The first time you load up The Price is Right 2010 iPhone app (99 cents) and hear that classic game show jingle, it’s hard not to dismiss whatever could be wrong with this iPhone game and just enjoy the nostalgia trip. A few hours of time later and you won’t be able to deny TPIR2010’s faults entirely, but there’s still a lot here for fans of the show to enjoy.
For starters, the atmosphere of the show is captured fairly well here. The music and visuals do a great job of recreating the oddly retro set that has existed for as long as I can remember. I always used to wonder as a kid whether The Price is Right was just some syndicated show from the 70s thanks to the set; but now that I’m older, I’m quite fond of the retro callback.
Even the prizes are inserted gracefully. Little videos pop up with themed prize packages for all of the games, just like on TV. The prizes aren’t quite endless, but they do seem to switch a small handful of them around for each game. Months of playing and you’d probably have the game down perfectly, but there should be enough variety to keep things interesting for a short while.
As for the actual game play, there are two modes of play. There’s the standard game that plays out just like the TV show and another called “three strikes” where you play the standard show over and over until you have three strikes, where strikes are given for losing at specific games during the show.
Both modes play out similarly, and both can be played with up to three other players on the same iPhone. Players choose pre-made avatars when they play. The level of customization you’re provided is left to your name and the amount of excitement you want your avatar to display when you play. While disappointing, it seems the developer’s focus was on re-creating the games more than anything else in the iPhone game.
On the downside, there’s no online multi-player via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. Additionally, pricing for some of these items seems pretty crazy. The price packages during the Showcase should be worth far more than they end up being. It can be frustrating to miss out on a prize because the game’s value was way off.
There is also no way to play individual games, so if you’d like to just play the golf prize game indefinitely, you’re out of luck unless it’s one of the randomly chosen games you play during one of the regular modes.
Problems aside, this is still a fun recreation of an absolutely classic game show. If you’re not a huge fan of the show to begin with, you won’t be missing out by skipping the iPhone app, but if you love the show, 99 cents isn’t much of a price to pay to re-create the Price is Right experience on your iPhone.
