Countdown

[Matt Vinyl]

OK, not really a quiz machine, but I thought this forum would provide the best audience!

Anyone watching Countdown today with Des O'connor presenting? There's a kid who can't be much older that 8 or 9 and he's whooping ass! Vord couldn't get the numbers round, and he worked it out in the break!

Doesn't quite seem right with Mr 'Tango' sitting in the chair though...

[Scott]

Watchin it now, the best youngster i,ve seen is Connor Travers [think thats his name] he is shit hot.

[Nil Satis]

Apparently this kid (Bradley Cates) is an Evertonian. Say no more...

[rollem]

Yeah he got knocked off his block a few days ago. He was 11 and he was shit hot!!!

[cool]

The problem Ive got with countdown is the same as Ive got with scrabble.
Its great being able to create a 9 letter word , but if they cant explain what it means it shouldnt count.There are even scrabble books for saddos . Learning words without their meaning is pointless. Next there will be a programme based on listings in the yellow pages!

[Istenem]

The problem Ive got with countdown is the same as Ive got with scrabble.
Its great being able to create a 9 letter word , but if they cant explain what it means it shouldnt count.There are even scrabble books for saddos . Learning words without their meaning is pointless. Next there will be a programme based on listings in the yellow pages!

exactly right Cool. well said.
a word can have no value without a meaning (quintessentially being a case in point.)

i am a wordnerd and proud but i give up on scrabble. many online players get their seven tiles, type them into an anagrammer site and put the best word on the board. if they can't find a place for it they will play a ridiculous two-letter non-word which is only ever used on a scrabble board: XU, QI, ST, ZA* all that sort of rubbish. what an abject lack of enterprise.

* a word invented unashamedly for pathetic scrabble players who think nothing of cheating and have the wordgaming capacity of pondlife. it is an abbreviation for PIZZA which nobody has ever spoken or written. ZA might score 11 points on a scrabble board but it scores -50 points for your dignity.

[Cardinal Sin]

I do agree.

I was playing online Scrabble with Gran last night. He got in a huff when i played "EM", despite telling him what it meant.

[Mattb]

*dig up old thread alert*

I had a dabble on the Countdown SWP yesterday, spending a cool £4 having some fun as i'd won a bit from the fruits.

I really enjoyed playing it despite not winning anything. Came very close to £1 once. Obviously the letters game has lots of spoilers. I got 4 O's in one game....how is that fair?! Only managed a 5 letter word out of it. the numbers game (i think) are all possible to complete, but the closest i got was one away. When it shows how how its done, its no wonder its nigh on impossible in 30secs! Some ridiculous ways of getting to the number needed.

The conundrum itself is usually a difficult word. You don't even need to know it, you just hover the letters over a square, if it goes green, drop it in. More a game of speed really, and i managed to complete 2/3 conundrums without knowing the word!

I'd imagine this game is hard to win decent from though. I got plenty of 4 answer spolier questions when getting close to the money, so it was a bit disappointing in that regard. Definitely fun to play though!

[QuizMaster]

I've played this a couple of times. Thought it was a nice touch from whichever fifth columnist designed it when I got a conundrum (had no idea what it was but used the hover method to deduce)

Letters were MPCEARPYAG

Conundrum was : CRAPPYGAME

[theoak]

whats the hover method?

[Cardinal Sin]

Pick up the first letter, then move it over each of the 9 squares underneath. When it is hovering over the correct square, it will turn from red to green, so you can simply let go of it and go onto the next word.

Quizmaster: Is that a touch of sarcasm I detect? Or did the machine really give you a 10-letter joke conundrum instead of the normal 9?

[Istenem]

Quizmaster being sarcastic? Heaven forfend.

i like this game despite it being tight. i hold the current world record for the numbers game: 0.8 seconds to get 106 by adding 6 to 100.

haven't managed a 9-letter word yet though.

i would sooner put my 50p into an itbox and play this without winning than play nuts or something for a guaranteed win of £2.

here is my prediction:

this game will last longer on the titbox than any straight Q&A game simply because it has more appeal to the casual player.

if i lose £4 on this while i'm having a pint i couldn't care less. it offers some entertainment.

[theoak]

Pick up the first letter, then move it over each of the 9 squares underneath. When it is hovering over the correct square, it will turn from red to green, so you can simply let go of it and go onto the next word.

Quizmaster: Is that a touch of sarcasm I detect? Or did the machine really give you a 10-letter joke conundrum instead of the normal 9?

haha, im guessing by the actual conundrum, a *hint* of sarcasm may have been involved.

[grecian]

I think Countdown is enjoyable, but I suspect they've once again weakened its long term appeal by making it virtually impossible to win more than £2 or £3 in a single game, and making it a real gamble to continue playing after one has won a prize (because you can only take the money at prize levels and not in between). Whilst gameplay is very important, the promise of real reward has to be there as well, as it has been on all the real blockbuster games of recent years (WWTBAM, Link, DOND).

I'd played it on the GamesNet quite a bit before it was ported across to the ItBox and I think they've made the IB version harder in several respects (per treatment of various other games). The points targets are generally more demanding - typically nearer 2000 points for £1 on the IB as compared to nearer 1000 on the GN. Also, as I think UP noted previously on this forum, the dictionary has been considerably enlarged, which in particular means that conundra are, 9 times out of 10, wilfully obscure words which can only be obtained by use of the hover method, with which I've not yet managed to score more than 100 points because of the time it takes. On the GN, the dictionary was small, and obscure conundra were pretty rare.

On the plus side I like the scoreboard feature on the IB version and I also admire the way they've implemented the numbers game, which from my experience is easy to bog up in an electronic setting.

I've not got a 9 on it yet but I narrowly missed a 9 on one the other day - can't remember what it was, though.

[QuizMaster]

Would have been good if that had happened though. What gave it away? The 10 letters?

Still, it's the thought that counts...........