I've been looking forward to this game for quite some time. The gaming industry has been crying out for a decent version of Deal or No Deal, as every version so far seems to have fallen short of what anyone would call decent gameplay.
At last, I thought, the Wii version is going to right the wrongs of past efforts. How wrong was I!
It's as if nobody tested the game before releasing it. Opening £10,000 as your first box causes Noel to exclaim, "That is catastrophic!".
I had a round of £250,000 and two blues only for Noel to say "Wow! An all blue round!"
Contestants often boo at high blues, even though they are good. In fact, they seem to boo at any box reveal that is in the top half of the values left. For example, on a 50k, 35k, 20k and 5 blues board, revealing £500 would be booed if it was the highest blue left.
Unforgivably, you cannot play as your Mii, which seems utterly ridiculous.
While the offers are mostly well-pitched (about the same or slightly higher than offers the banker currently makes on tv), they are so obviously mathematically calculated, resulting in offers like £12,610 or £3,460 all the time.
Noel's conversations with the banker needn't be there. All he does is pick up the phone and say "Hello Banker". No attempt to add any humour to the proceeding is attempted, resulting in very dry games. Occasionally, somebody on the wings will do a dance if they've opened a good or bad box, but these are so badly done that you wonder why they bothered.
Admittedly, I've not played at being the banker or on multi-player mode as yet. But I'm not holding my breath based on solo player mode.
Avoid this game like the plague!