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The $1,000,000 Pyramid
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Graphics & Sound:
I must be getting old, because I actually remember when this was called The $25,000 Pyramid and I have memories of The $10,000 Pyramid board game from trips to see my extended family. At such a young age, the TV show mystified me a bit: a pitch black set with a strange pyramid, people frantically motioning and waving while trying their best not to say a certain word. Now that we're in the future and I can play the futuristic one million dollar version, well, I understand what's going on, go me. But I'm not sure much progress has been made in this game version. In fact, it seems like a step back from the board game version.
There's nothing particularly stunning about the look of The $1,000,000 Pyramid. The set of the gameshow is comprised of loads of metal supports with triangular braces. The pyramid theme is echoed throughout nicely, but the problem is, it's jagged and pixelated looking. Really, your first instinct is to look away. Get past that, and the characters you play the game with are actually kind of charming. Everyone is bright-eyed and enthusiastic. There's a cartoon look, but it skips the Mii route and goes for a more detailed look. The clothing is pretty, well, strange. There's an affinity for 80's styled parachute pants that don't flatter even these cartoon models.
The sound isn't much better. There's a generic game show track, which at no point bears any resemblance to the original theme music. During the game itself, there's very little music at all, almost simply silence. It leaves things a bit eerie and quiet. Worst of all, however, is the lack of any voice acting for the clues themselves. Granted, this could have made the game a massive undertaking. Still, you have to guess the clue from text alone. You miss the nuance and the inflection of spoken word. You're basically playing a glorified crossword puzzle. The announcer, even with all his enthusiasm, can't save this part of the game. |
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Gameplay:
In The $1,000,000 Pyramid, one player on a team tries to guess a word based on clues from their teammate. It's basically charades, but you can talk. Well, these characters can't talk, but they can silently give you text clues and meaningless hand waving gestures to help you guess a word.
Much of my issue with The $1,000,000 Pyramid lies with the lack of spoken clues. Any fan of the show remembers an exchange that would go something like, "Old McDonald had a ..." "FARM!" the other person would exclaim. This video game version makes itself a lot harder by not using hints like these. Instead, your hints will be lists of words. You can wait for all the hints to display, but that wastes precious time. You can buzz in and start typing your answer before you have all the hints, if you don't need any more of them. During the answering phase of the game, you have unlimited time, but the hints will be obscured, so you'll have to go from memory.
I was really curious as to how the multiplayer would work in this game. I'm not sure why I had any hope that it was going to suddenly be something different, but I guess I did. Turns out, it's basically the same game, but your second human player is on the opposing team. It's still the same computer feeding you clues, the same careful typing in of answers, you just take turns. This is not to say you can't have a great time playing the multiplayer. I found myself taking the role of the TV show contestant and giving better, more human hints when my human opponent's computer partner was just not making enough sense. Doesn't make for a very competitive game, but it's still fun. This is probably why the party game is more fun, as anyone can buzz in at any time to take a guess. If you want to make your own teams in this case, no one is stopping you. |
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Difficulty:
As much as it would help to have spoken clues, the game is not very hard. The $1,000,000 Pyramid's computer teams are pretty bad at the game, and give you plenty of leeway to come out ahead. This stuff is all pretty artificial, mind you. The opposing team just pops up a score for each round. The round isn't even mock-played, they just skip to the score. I am not complaining, but there you go, you're just competing against an arbitrary score. Usually the computer only scores 1 or 2 points, which is pretty easy to beat, depending on how useful your hints are.
The difficulty is, of course, determined by the hints given. Some of them will really leave you scratching your head. Some of them are downright misleading. Nevermind the fact that your computer partner has nothing in the way of body language (they will cycle through a few random hand waving gestures every now and then). After playing a few games, however, you'll probably get into the right mindset for the game and learn to ignore the misleading hints. You'll get a feel for the way the clues are written, essentially. |
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Game Mechanics:
The $1,000,000 Pyramid has you selecting categories and typing in your answers as your only interaction. That's pretty simple, and easy enough for the Wii's capabilities. The onscreen keyboard did seem a tad small and hard to type with, but that's made up for with the game's predictive auto-completion. If you put in "fa," then "family" and "famous" will pop up as options. I have to say, it would be a much more frustrating game without this option, especially when different forms of the same word are not always accepted as correct answers. Having to type in the same word several times just to try all the different forms would be frustrating to say the least. Also, the auto-complete feature means that you instantly know if a word is a possible answer. If "bull" does not produce "bullet" as an option, then it's just not the answer.
I can't say that this game will have instant appeal to any party audience. You've got to be a pretty good speller, and you've got to have a knack for word games. There's a lot of fun to be had in helping out your human partner/foe, but that's not really built into the game. The game itself could have been a little more robust, with some more incentives to win (you can win items of clothing, but that's just... silly), or at least some more modes of gameplay. Still, it's not a bad way to play some $1,000,000 Pyramid (or $10,000, or $25,000, or whatever you remember the best) with your friends.
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-Fights with Fire, GameVortex Communications AKA Christin Deville |
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