Gamesnet new games - John Parrott and Robin Hood
Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2009 12:01 pm
Gamesnet really seem to have given up the ghost - I never thought I'd see the day when they were so far down in 4th place (after ItBoxes, Paragons and Opens in whatever order you like) or even 5th place (below the harder-to-find Indegos).
Their latest quiz offerings are a case in point:
John Parrott's Sports Quiz
Despite JP being a fellow Evertonian I can't be kind to this one. It's a strange hybrid of Ronnie O'Sullivan's Rocket Money (in look and feel) and Hi-Spy (in gameplay - moving up a vertical 'tower' in jumps of 1, 2 or 3 moves). It seems to have two modes - the Rocket Money one of ridiculously hard questions appearing only two or three moves in or trivially easy until you get to £3 or £4 (on the £1 a go version) and then giving you the ridiculously difficult questions. As with Rocket Money this is a decent idea but very badly misjudged in terms of question difficulty for the average punter.
Robin Hood's Quiz Quest
You move around a board with a target number of points, gaining points with each move, with the points values and target being very similar to Monopoly. There is also a Skill feature which is a simple version of the darts scoring from Bullseye. As for what happens when you reach the points target, sadly I've no idea! - despite 10+ attempts in three venues last night I wasn't able to get there. What happens on every go is that around 1500 points away from the target it blatantly moves into a killer question set and that is pretty much that.
Overall the Gamesnets have now reverted to where ItBoxes were a couple of years ago, namely that DOND is the only quiz game worth playing and if that's already been done they aren't worth crossing a crowded pub for.
Their latest quiz offerings are a case in point:
John Parrott's Sports Quiz
Despite JP being a fellow Evertonian I can't be kind to this one. It's a strange hybrid of Ronnie O'Sullivan's Rocket Money (in look and feel) and Hi-Spy (in gameplay - moving up a vertical 'tower' in jumps of 1, 2 or 3 moves). It seems to have two modes - the Rocket Money one of ridiculously hard questions appearing only two or three moves in or trivially easy until you get to £3 or £4 (on the £1 a go version) and then giving you the ridiculously difficult questions. As with Rocket Money this is a decent idea but very badly misjudged in terms of question difficulty for the average punter.
Robin Hood's Quiz Quest
You move around a board with a target number of points, gaining points with each move, with the points values and target being very similar to Monopoly. There is also a Skill feature which is a simple version of the darts scoring from Bullseye. As for what happens when you reach the points target, sadly I've no idea! - despite 10+ attempts in three venues last night I wasn't able to get there. What happens on every go is that around 1500 points away from the target it blatantly moves into a killer question set and that is pretty much that.
Overall the Gamesnets have now reverted to where ItBoxes were a couple of years ago, namely that DOND is the only quiz game worth playing and if that's already been done they aren't worth crossing a crowded pub for.
ops: 
Mr Parrott will be almost unknown soon.