Deluxe handheld game from 2005

[Gary Male]

The story so far: Gary has been driven increasingly insane by the quests bestowed upon him by Eurystheus as punishment for injecting his wife and three kids with arse-aids in a previous life. Having killed the Nemean ZX Spectrum game, and destroyed the Lernaean PC 1994 version, Gary set his sights on the Ceryneian handheld version from 2000. Despite this nearly being his downfall Gary continues his Heraclean (you read that right. Hercules was a complete shit. Heracles was much better.) task by trying the capture the Erymanthian Deluxe handheld version.

Yes, it's the 2005 Deluxe version of the handheld game. It's still by Lexibook but the screen is massive widescreen with a proper dot matrix display akin to a Gameboy, and the Expert and High Score buttons actually have Expert and Score written on them. Plus the battery compartment clips open without needing to pop into Woolworths* (what? Oh, yeah) for a new set of minitools. Could this be the first piece of non-tat I've reviewed?

Well, in 5 years Moore's law suggests that the speed of the processor should have doubled about 3 times so a letters game solution should take about 5 seconds or so. And lo, it does! Other than that the main game is identical to the previous handheld version except instead of 9 tortuous rounds it plays the new format of 15 excrutiating rounds. Even the dictionary is the same complete with lack of LEOPARDS. But there's a twist - Instead of turning a dial on the back of the machine to control the contrast and volume, this all has to be done from the Expert menu before the game starts. So if there's a sudden change of lighting conditions or you suddenly remember how bloody awful the clock music is halfway through a game, you're stuffed.

What about the prominent, logical LEDs I liked so much from before? Gone, replaced with inlaid dim LEDs of blue, white and red. Yes, that really makes sense.

I picked up on the normal handheld model that the numbers target was hardly in the spirit of CECIL. Well, with a 6-small selection of 10, 9, 7, 3, 1, 1 the Deluxe model felt that a target of 85 was suitable. 85? Hmm! I will assume it's the same on the normal version because I would rather eat a slice of ebola pie than run enough games to get empirical evidence that it's the same.

So what's new? Surely destroying the sound contrast and time display isn't enough to make a machine a Deluxe model? Well, there's the ability to create a custom game. Want a classic 9-rounder? No problem. Want the 14-round grand final format? Simple. A conundrum attack? Well, you can only have 16 rounds but ok. Big plus points there. But that's not all. Some of the rules of the rounds can be changed. Rounds can last anywhere between 30 seconds and 2 minutes. Letters games can be made to only let you score if you offer a word of at least a certain length (between 2 and 6 letters are the minimums on offer), plus letters games can be deemed as conundrum games. Yes, really. There's a guaranteed niner in every round with that mode turned on, lower length words still count. Of course you can't choose the letters yourself. For the numbers you can customise the scoring system. I like 10 points for within 3, 7 points for within 10, and 5 points for within 7. Nice and logical there.

The other big feature is the TV Challenge mode. Ever wondered how you'd fare against the TV contestants, but are too lazy to use a pencil and paper to keep score? Then why not use the machine! Just enter the 9 letters selected (taking care not to accidentally enter the space character. Yes, really. You can enter a space in the letters game), tap in your words, let the computer choose the longest valid one for you, then, er, get a pencil and paper to write down what the contestants have. And your own score because it is still only a 1-player mode really.

But the numbers game just got a whole lot more exciting, as it now has to have the ability to solve a game. Let's see how it gets on with 100, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Target 101. "Please Wait, Searching for the best solution" flashes up for a fraction of a second followed by the answer, impressive. A solution of 100+(5-(4/(3-(2/1)))). Er, impressive? BEST solution? It found a solution, and offered it, so that's something I suppose but it's hardly going to be the simplest solution each time.

Best not to leave the machine alone during an ad-break, as it is prone to timing out wiping the precious game so far. Another classic design feature there.

Ploughing on to round, er, something (It's ok Lexibook, no-one wants to know what round number you're up to. That's just for people who want to know how much longer this torture will last). and the lack of ability to turn off the sound is really grating. The proper clock music on the telly combined with the dreadful sample on the machine is a cockophony (you read that right as well).

Numbers again, let's give it something to really attack. 100, 75, 50, 25, 7, 3 Target 605. I solve it instantly because I'm the greatest numbers player in living memory** but how long will the handheld take? If you answered 2 minutes 18 seconds then you're wrong. As if it would take that long, you idiot. It took 2 minutes 20 seconds. There's an obvious joke I could make here but to be fair the machine is doing very well in a high pressure situation and I have nothing but respect for its work. Let he who programmed something that can solve every numbers game perfectly within 30 seconds cast the first stone. It's still shitslow though.

But what about when there's no exact solution such as for 100, 25, 10, 10, 1, 1 Target 857? Well, after 2 minutes and 20 seconds it just says "Cannot find solution!" Ah, but can it get 1 away? We'll never know. Because I'm not going to enter 2 more numbers games for 856 and 858.

As for the conundrum, is there really any point to entering the jumble then getting the full 30 seconds count down to enter your solution? "Ooh, the jumble is HEARDBANK, I'd better type that in without trying to solve it and ignore the contestant buzzing in to say HANDBRAKE. Oh, shit." A truly dire implementation to round off a shitstain of a mode.

Overall, I heartily recommend this to any and all Countdown fans worldwide.

What?

and suddenly the stormclouds parted. On the horizon was a game by a mysterious woman called Soo Reams. Could this be what the world has been looking for in a Countdown game? Will it run a full game without me deciding that being removed from the thing that is life is preferable? And will I be disappointed, shocked, disgusted and slightly aroused when I go to cop a feel of the programmer?






*How did they get almost £400,000,000 in debt? Was Rachel Riley on accounts?***

** Or I saw that numbers round at COLIN and solved it in about 3 minutes. But which sounds better?

*** that's a joke before anyone gets uppity. She's doing very well in a high-pressure etc

[Charlie Reams]

and suddenly the stormclouds parted. On the horizon was a game by a mysterious woman called Soo Reams. Could this be what the world has been looking for in a Countdown game? Will it run a full game without me deciding that being removed from the thing that is life is preferable? And will I be disappointed, shocked, disgusted and slightly aroused when I go to cop a feel of the programmer?

I'll be totally disappointed if you don't rip my old game to shreds, that's what makes these reviews so entertaining!

[Ben Wilson]

Whenever I read Gary's reviews I am reminded of this guy, possibly the only videogame reviewer actually worth a shit nowadays.

[Matt Morrison]

Whenever I read Gary's reviews I am reminded of this guy, possibly the only videogame reviewer actually worth a shit nowadays.

Apart from the fact that he's clearly trying very, very, painfully hard to be like Charlie Brooker, quite good. Cheers for the link.