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There are few games so bad that getting angry at them is warranted, butTV Show King manages to be one of them. I want to give the benefit of the doubt to Gameloft and believe the game got rushed out the door, or that perhaps they just haven't learned how to properly develop for console hardware as powerful as the Wii yet. After all, Gameloft's usual specialty is casual titles for mobile platforms, which are hardly going to demand a lot of voice acting or compensating for what the game is going to look like in 16:9 aspect ratio.

That said, TV Show King falls into the upper end of the WiiWare price range, and I can't find it in me to take it easy on this game when the same $10 it costs could snag you LostWinds, Pop, or Defend Your Castle instead. The mobile market to some extent represents a captive audience that tends to accept corner-cutting and game limitations as a basic problem of their hardware. WiiWare doesn't work the same way and GameLoft can't afford to approach their titles as if it did.

Anyway, review behind the cut. Really, it's much more restrained than this! Sort of.

Generic But Legally Distinct Show King

TV Show King lets you play either a multiplayer game show with up to three other players, or a solo Quiz Attack mode where you answer questions until you get one wrong and post a high score. It features 3000 questions, which sounds like a lot. Actually youll begin seeing repeats within the first hour of play.

Game show mode features a variety of lengths and difficulty levels that all feel the same. Players answer questions in multiple-choice format each round. Whoever selects an answer first gets the full cash prize for the question, but other players can also pick the same answer and receive slightly less money. The game ends with a quiz duel between the two players with the most cash.

Between rounds, you can choose to spin a wheel that offers random cash penalties and bonuses depending on where it stops. The effects are far too powerful, ranging from making you lose all of your money to instantly doubling your cash. You can even lose money to someone elses spin.

Otherwise the game looks and feels cheap. TV Show King does feature full Mii support, but everything else is terrible. Characters move stiffly and theres a freeze glitch you can trigger by trying to spin the wheel. The hosts voice clips are amusing at first, but you go through them all in your first game.

Multiplayer quiz show is a dead-simple premise that should be easy to pull off in a $10 game. Theres no excuse for TV Show King to be this bad. Other WiiWare titles offer players much more for even less money.

PROS: Mii support, and& uh&

CONS: Wheel makes game outcomes basically random; questions begin repeating quickly; poor graphics; you want ten bucks for this?!

GRAPHICS: 3.0

SOUND: 2.0

CONTROL: 3.0

FUN FACTOR: 2.0

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