New ParagonPro release

Nil Satis · Post by **Nil Satis** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 12:28 pm

Oh dear. My expectations weren't exactly high

so at least I wasn't disappointed:

Gone:

- Celebrity Millionaire - one of the few reasons to play the darn things!
- Quids for Grids
- something else (not sure yet)

New:

- Are You Smarter Than A 10 Year Old? - this at least is good news

- a Doctor Who game - £1 a go, mainly straight Q&A with a few skill games. Early impressions are that it's another Spiderman or Fantastic Four - all the development money has gone into the licensing and pretty pictures leaving a game that's far too hard for punters and where even winning a quid will take 20-30 questions, including a few stinkers along the way. My bet - this one will regenerate itself into something else very quickly.

- Trivia for Dummies Version 2 - the original version was decent enough before the Paragons got hold of it and made spotting even the £1 difference a lottery but this one looks even worse. Instead of spotting one book from a set of 12 you have to spot a number of books from a bookshelf of around 60 books which have certain subjects written vertically in really small writing on their spines. Finding them and pressing the very small areas on the screen in the time allowed will make winning even £1 an achievement. Basically it's another game in the dumper.

- The Phrase That Pays - didn't really have time to look at this one but it looks like some sort of word game where you have to Accept or Reject to say whether a set of words is a subset of a longer phrase.

Still there:

- all the utter dross that lingers like a bad smell - Pot the Lot, that terrible Snakes and Ladders game, the Treasure Island fiasco. Does anyone ever play this rubbish??

To prove that it's not all bad news, the nearby ItBox yielded a Fantasy Football Quiz £20 on goal difference. If only real football was like that eh?

Happy-Go-Lucky Nil

grecian · Post by **grecian** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 2:11 pm

Yes, I came across one of these last night, and one a couple of weeks ago. The departure of Celebrity WWTBAM struck me as the key point - very disappointing and rather baffling given the amount of outdated dross still to be found on Paragons. The new games didn't look enormously promising with the exception of AYSATYE?, which is good but not great. TFD2 is definitely hard: I think I came across an easy one: easy questions and I managed to fluke the prize game for £1; another load of easy questions and the next prize game (£2 or £3) required me to find four books on two different subjects. Maybe with practice this'll get easier, but maybe not. Doctor Who didn't look up to much and The Phrase That Pays, despite the evocative name, didn't, at least for me. QFG was still on the updated Paragon that I played, so maybe this was a one-off on Nil's cabinet. But WWTBAM had definitely gone from both. All in all a retrograde step, and one that's not going to change my increasingly long run of not really making much from the SWPs.

Istenem · Post by **Istenem** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 2:16 pm

don't think this is on a general paragon release (unless it happened overnight) but i have seen one such beastie in the wild.

would tend to agree with NS on most of his points: dr who-comissioned-that-piece-of-shite? is too complicated to even bother with. i'm sure it is has good production values but i can't be messing with sci-fi nonsense.

not sure Q4G has gone from the terminal i'm thinking of but there is a notable absentee across the stable of a certain game which (i hear) was getting a kicking from AWP boys.

TFD6 is not as bad as you make out, it seems to me that it is aimed at a group of lads who play together rather than the wandering pro. the endgame is tricky solo but i'd imagine it is a doddle with six eyes. and there are some nice touches in gameplay. completely unnecessary flourishes like the chalk droppings (which do get a bit annoying since they are always in the same place).

i like the phraze that pays despite the pseudo-wacky misspelling. it is just a memory game really but it has wit similar to PMP. it seems to me that the first prize increment is doable but tricky to get the next level after that. although i did balls it up when the only prize was at the top.

i personally wouldn't mourn WWTBAM, never really played that one but i can see that it might not be a popular relegation on here.

Istenem · Post by **Istenem** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 10:14 pm

TPTP seems doable. but also playable.
but they spelled phrase right. my bad.

a nice touch is giving correct strings for the previous answer.

dmac · Post by **dmac** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:43 am

civ77 · Post by **civ77** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 9:57 am

I've got 2 pubs that have had a second update which has removed a lot of games (and dropped to only 1 screen of 'more games'), at least one of them was an engineer update as she was working on the machine when I was there.

Word Soup and PMP have both gone, TPTP is a welcome addition but certainly not compensation enough for the loss of my previous favourites. I haven't been this disappointed with a paragon update since Fruit Frenzy was removed.

Istenem · Post by **Istenem** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 10:39 am

i don't like the sound of that Civ.
perhaps they are killing soup to make way for the triumphant return of Word Up. perhaps i am being wendy wouldbegood.

PMP has been around a long time with only one obvious update. i think enough people have got good enough at it now to balance out the numbnutses, but who knows? after weds i'll be done for the year in the day job so will have the chance for some recces.

is dr who worth playing? so far i've not looked at it.

fotherz · Post by **fotherz** » Sat Dec 13, 2008 8:26 pm

Istenem wrote:is dr who worth playing? so far i've not looked at it.

Seemed very hard to me. I'm sure QM will disagree.

Drpepper · Post by **Drpepper** » Sat Dec 13, 2008 11:17 pm

Are you smarter than a 10 year old is quite nice, we've had a few £4's out of it.

Incidentally did anyone ever win the £20 on celeb who wants to be a millionaire?? We never got more than £10.

fotherz · Post by **fotherz** » Sun Dec 14, 2008 2:02 am

Drpepper wrote:Are you smarter than a 10 year old is quite nice, we've had a few £4's out of it.

Yes, I find it quite easy to take small wins from.

I wonder how far up the prize column the real boys can climb.

grecian · Post by **grecian** » Sun Dec 14, 2008 10:08 am

Drpepper wrote:Are you smarter than a 10 year old is quite nice, we've had a few £4's out of it.

Incidentally did anyone ever win the £20 on celeb who wants to be a millionaire?? We never got more than £10.

Yes, £20JP on Celebrity WWTBAM is very takeable if the machine's paying, and with a bit of luck / balls. That's particularly so on the ItBox but it can be done on a Paragon if the game's had a bit of play from locals. GamesNet is rather harder because the endgame is slightly tougher on time - think my best there might be £10.

I've not had more than £10 on AYSTATYE?, but as someone else has said I wonder if the real boys are out there taking this for £50s. I noticed the other day that I got to £7 and played on as £10 was only two levels higher, but it straight away gave me a gamebreaker question and that was game over - so maybe it can quite effectively prevent higher prizes being won.