“1 VS 100″ and “Wheel of Fortune” Come to the iPhone and iPod Touch

Good news for all you iPhone or iPod Touch users like myself.  Gameloft and Sony have come out with two fantastic new game shows for the system based off of Wheel of Fortune and NBC’s 1 VS 100.  I’ll start with the better one first.  Shockingly 1 VS 100 is by far the better game and, to be quite honest, the best over-all game show game released for the iPhone.

The game follows the rules of the actual good version perfectly.  It uses the three-questions-at-$1,000; two-questions-at-$2,000; one-question-at-$3,000-to-$10,000 format which was by far the best before NBC and Endemol decided they wanted a millionaire more than anything.  The three helps (Ask the Mob, Poll the Mob, Trust the Mob) are there for your disposal and, again, work exactly like the show.  The real nice part is the great lengths they went to to make the game look like the show.  They brought in the real version of the great music from the show, the great graphics, a fully rendered 3D set, a host, and more.  The best part is probably the fact that the questions are like the show’s difficulty at that point in time (before NBC and Endemol got rid of the good writers) so it’s very hard to win.  It’s going to take a lot of time.  Obviously it’s not the same as playing 100 real people, but it’ll take you a good 15-20 questions to win if you can survive that long.  It’s only $4.99 and there are over a thousand questions.  I’ve played it a lot and I haven’t repeated one yet, which the Millionaire iPhone game has a problem with.  I can’t recommend the game enough for fans of the show, game show fans, or just straight trivia fans.  It’s one of the best quiz games for the iPhone, period.  Click here to go to the game’s page.

Then comes Wheel of Fortune which is  a bit confusing.  They actually follow the rules of the current show pretty well.  You get the two toss-ups, all the special wedges like the Jackpot and Mystery, and items like that.  You also get the Million Dollar Wedge thrown in which is a nice touch.  The puzzles are tricky and fun.  You actually spin the wheel by dragging it with your finger.  The only negatives are with the presentation.  The graphics are a bit cheap looking, but they do the job.  It looks like the show and it looks like the actually made an effort, more than the Deal or No Deal game developers did, so there’s credit to them there.  The real negative comes from the confusing sound effects and music.  The game doesn’t use any of the sounds of the show.  It’s basically either all sound-alike effects or music cues which don’t really come from the show and sound like they were played through a really crappy cell phone and not good headphones.  The game was licensed by Sony; it’s not like they couldn’t just ask for the effects.  But the game’s got a ton of puzzles.  I’ve yet to repeat any.  It’s a very entertaining quick game for $4.99.  Pick it up if you get a few free bucks.  Click here to get it.