Review of Blockbusters Interactive

Introduction

Oh dear! I should have learnt by now that, in general, DVD games just don`t cut the mustard. I bought the `Catchphrase` game last year and it was so slow-moving that everyone gave up the will to live before the game was through.

The `Blockbusters` DVD game follows on the drearily optimistic idea that, because you can create a tree-menu for DVD`s, that some judicious editing and creativity will somehow compensate for the medium`s shortcomings - the interminable wait between each section. As a consequence, `Blockbusters` ends up feeling like a frustrating pub quiz, where the gaps between questions are enough to drive the punters to drink. Which, in that case, may not be such a bad thing…

The producers have managed to get the hairsprayed king of the quiz, Bob Holness to do the voice-over honours here, with a cluster of spurious voices asking for the next letter (with the `I`ll have a P Bob` `I`ll have an E Bob` studiously avoided …).

The DVD tries to reflect the format of the original show and two teams compete to make a row letters across the Blockbusters board. The first player to win two rounds out of three is then invited to play the legendary `Gold Run`.

Blockbusters was piloted in the UK in the early 1980s and has the historic cache of being the first show to run on British television five times a week.

Video

Photoshop graphics - all nudging the cheesy end of the games look spectrum.

Audio

Reasonable though nothing special. Though why would you expect them to be?

Features

Nothing beyond the game itself.

Conclusion

`Blockbusters` ran for over a decade (throughout the eighties and very early nineties) and was a smash-hit with the student population in particular, so this may well be aimed with that group in mind, with enough water under the bridge for this to have some sweet nostalgic appeal for some.

Several Blockbusters quiz books have been published and a successful board game was made in 1989. All of these sold well and there`s no reason to imagine that this won`t do good business this Christmas. Unfortunately, I predict a few disappointed punters giving up well before they get anywhere near the legendary `Gold Run`.

In truth, the game lacks the fun and atmosphere of the real thing and the complete absence of prizes will surely seal this disc`s fate - to be put aside sometime during the Christmas festivities until it can be passed on during next summer`s car boot season.

Avoid.