Wheel of Fortune

Who doesn’t love a bit of Wheel of Fortune? I was kind of surprised at just how many games based on this hit TV have been released over the years. The one we are taking a closer look at today was released in 1994 for the PC and the Sega CD. To be honest with you, there is only so much you can do with a license like this, but I must say that I feel they captured the show fairly well.

Win Big Or Go Home

One of the things that games based on TV shows like this struggle with are the stakes. You see, you do not actually win any money (it would be awesome if you did) so you never feel pressured or stressed when you play. Wheel of Fortune sees you pick from one of a number of different people. They are all digitized and you can change their name which is kind of cool. You pick your character and then you try to win.

Digitized Goodness

The presentation on offer here is… ok. I have played a more recent game based on Wheel of Fortune and I was amazed at how close to the show that was. Here, the presentation makes use of digitized characters, even Vana White! They look decent enough, but the rest of the game is very bland. It is all done in these windows which look like the default windows that were used on PCs in the mid-90s. The characters do move, but one thing I find funny is that when Vana has to turn a letter over, they did not even animate her doing it. She just walks past it and the letter turns. It may not be “authentic” but I must admit I did find it very funny.

Just Like The Show

I just realized that not everyone reading this may know how to play Wheel of Fortune. The basics are you spin the wheel to hopefully land on a bug money amount. You then pick a constantan and you need to try and solve the puzzle. You can guess, buy a vowel and do most of the other stuff that you see on TV. There are thousands of puzzles here so the chances of you getting the same one over and over again are very slim. You play against two other opponents. The AI is not bad, they get things right more than they get them wrong so they put up a decent enough challenge. The real fun of this game is playing it with other people. On the Sega CD, this is awesome as you just pass the controller around, sitting hunched around a monitor with the PC version is doable, but not as much fun in my opinion.

Are there better games based on Wheel of Fortune than this one? I would have to say that yes there are. However, to be fair, this was one of (if not the) first games based on the show that made use of digitized characters so that is cool. It may lack the flash of the games that followed it, but the actual gameplay does closely resemble the TV show.

Pros:

• You get to see a digitized Vana White
• I am pretty sure Vana White in this game has magic powers!
• It plays just like the TV show
• I liked how you could play as a digitized character
• It is fun to play with your friends

Cons:

• The single-player gets boring pretty quickly
• It is more suited to multiplayer on the Sega CD than the PC