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Game: The Price is Right
Distributor: Jakks Pacific
Release Date: 2009
Genre: Game Show
Ok, before we start, I'd just like to point out that, despite what that opening statement may have suggested, I don't hate this game. On the contrary, this is one of the most faithful, varied, well programmed, engaging Plug n Play games I've ever come across! ...But it was an absolute SOUL-CRUSHING experience to review! ...More on that later.
The Price is Right. America's longest running game show, with 8,000+ episodes across 45 years(not counting its original 1956-1965 incarnation), and still going! The show that comes up with several dozen ways to ask how often you shop and rewards you for your commercialism! The program where you can win a car by guessing a number that would normally make you faint if you were to actually buy it! The ultimate tribute to inflation, brand loyalty, and winning luxury items while constantly being reminded of how much the essentials actually cost! ...Though, to be fair, quite a good and entertaining show.
I remember regularly watching the Bob Barker-hosted show when I was about 8, mostly because it was one of the few shows we could pick up in our rural area. I really don't remember anything that really stood out to me about it, but I must have enjoyed it to some degree since I did watch it when it was on. ...Of course, the only concept of money I had at that age is that my parents would pay me $1 to clean the living room, and $1 is what a bag of Trolli Peachie-Os costs, so I wasn't exactly concerned with how much these things I'd eventually be buying on a weekly basis would set my paycheck back...
I really haven't followed the show since then. I know Bob Barker retired and Drew Carey took over, and that's the most I know. He must be doing a good job, though, since he's been hosting for about 9 years now and people are still watching, so good on him.
I did catch the snafu a few years ago when a model accidentally gave away a car to a contestant, so that was funny. Glad everyone benefited in the end.
As you can imagine from such a popular and long-running game show, it's seen its share of home releases in the form of board, computer, console, and handheld electronic games. The first electronic form of the game was released in 1990 by GameTek(who were behind a number of other game show adaptations), and since then, we've had versions for most major consoles, as well as interactive DVD variations. Admittedly, we haven't had any new releases since The Price is Right Decades in 2012, but, seeing as how the format of the show hasn't had any major alterations in years, you could probably play any of the games released during that time period and get your Price is Right fix. It's not exactly the ever-changing Mario series is what I'm saying...
And that includes the Jakks Pacific Plug n Play variant released in 2009, which we have here in front of us today! ...Which I'm sure you'd never guess by the design WAS a The Price is Right game!
The color scheme is very similar to the design of the show's logo and doorway, down to the bumpy orange outline and the "confetti" markings on the face.
Though the logo that's been slapped on the right side would probably clue you in faster than the color scheme. ...And I apologize for the sticker quality. I've had this for a while and these are surprisingly rare...
The control scheme is the standard NES layout, with a four-way directional pad(with no diagonal support) and an A and B button. And while I recognize the letters on the buttons as part of the title's font, I'm not entirely sure what's on the directional pad. Puzzle pieces? Dollar signs? A new way to write the letter "S"? ...I'm not seeing the point. Why didn't they just print "U, D, L, R" in the show's font? Makes it more consistent at least...
But I'll bet anything that you just skipped to this part where I talk about the giant honkin' Big Wheel! ...Well, what is there TO say?! They've recreated the wheel in painstaking detail on a heavy-duty sticker right smack dab in the middle of the console! ...And yes, it's a button. You don't actually get to spin it like the show. ...But it's permanently on the $1.00 mark, so why would you want to?
And spoilers: It's used ONLY for spinning the wheel during the Showcase Showdown. You can press it all you want at any other point in the game and it does NOTHING! ...I was almost about to comment that, if it only serves one purpose, that they might as well should have kept it purely cosmetic, but then I'd complain that they added it WITHOUT the ability to use it for anything! ...I have mixed feelings about this admittedly-impressive console addition. I think I'd better show you some game footage before I write a novel-long thesis on something even the Irate Gamer wouldn't get this hung up on...
Once again, this comes to us from Jakks Pacific's "Plug It In And Play TV Games" line. Though with a different logo than most other games we've looked at from them, since this is a more recent release from the Plug n Play market.
They also include their own logo, just to drive home who made this.
And once again, it's a Jakks Pacific/HotGen collaboration, following other consoles we've seen from them like Cars 2, Bob the Builder, The Fry Cook Games, and Bikini Bottom 500. Well, they've proven themselves to be some of the best in the business, so I guess these are our go-to guys for quality Plug n Play games!
There's also a logo for Freemantle Media, which owns the rights to The Price is Right. Since they didn't actually have a hand in making this console, let's just skip past me unnecessarily explaining their history and head right into the game.
Right off the bat, you can tell this game's going to be good. How? Because, like their Bob the Builder game, they've recreated The Price is Right theme! In fact, if I can be perfectly honest, it sounds even BETTER than their Bob the Builder rendition! It's still obviously a 16-bit-esque MIDI rendition, but they've done a masterful job of recreating the trumpets, xylophones, and other instruments that comprise the show's theme. Maybe it's just easier to synthesize brass instruments than guitars, but I legitimately had to check against the real theme to confirm it was a digitized cover and not the real thing on an MP3, WAV, or OGG they somehow fit into the game! As with the other game, I could just leave this on and listen to it all day! ...But I have even more gameplay to talk about than the last, so I'd better get started.
The game starts you off in a Main Menu, where you can choose from "Come On Down", "Pricing Games", "Bonus Games", and the more technical "High Score", "Options", and "Credits" selections. I'll talk about the "Pricing Games" and "Bonus Games" a little later. "Come On Down" is the main game, so we'd better do as the title suggests. Can't leave our new car just sitting there for long...
But before you start, you need to create a profile, which serves as your save file and in-game avatar, as well as where the total amount of money you've won throughout the game is displayed. It took a short while, but I eventually figured out how to input "ZCI" in all caps. I also went with the guy with the sunglasses and Price is Right T-shirt. Mostly because he's better looking than I am.
The game plays out as basically a shortened version of the TV show. At the beginning, you're told to "Come On Down" and join the three other contestants in the Contestants Row! ...Good thing too. You probably wouldn't have felt very comfortable sitting with the red cardboard cutout audience...
Speaking of which, I can't believe they actually got a cardboard cutout of Drew Carey to host this game*! And, better still, as we've gotten from other Jakks Pacific/HotGen collaborations, the game incorporates speech clips from both Drew Carey and the announcer Rich Fields, so you are actually told to "Come On Down" and what certain prizes and games are, and Drew spouts a bit of his wit during certain games! Again, it's not fully voiced dialog, but it's welcoming to hear and really adds to the experience of being on the TV show! ...Without the dirty looks the other potential contestants give you...
*50 million nerd points to those that got that Homestar Runner reference.
As with the show, the first section, which determines who gets to play The Price is Right, presents an item to bid on. ...And this is another indication of just how much effort went into the game: The number of different items is INSANE!
There are literally DOZENS of different things to bid on and win throughout, each with a different price and specifications. They don't just say "Vacuum", they say "1400W Deep Cleaning Motorized Canister Vacuum by Luxolect"! And yes, every item comes from an obvious parody of a real manufacturer. "Luxolect" instead of Electrolux, "Fruit" instead of Apple, "Doninedo" instead of Nintendo, etc. It's cute and really shows how much effort they gave to make each item stand out.
It also all but guarantees that you'll get a new item every time you play each game! In the hours I spent playing this game, only rarely was I aware of a repeat, as the game kept reaching into the box of randomness and pulling out items I hadn't seen yet! Even when I thought I'd seen them all, the game would pull out a "Shiny Stones Deluxe 18k White Gold Diamond Necklace" or a "5.6 Cu. Ft. Stainless Steel Freestanding Electric Range"! Had I already seen them before? I don't know! There are so many items in this game, some that you could easily get confused with others, and often such a gap before seeing the same item again, that I honestly couldn't keep track of everything!
So unless you have the most intensive photographic memory in the world or you've compulsively written down the price of EVERY item in this game, you're promised basically a new game every time you play! ...Geez, and I thought The Fry Cook Games would have the highest amount of replay value we'd ever see from one of these...
Anyway, as in the show, this section has potential contestants bidding on the featured product for a chance to be chosen for the next round. Simply input the price you think the item is without going over, and hope it's the closest to the actual price.
And, like the show, if you manage to guess the price right on the nose, you get a $500 bonus!
However, as you can guess in a game where four different contestants throw out random numbers, and there's nothing against simply guessing $1 higher than another contestant, being chosen to come up on stage isn't an easy task. The computer players are really varied with their guesses and can throw out any random number in range of the actual price, whether higher, lower, or even the exact same! Unless you're familiar with the item and how much similar products were worth in 2009, you'll likely bid within $100-500 most times(or you'll overbid), allowing your opponents to bid higher and steal your win...
I've found that bidding somewhere between the highest and lowest prices guessed by the other contestants usually led me to victory, but that usually requires being the last one asked to guess the price. If you're the first one to get asked, then I hope you remembered at least a few of the prices for the items(if you haven't checked the bottom of the page for the cheat sheet)...
It's even possible to LOSE during the opening section. If you fail to be the one who guessed closest to the actual price within six rounds, the game will end and you'll get booted back to the Main Menu with a "consolation prize." ...I dunno... This is sort of a Takeshi's Challenge or Super Paper Mario situation. I'm pretty sure the game has to start before it can be "over."
So I hope your dollar bid rings true and wins you the prize and the opportunity to play The Price Is Right! ...No joke. I just think it's funny when $1 ends up being the winning bid.
Provided you guess correctly or close enough in the opening round, you're then taken to the next round and a pricing game. ...And here's where I nearly lost my sanity trying to record footage for this game...
In keeping with the unbelievable amount of variety present on this console, this game has not one, not two, not six, but SEVENTEEN games from the show included as pricing minigames, officially making this the largest selection I've ever seen on an original Plug n Play system(that's not just an official or unofficial compilation of previously released games)! And while I say "selection", the game you end up playing is chosen at random, meaning you'll be assigned one out of SEVENTEEN different games once you've completed the Contestants Row. ...And this is why it took me so long to record and write about this game!
In reviewing these games, I try to include as much as I can about the gameplay, the objectives, and any extras included on the console. I don't believe that losing a game counts as an excuse to stop playing, nor that said defeat means you can wrap up the review with "That's as far as I could get, so I'm just going to judge the game based on what I could see." If you can't play a game to the end, you haven't played the game, and if you haven't played the game the way it was meant to be played, you have no right to critique it! It's like watching the first 10 minutes of Watchmen, walking out, and giving the film an overall score based solely on those first 10 minutes. If you're not going to see something through to completion, you don't get to give a professional opinion to share with people who may be curious in the movie/game/etc.
Now that doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to complete EVERYTHING in a game. There are side achievements, optional goals, the occasional trophy, etc. that aren't required to fully unlock everything the game has to offer. Games like Spider-Man & The Masked Menace, The Fry Cook Games, and Bikini Bottom 500 all have lengthy optional achievements that are just there for vanity and bragging purposes and there are simply not enough hours in my lifetime to complete. Since they don't unlock anything additional in the game, I just don't see a reason to go after them. So if there's a feature that is not required to complete the game from beginning to end, nor needed to give a full experience of the game, I'm most likely just going to overlook it.
However, since the pricing games are a major part of the game, and completing each at least once is required to unlock certain selections, I went ahead and convinced myself that I needed to play and win each one before my playthough was done. That meant playing and WINNING Every. Single. One. Of the SEVENTEEN GAMES! ...And this quickly turned into the most lengthy, intensive, and boring experiences I've ever had trying to review a console...
First problem, of course, was even making it TO a pricing game! There's no option to just skip to a round, so I had to play Contestants Row until I FINALLY guessed close enough to win and progress to the next round. ...As you can guess, this wasn't often. I could spend up to TEN minutes just trying to get through this section, constantly being booted out with a consolation prize, and having to reenter the game and start over again! On the plus side, this is how I became aware of how many different items the team created for the game. ...On the minus side, this is how I became aware of how many different prices the team assigned to each item...
When I finally got past that little obstacle, the next problem was getting the game I wanted! Like I mentioned, what pricing game you're assigned is completely at random, with no pattern or way to manipulate it to give you a specific game. So if I still needed to play Cliff Hangers and I instead got Dice Game, I had to exit out to the main menu, go back in, and play Contestants Row all over again, hoping that it would eventually show up.
I LITERALLY had hour-long periods where absolutely no new games would show up, and I'd just be sitting there, mindlessly pressing the same button over and over again, skipping the same dialog boxes, trying to guess the price of the qualifying item before the other players, and just praying and hoping that the next game would be a game I hadn't completed yet... It was the LA Noire of Plug n Play games...
And then, when a game FINALLY popped up that I hadn't completed yet, the ultimate challenge manifested itself: BEATING the game! Each of the SEVENTEEN games had different goals and outcomes, as well as varying balances between product knowledge and pure blind luck!
Some I managed to ace on my first try, based on previous knowledge with similarly-priced items and a touch of luck.
While others... I'm almost convinced this reality is a dream or I died from a burst vein in my head and this is a heaven where I've actually accomplished something in my life, because I STILL don't know how I managed to complete it!
But no matter what game I was given, I had ONE chance to win. If I managed to screw up, I couldn't try again. It was right back to exiting out to the menu, going back in, and repeatedly pressing buttons and hastily guessing at the Contestants Row until I FINALLY got another shot at it. ...With a completely different prize and associated prices and items... If I was lucky, I got it again within 2-3 cycles. ...But it would usually take HOURS before that elusive, ultra challenging game popped up again! ...Then it would kick my butt, send me away, LATHER, RINSE, REPEAT!
In total, the game time it took until I finally won all 17 games was over EIGHT hours! Over double what Star Wars The Original Trilogy, the previous record holder, took to fully complete! I practically threw in the towel several times, deciding that it just wasn't worth dragging it out any longer and I'd accept defeat and include the filmed losses, and it was only due to my obsessive compulsion to see a game I'm reviewing to the end that kept me coming back! I CRIED! I wept tears of joy when I conquered that last game and knew I would never have to hear the words "A new car" again! ...At least until I shake the conditioning the game gave me to instinctively throw a shoe at Drew Carey's image.
So I did it! I completed all 17 games! Now nobody else wanting to review this will have to slog through that punishing experience! They can just copy off of me! ...Yay?
...And now, please sit comfortably, as I take you through the entire library of The Price is Right.
Pick-A-Pair. One of the simpler games included. There are three pairs of items with the exact same price. Simply find a pair that shares a price and the promoted prize is yours.
It's made even easier with the fact that you get two chances! If the first pair doesn't match, you can choose one or the other and simply pick another!
Obviously, being a game show challenge, it's still not stupefyingly easy to accomplish, but it is one where the solution is a little easier to determine. Personally, I tried to divide the pairs into lowest, base, and highest values, then went after the two that seemed the most on the same totem. ...It didn't quite work, but, thanks to cooking with olive oil, I know how expensive that stuff is, so I paired the stain fighter and olive oil together to win! ...I'm just surprised at how much Clorox goes for...
Double Prices. The most simplistic game of the show, and possibly of all time. They give you two possible prices for the featured prize, so simply pick the correct one and you win! It's a 50/50 shot and I found that it's usually the lowest price, so it's the most likely game to win on the first try.
Though we do get a quip from Drew Carey during this game, as he asks you to say "Shazam" to reveal the correct price. Ah, Drew Carey. The goofy, nerdish way you project your dry humor is why we love you.
However, you'll excuse me if I don't say "Shazam", because I don't want to risk transforming into Zachary Levi. I'll leave that honor to someone else, thanks.
So yeah. Guess right, it's yours. Moving on.
Any Number. This was one of the most fun out of the lot. You're given three possible prizes: A car, a lesser prize, and a small cash prize. Simply pick the numbers you believe are in the price of whichever prize you want to win. ...Which is obviously the car, because, come on!
I don't know why I had so much fun with this one. I guess I liked the thrill of choosing a random number and seeing which category it landed in. Sort of a Wheel of Fortune vibe, where you guess the pieces to the puzzle and the try to solve it. ...Only more difficult, since you're guessing numbers, not recognizable phrases. It also helped that this is a game you can't lose, since any line you fill in, you get money.
But I got the car in the end anyway, so, as Flynn would say:
Hi-Lo. Sort of a trickier version of Pick-A-Pair. Find what you think are the three highest prices, and, if you're right, you win the prize!
This was especially tricky for me since I didn't quite understand what the items were. It says "Chocolate Tarts" here, so are they referring to "chocolate tarts" as in the expensive chocolate confectionery, or are they referring to tarts like "Pop-Tarts"? I'd assume they meant the toaster pastry variety with the image they chose, but with how low-res the scans are, it could easily stand for either one.
Plus, are we really paying $2.64 for Pop-Tarts? Back when I still ate them as a quick pick-me-up before work, I always went for the store brand and got them for a buck. ...But I'm just thrifty like that.
Since I'm a penny-pincher and I don't know what people actually spend on food, this was a little harder for me to complete. However, when you have shortening, Pop-Tarts, and dish detergent against yogurt, Ramen, and canned pasta... This try was a no-brainer.
Range Game. Another super simple game. They offer you a vacation, you stop the meter when it's within the price of the trip, and it's yours!
There's really nothing else to say about this game. The area they give you to guess what the correct price is is quite large, and I was able to stop it in the right spot every time I played this. Just think about what a really expensive trip overseas would be(aka what Bob Hope traveled on a daily basis), stop it after a few seconds, and you'll likely win. Enjoy that trip to Singapore, and I hope you don't get Shanghaied or shivved!
Flip-Flop. Like Pick-A-Pair and Hi-Lo, this is sort of a trickier version of Double Prices. They show you a prize, then two sets of numbers, and you need to determine if one or both of the sets need their numbers flipped. Put the numbers in the right spots and it's yours!
Despite it sounding tricky, really the only set you need to worry about is the second, since the first is usually obvious and very rarely in the right order. Even back in 2009, a 58" HDTV WASN'T $5237...
So with the first set taken care of, that leaves you with a 50/50 chance for the second, as with Double Prices. Just luck out, get it in the right order, and you win! ...But if you lose, you have my permission to flip and flop out.
Punch a Bunch. This is one of the cash-only challenges, which is impressively introduced by the announcer shouting "It's a chance to win up to $25,000 in cash!" No matter how many times I come across them on my journey through these Plug n Plays, audio clips on these budget systems will never cease to impress me.
It's also a challenge that's almost impossible to lose. You begin at the board, which is full of different punch holes, and you need to earn punches to find money.
This is done by being presented with a number of items, and you just have to guess if the actual price is higher or lower than the price presented. ...Which should be obvious in most cases, since the displayed prices are usually comedically out of the actual price's range... $45 for an Apple-shaped pitcher? Even the government would balk at spending that much frivolously on something like this...
Then you take the punches you earned, go to the board, and select the area you'd like to punch out. If you don't like the amount of money behind it, you can try again with another punch and take whatever's behind that door. In the end, the last door you punch out is what you take away, so as long as you earned one punch during the last section, you win! Simple as that. ...Though please refrain from punching out your TV if you risk a $5000 section and end up with $50...
Dice Game. Sort of a variation of the first section of the previous game. Four dice are rolled, and you have to determine if the number in each slot is higher or lower than the number on the die. Get them all right, win a car!
I must have just had phenomenal luck with this game, since every time I played it, 2 or more of the slots would be a 1 or 6, meaning it's higher or lower by default and I didn't have to guess for that area. The other numbers were relatively easy to guess as well, as the second number for cars in the game was usually below 5, the third and fourth numbers were above 2, and the last was below 5. I didn't always get it right, but 9 times out of 10, I'd sweep the board!
So roll a few lucky 1s and 6s, guess the rest, and win a car! ...Which you will probably lose in another dice game later, because if this game teaches anything, gambling's rewarding!
Plinko. The Price is Right's most famous game, and another purely cash game that's announced prior to playing it! Plus another game that's impossible to lose. Need I say much more?
You start in front of the board with one chip, and the chance to win up to four more.
Simply guess if the first or second digit in an item's price is correct(which again should be relatively easy for most if you're familiar with similar items IRL), and you win an additional Plinko chip for each one.
Then take your Plinko chips, position them at the top of the board, and drop them down one at a time into a slot at the bottom. Hopefully into the $10,000 slot, but that's just wishful thinking. ...Isn't it?
This is the most impressive game on the console, and another indication of how much work and variety they put into making this system. You have free range to move each chip left and right, and a physics engine takes over once you drop it, randomly letting the chip fall and bounce off the pegs on the way down, keeping anything from being predetermined, even with a randomly chosen set of movements. It's a welcome addition to a game full of touchpads, set choices, and groceries, and really heightens the experience of playing the actual game! ...Oh, and getting the chips to land in the $10,000 slot is a huge confidence boost.
Hole in One. The show's second most famous game, and another break from the traditional pricing games. As the title suggests, the goal is to score a hole-in-one in a game of minigolf. Score, and you win a car!
To try to make it a little easier, you first get to list six items from least to most expensive. Just guess what the first one is and decide the next until all are selected.
The more you get right, the closer the ball is to the hole. ...Though I could never get past the third one...
The game then takes the form of one of those timing sports minigames prevalent in Plug n Play sports systems(which I unfortunately have to show off one of these days...) Try to stop the red dot as close to the middle as possible. The closer it is, the more chance you have to score that hole-in-one(which they give you a second chance at if you miss the first.) Once again, a break from all the regular pricing minigames, a different mechanic from the simple selection of other games, and a great way to relax and shed some stress from the rest of the game. ...That's what golf does, right? I've personally never played it... Though those bent golf clubs that have been flying over my roof from the nearby course probably suggest I'm wrong...
Lucky $even. Another game I had fun playing, despite having to go through it several times. You're given seven $1 bills, then asked to fill in the last four digits of the price. For every number you're off, the difference is subtracted from the amount of money you have. If you have at least $1 left, at the end, you win a car!
This was a lot of fun because it didn't have that feel of dread that came with the "one strike and you're out" gameplay of most of the other challenges. It didn't kick me out when I guessed a wrong, it just penalized how much I held at the time, so I could shrug it off and focus harder on the next number. It made me feel like, even if I wasn't absolutely correct, I was still in the ballpark enough to continue onward and win the car! ...Except when I guessed horribly wrong and lost all my money in one swoop, but that's just something that happens sometimes. It's just a good message to not have to be 100% accurate to be right. ...Which is good, considering my blog's not even at 60%...
Grand Game. Another strictly cash game and basically a reversal of Hi-Lo. Find the four LOWEST prices out of the six items. The score starts at $1, and every correct answer gives you 10x more than the last. See how much cash you can grab without going over!
At the $1000 point, Drew gives you the option to take the cash or risk it to find the final item. Me being me, I chose to go all the way and grab the big bucks! Though if this was the real show... I'd do the exact same thing. I'm just stupid like that. ...What a shock, I know...
It just plays like Hi-Lo or Grand Game. Once you have a grasp of the prices of the different items in the game, you'll recognize that bottled water and canned chili aren't exactly haute cuisine, while detergent doesn't come cheap. Just use some common sense and ten grand is all yours! ...Which is hopefully enough to get you to break away from your bottled water and canned chili and try something you actually have to cook and prepare for a change... This isn't Fallout, people...
Money Game. ...I get the feeling they ran out of names at this point. This is sort of a mix between Pick A-Pair and Any Number. They give you the middle number of the price, so it's your job to find the beginning and final digits, grouped into pairs on 9 different cards. Find the two sets in the price and you win a car!
Again, this is a game you can't lose, since the wrong answers are tallied in the column on the left. Get four wrong and you lose the car, but still walk away with the total of the guesses. ...Though seeing as how you're walking away with $184 instead of a new car, you'd probably still consider yourself a loser and spend that money on booze and drug in a desperate attempt to feel good about yourself again. ...Just let me know which gutter you crashed in so I can steal your wallet before anyone else, ok?
This isn't a super easy challenge to win, but once you've seen similar car models in the game, you can start to guess what the featured model is worth. Good tips to keep in mind are that 90% of the vehicles in the game are between $20,000 and $30,000, and the final two digits are usually the highest in the price. And if you still think this is too hard, take comfort in the fact that the numbers in the price are clearly predefined. ...Unlike the next two games in this list...
3 Strikes. ...I don't quite know what to compare the gameplay with here. Lingo, maybe? Five numbers and several(maybe 3) strikes are thrown into a bag and randomly selected one at a time. If you get a number, you then get to choose where it goes in the price. Guess right, the number stays. Guess wrong, and it goes back in the bag. Manage to avoid the strikes and place each number in the correct slot, and you win a car! ...And by this point, you have more cars than Jeremy Clarkson...
This is a game much more based on luck than actual knowledge of pricing. Yes, you still need to know where each number goes in the price, and you're thankfully not penalized for wrong answers, but since everything is drawn at random, you have no control over if you get a strike or number! Theoretically, you could get all three strikes in the first round! ...It's a 1 in 56 chance, but it's possible.
All I can really suggest for this minigame is that you play this and the other car games enough to know what the most common placements for the numbers are, and cross your fingers that the RNG doesn't throw the three strikes at you as it nears completion. Since it's random, there is a nice thrill to this game as you eagerly await the next number it throws at you, but, since your chances of drawing a strike become more and more likely as you correctly place numbers, it can be pretty frustrating if you're one number away from finishing the price and the game throws all remaining strikes in your face... Just do your best. It's all you CAN do for this challenge.
One Away. Now we're getting into the games that took me the longest to complete. ...And oh god... This game... You're given a price, which is NOT the price of the car. Your job is to determine if each number is higher or lower than what's displayed. Get all 5 right, and the car is yours!
Of all the games I played on this console, this is the one I came across most frequently, and the one that took me the longest to FINALLY complete! Because this game is FREAKING IMPOSSIBLE! It's like playing Double Prices FIVE TIMES in one sitting and having to get each one right! And, as shown in the picture above, it's easy to get all five numbers wrong on your first go...
After you've inputted all your guesses, Drew tells you to ask the "mighty sound effects person" if you have one number right. He then responds with a chime for every number that you got right, then comes to a halt when all correct numbers are present. You get ONE chance to fix the incorrect numbers and hopefully get all 5 right. There are NO indicators which numbers are right or wrong, none of the correct numbers are locked in, and all you have to go on is how many mistakes there are in the price. And since you now have to stress over which numbers you need to change, this game doesn't even have the courtesy to give you a quick death...
All the advice I can give is that you again get a feel for the other car games and where each number probably goes in the price. ...Besides that, it's basically left up to pure chance whether you get the sequence right or not! If you've caught onto the overall pricing pattern, you have a 90% chance that the first digit will be correct, but after that, you're on your own... I GUARANTEE that this will be the most mind-numbingly difficult game on here to complete, and if you finally manage to get your numbers in a row, you will be BAWLING tears of relief! You have my permission to hemorrhage right afterwards...
Cliff Hangers. Another creative game that would have been one of the games I had the most fun with! ...If it wasn't one of the most difficult challenges on the console... Three items are presented for you to guess the price of. For every dollar off, the hiker takes a step. Keep the hiker on the cliff for a chance to win a trip! ...Yeah, they ran out of cars finally.
Once again, it was my compulsive thriftiness that doomed my chances of winning this game... I just couldn't believe the prices these things went for! You're not given any indication of price, so you just have to type it out on the keypad and hope for the best.
And it was my gross misjudgement of how much people will pay for something that constantly led the Swiss climber careening off a cliff to the jagged rocks below...
WHO PAYS $50 FOR A WIRELESS MOUSE?!
There's really no strategy for this game. Just enter a price and hope your guess is within a few dollars so Hans Hansersen doesn't take a tumble...
Eventually, after a few dozen attempts, I finally managed to get a price exactly right, PLUS get a repeat item that I remembered the price for, meaning the hiker remained on the mountain and I FINALLY won the trip to Berlin! ...And once I get to Berlin, I'm going to push the first Germanic climber I see off a cliff out of spite! ...Actually, he(or even she) probably wouldn't even notice I was trying to push him and break every bone in my body just by accidentally smacking me with his ham-sized fist when he turned around... Never mind.
Grocery Game. And finally, we return to the standard pricing game format, but with a twist. Instead of just selecting the highest/lowest-priced items, we're deciding how much of each item to purchase, without any knowledge of the price until we place our order. If the price ends up between $20 and $21, we win another trip!
Again, it was my refusal to believe that we were paying these prices for this crap that prevented me from getting anywhere in this challenge. $1.55 for tuna? REALLY?! I'd just select high quantities of a certain food item, thinking it was much less than it was, and it would end up going so far over the limit, you could climb it to Mars!
It's no wonder we're a obese society! The McDonald's Dollar Menu looks so much more appealing if it costs that much for a friggin can of chili!
Eventually, I stopped trying to reach the target score or close to it by selecting only one item, and I started carefully choosing low amounts of each product, until finally, through some incredible feat of chance, I managed to hit between the target numbers! I won the trip and a whole new appreciation for case lot sales, dollar stores, and discount grocery stores!
And that was all seventeen games contained on this console. ...WHAT A RIDE! On one hand, I congratulate them for giving an intense amount of variety for this Plug n Play and for being so faithful to the show. On the other hand, it made going through everything and completing it virtually impossible, unless you're either a supreme masochist or an online blogger with nothing better to do than talk about stupid cheap games. I guess that, as long as you're not planning on reviewing it and just want to have some fun and play The Price is Right games at home, it's actually REALLY good, better than it has any right to be! Find a copy and check it our for yourself.
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Design: The console certainly screams "The Price is Right." Its red and yellow color scheme, its orange outline, the fact that there's a freaking WHEEL in the center all make this one of the most-
Oh, that's right! We still have the rest of the game to talk about! Sorry, it's easy to lose track after talking about 8 hours of trying to complete SEVENTEEN games! ...Heck, it's easy to forget there's even still game to go through! Alright, let's see what the rest of the game is like.
Once you've gone through one of the SEVENTEEN pricing games, and regardless of whether you won or lost, your next stop is the Showcase Showdown, aka, where the contestants spin the big honkin' wheel. The goal is to reach $1, or as close to $1 as possible, in two spins, without going over. Whoever wins gets to move onto the next round, and possibly gets additional cash if certain conditions are met. ...Like not telling anyone about the 2008 Plinko incident...
As I mentioned earlier, this is the ONLY time the Wheel button on the console is used. ...And for really no good reason, come to think of it. Since it's just a button, you don't even get to spin it. A meter appears onscreen, and you just push the button when it's at the force you want to spin the wheel. ...So, if it's just glorified button mashing(like the Virtual Station's motion games), why even have the button? Or at least why use it for this game and this game only? Why not just have THIS as the "A" button? Why not make it a spinning feature(like Jakks' earlier Wheel of Fortune)? Why not get rid of the directional pad, make this spin, and use THIS as a selection tool? The answers to these questions and more will NOT be answered at the end of this review, nor ever.
The whole wheel section just boils down to random chance anyway. Depending on how hard you spin the wheel and what number it started on, you could get anything from 5 all the way up to 100. But if you land on the 100 on your first spin, you get a bonus $1000, plus an additional spin to win $10,000 or even $25,000, depending on if it lands on one of the green squares or the 100 again.
Though whether you win or lose, at least you can admire the 3D model of the wheel they managed to squeeze into the console, and how convincing it looks! ...For as long as you can stand the continuous beeping of the wheel...
If you lose the showdown, the game ends here, with a screen telling you "Sorry you didn't make it to the Showcase" and the amount you managed to walk away with.
Win the showdown, and you arrive at the final section of the game: The Showcase. The ultimate guessing game and the final test to see how well you can identify an item's value. ...Not a section I did very well in, is what I'm saying...
This is basically a more extreme version of the Contestants Row. They present four different items, and you need to come closest to guessing the total without going over. Guess more correctly than your opponent and you win the lot!
What I especially love about this section is that they say that the showcase package has to do with a theme. ...Then give you items that have NOTHING to do with that theme! For example, the way to deal with being "stuck in enclosed spaces" is to receive an HDTV, an exercise machine, a trip to Auckland, and a new car! Already being stuck in an enclosed space, I see how the TV would help, but I think the rest would actually take up MORE space! ...Maybe that's the thing? They'll crush you, therefore relieving you of your misery from being stuck in an enclosed space? ...Crude, but effective, I guess.
The game even proves it's self-aware, as it offers you a package to deal with working at Jakks! ...Which is comprised of a dishwasher, noise-silencing headphones, a trip to Calgary, and an SUV. ...My job's going to involve a contract, 4 yards of barbed wire, a hacksaw, 30 gallons of lye, and an alibi, isn't it...?
Personally, I always bid between $32,000 and $34,000 for my showcase, depending on how tempting the prizes looked. Sometimes, the game would throw me a curveball and say the price was $50,000 or even $80,000, or even that I bid too high, but 4 out of 5 times, this was within range of my showcase. I achieved the lowest difference and won the prizes, plus everything else in the game!
All of which was deposited in my lifetime score underneath my profile, so I can show the world how little of a social life I truly have!
Still, I'm probably the only person on the face of the planet to have completed ALL games!
...Or did I? For some strange reason, despite winning at EVERY single game at least once each, there's still something that wasn't unlocked in the Bonus Games section! I don't know if this is a glitch, or if some requirement had to be met for the game to appear, or what, but, despite hour upon hour of perfecting my strategy for each game, there's still one locked slot! ...But if you think that I'm going to go back in and spend ANOTHER eight hours trying to figure out what I did wrong, you're crazier than I am! ...And that's saying a lot!
So NOPE! Game's over! I accomplished all that can possibly be accomplished! The End. Curtain Fall! The fat lady and the swan have performed a duet. That's All Folks! Fin. Goodbye! Good luck! Good riddance!
I'll just let Drew Carey have the final word:
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Design: The console certainly screams "The Price is Right." Its red and yellow color scheme, its orange outline, and the fact that there's a freaking WHEEL in the center all make this one of the most faithful consoles I've ever come across! It fit comfortably in my hands, everything was within reach, and I didn't feel that cramped after playing this for a good amount of time. I guess my biggest nitpick is that the wheel is only a button. How cool would it have been to spin the big wheel on the console and have it emulated onscreen? But if that's my biggest nitpick, you know they have a pretty solid design that sticks out! If I were to pass by this on store shelves, I would notice it. ...And then leave it there, because I already have a copy, and I want someone else to grab it up.
Controls: It's mostly a simple directional pad and two buttons(which is one button more than we usually get.) One button is used to select, and the other is to back out of choices, which is crucial in case you enter the wrong price on the keypad. It's the same control scheme that Nintendo made popular(though it actually originated on the MicroVision[thanks Larry Bundy Jr.]), and the tried and true method of playing 2D games. The fact that they bothered to include a Wheel-shaped button is also really inventive, though again, I'm a little curious why it's used SOLELY for spinning the wheel! It could have been an alternative for the A button, or it could have just been the A button itself. It just feels redundant having a button used for only one section in the entire game! However, redundant buttons don't take away from the overall control scheme, and for what it is, I have no complaints.
Music & Sound: Most of the music is taken directly from the show, from the title theme to all the cues used in the various games, and it all sounds REALLY good! These are some of the most convincing synthesized reproductions I've ever come across, to the point I had to compare them back-to-back to make sure they weren't recordings of the actual orchestra! There's no backing track across the whole game, but since there isn't one in the actual show, no complaints there. Everything's used properly, everything's recognizable, and nothing felt painful to listen to(except for the "lose" horns, but those are INTENTIONALLY painful.) The sound effects are also taken from the show, and they all also sound spot-on! I can believe that these are actual clips used on the show, just slightly bit-crushed to fit on this low-memory system. And we once again have full speech clips, this time from Drew Carey and Rich Fields, both used in just the right spots to emphasize the experience of playing The Price is Right, and to showcase Carey's sense of humor from the show! I really have no complaints, nor anything I'd want to add or subtract(without being unfair to the system's hardware)! It's spot-on, it's varied, and it employs actual voice clips for the host and announcer. It's everything a game based on a game show SHOULD have(though most don't...)!
Graphics: The graphics are pretty good across the board, especially considering the amount of games they had to design for, and it appears to use a method we haven't seen much of on this blog. Nearly all backgrounds, items, sets, and, of course, Drew Carey all seem to be scanned in, with just the actual game sets and the background audience actually drawn for the game. It's actually pretty impressive that they managed to fit so many screenshots into the game, layer them, and keep them clear enough to make out, especially with Drew Carey! I guess you could call this a cop-out on actually giving us original art, but I call it well done for what the game is played on! ...However, what I CAN call a cop-out is that they just took scans of actual products and blurred them to pretend that they were the fake products in-game. This is REALLY obvious with the Pop-Tarts and Cascade boxes, to the point I'm surprised there was no legal action brought against them by Kelloggs or Procter & Gamble... I can live with the cars, but was it too much trouble to quickly give the boxes and such a quick Photoshop treatment to at least change the name on each? As is, even a kid slapping a white piece of paper with black marker writing on it over a product for their backyard play comes across as more professional... I could also take issue with the fact that there's literally NO animation anywhere on the console, but, seeing as how it's a puzzle game based on a game show, I don't know if it's worth getting that angry about. Plus it would have been awkward to animate still shots of actual scans, so maybe they did us a favor by keeping anything from having moving frames? Still, for what this game is, the graphics are quite impressive. It's a new take on graphics for a Plug n Play system, and it's impressive what they managed to pull off.
Gameplay: I have never before encountered a Plug n Play game with THIS MUCH to do! The overall scenario isn't anything that new, since it's just a shortened version of the Price is Right show. You're called into the Contestants Row, move onto a pricing game, get into the Showcase Showdown, and, if you're lucky, get to square off against another contestant for the Showcase. In the case, it's the variety that makes this game, as the console is absolutely BURSTING with random set-ups and different games! As I have pointed out to the point of nausea in this review, there are SEVENTEEN different pricing games to go through and complete! And in those seventeen different games, they've included dozens, if not hundreds, of different items to price and organize, basically guaranteeing that you'll never get the same scenario twice! Since there are so many different games, there's really no point in giving my abbreviated thoughts on each here, as all that needs to be said is that they each give a different experience. While most of them use the standard "selection" style of play, where you just choose stuff on the screen, I am FLABBERGASTED that they included physics-based games like Plinko and Hole-in-One alongside the games with simplistic styles of play. The experience is surprisingly heightened by just how quickly you can get through the game as well. To play from Contestants Row to the Showcase only takes roughly 2-5 minutes, depending on how long you stay at the beginning and how much time you take to ponder the pricing game. Once it's over, you just want to get right back into it! It's the perfect pick-up-and-play game! Have a few minutes before something? Plug this in and have a quick playthrough! ...Just don't try to review it...
Replay Value: I've played this for HOURS UPON HOURS, trying to unlock everything, and even I haven't seen everything! There are SEVENTEEN different pricing games to unlock, meaning you have to play through round after round until you've come across and BEATEN every one of those games! And because of how random practically EVERYTHING in this game is, you're guaranteed a different experience each time! Even if you do play it until you've unlocked everything, there's still so much to see! Plus, gameplay is short, lasting only a few minutes, so nothing ever feels overly exhausting or stressful and you can pick it up and play whenever you want! It's a game that will have you coming back over and over again! ...Especially if you're trying to show off for a gameplay video...
Overall:
I freaking LOVE this game, and I think it's a hidden gem among the Plug n Play gaming niche. The graphics are great, the sound effects and music is spot on, the humor from the show(and the developers) is present, and there's just so much to this game! It's mostly guessing games, but such a wide variety of guessing games, along with the occasional physics-based games! Again, I would have LOVED if they actually had the wheel on the console spin to heighten the experience, but that's not enough to distract from just how much effort was put into this game! If you can find this game, and you're a fan of The Price is Right or game shows in general, I can't recommend it highly enough! Find a copy and discover that the price(whatever you paid for it) is indeed right!
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