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Blockbusters DVD Game

The Amazon blurb
‘I’ll have a ‘P’ please Bob! Join enigmatic quizmaster Bob Holness in this interactive recreation of the cult TV quiz-show! Following the format of the original programme, teams or players compete to make a row letters across the Blockbusters board. The first player to win two rounds out of three will then be invited to play the legendary Gold Run!

Hang on!
Enigmatic?

How does it work?
Well it's a slightly modified version of the TV quiz, but it does away with the two vs one element.

You don't get to pick your letters, they are selected for you. The letter selection has been cunningly designed so that the place where your paths cross will be the last letter you will select, so there's no strategy here. After your letter has been picked for you, Bob reads out a question. After you've given your answer (there is no time limit, Bob will simply re-read the question after twelve seconds), you press your OK button to check it. If your answer matches that "on the card" - and it must be exact, you can tell it you got it correct or not. It will then fill in the hexagon your colour, or beep and leave it as it is. Teams alternate taking questions. The game has been designed so that the white player will never take a direct vertical line, and will always need five questions to get Blockbusters.

The first team to win two games gets to go through to the Gold Run, where they must get "from gold to gold with two questions wrong or less". This works in similar fashion, the DVD calls out the letters, you tell it if you're correct or not. If you make it across, you win "a nice prize".

Is it good?
Well after the tedious company signatures thing, we get the familiar theme tune (one of the all time greats really), although it's a hilarious cheesetastic recreation of it, and a hilarious cheesetastic recreation of the classic opening titles. Bob's voice comes booming over the screen - everything is voiced by Bob (with two people representing you calling out the letters, one of whom sounds a little bit like playwright Patrick Marber), who is sounding his age in honesty. You can choose to staert the game, watch the tutorial or read the credits. Fine.

Not being able to pick your letters and having to take turns turns Blockbusters not a battle of buzzers and wits, but a war of attrition as the first team to get five questions correct will win. This would just about be acceptable, but we were getting 95% of the questions right straight off the bat. Which makes it quite weak as a game.

The questions for the Gold Run seem a bit more difficult though, but without a time limit you can think them through without too much difficulty.

We were getting repeat questions on our second game.

It's a bit slow to play. We find it quite difficult to recommend, in honesty.

I'll have a "Blockbusters from Amazon," please Brig!