama and fighting. As such the central conceit doesn’t hold up all that well, but it’s worth watching one episode of for the theatrics.

Gameshows in games

By | August 1, 2020
7 Comments

Hopefully interesting things will start picking up again soon, Supermarket Sweep starts filming today (intrigued to see how they’ll get round social distancing), next Saturday sees the launch of Rolling In It and Freddie and Paddy’s Total Wipeout Takeover (which is obviously extremely cheap, however is it any different to various channels re-editing and commentating the same episodes of Takeshi’s Castle and Ninja Warrior ad infinitum?).

On Tuesday Fall Guys, the videogame Takeshi-esque Battle Royale is released on PC and PS4 and I’ll be doing a Plays Badly of it. Microids will be releasing a Who Wants To Be A Millionaire game in the Autumn, and it’s looking totally Microids.

But in the meantime, what’s the best gameshow segment that has turned up in a video game? Famously there’s the one in Banjo-Kazooie on the Nintendo 64 (which you can also play on XBox), my attention has turned to Shy Guys Finish Last in the recent Paper Mario game, based largely around its ring sliding battle system. Please be aware that the following video contains story slight story direction spoilers (and the game’s got a delightful story) but nothing too bad.