TV Games
£7.95

Are you one of these people who sits in front of the telly watching game shows and says: 'I could do better than that'? Whatever you say you can now play Bob's Full House, that popular (?) BBC game show, on your Spectrum.

According to the inlay 'hours of family entertainment' is guaranteed as you play through the three rounds of the TV show, with the winner going onto the grand final.

The first round is open to all contestants and the objective is to light the four corners of your bingo card. Each of the four contestants (some can be the computer) has a button on the keyboard as a buzzer and once pressed the answer has to be keyed in word perfect. II you get an answer wrong you are 'wallied' and cannot answer the next question (it's good if you play with Skippy because he's always been a wally).

Round two is identical to round one except that this time you have to light up all the squares in the middle row. The third is where you go for a full house and light up all the lights on your card.

The first person to get a full house goes on to the big finish, Bob's Golden Card. If you have ever watched the programme on TV you will know that the contestant has 60 seconds to answer as many questions as possible. Each time they get one right they are asked to choose a number of a square. Some squares give that amount in money and others give a letter. The letters make up the name of a holiday destination - your prize.

It all sounds great fun, doesn't it? The computer version holds little long term appeal as the questions repeat themselves very quickly. The pictures of the contestants and bingo cards are average, but graphics are not that important in a quiz game. There are basic sound effects during the game but no tune. Bob's Full House is great as a television programme and had potential as a computer game but the lack of questions really lets it down.

NICK

While aesthetically quite pleasing, with animated contestants and an amusing caricature of Mr Monkhouse, the game offers little in the way of entertainment. It knows hardly any questions; you can get the same question three of four times in one game quite easily, and frankly the game's whole design is pathetic. Like all computer quiz show tie-ins, Bobs Full House simply does not muster up any sense of achievement on the player's part, more so in one-player mode. Basically, this is one TV licence Domark should have left alone.
MIKE

TV Games (Domark)
£7.95 cass
Reviewer: Marcus Berkmann

Game shows? I love 'em. And of the 546 currently shown on British TV, there's none better than Bob's Full House, as presided over by Mr Sincerity himself, Bob Monkhouse. "Certainly is, Marcus (eyebrow quivers), and I wonder (cheek twitches) if you can tell me (right eye pops out) what is the capital of Botswana (gleaming smile)? No, I'm afraid you're wallied..." And so on.

So why is it so good? Well. It doesn't have Henry Kelly in for a start, nor Nick Owen, nor Richard Countdown Whitely - yup, it's Bob himself. He's fast, he's slick, he's smoother than a whippet's jobby, and he asks those questions so quickly you don't have time to realise that most of the contestants have IQs so low it's fairly staggering that they can breathe and talk at the same time. So would you like the CD player or the all-in-one hoover-and-hi-fi-video...?

Domark, in its usual clever way, has decided that the world would be much poorer (as indeed would it) it it did not convert all this fun and jollity into a Speccy game for up to four players, and thus Bob's Full House has arrived encased in the usual double cassette box. Now at this stage you'll probably know whether you're going to be interested in this or not. Do you like quizzes? Can you spell 'Manchester United'? And do you really want to go on holiday in Malawi"?

Of course the prizes in this Speccy version of the game are purely theoretical, a point that has been stressed in the instructions, just in case some clever Trevor writes in and insists on actually going to Malawi at Domark's expense. But as quiz games go, this is pretty good - providing, that is, you play it with friends. Unlike Triv, this one's pretty dull for one player.

So, there are four of you with your fingers on the buzzers (well, certain buttons on the Speccy). First Bob asks you some quickfire quezzies to fill up your corners (remember, it's a bingo game and you've got a card of numbers to fill up) When one of you has all four corners lit up, you move to the second round, in which you each get questions in turn and seek to light your middle row (you get a choice of subjects for each number - you can also take other people's questions if they get them wrong). After that it's fingers on the buzzer time again as you try to fill up the rest of your card. If you get there first, bingo!

Or rather, you get to Bob's Golden Card and a chance to win a holiday. Here you have questions thrown at you with a time limit in which to answer them. Every time you get one right, you select a number on the card, behind which there's either that number's value in quiddies or a letter. Pull all the letters together in the time allowed and that's your holiday destination!

Well it's not, of course, which comes as something of a disappointment however often you play the game, but it's no less difficult for all that. The computer is genuinely random about where it puts the letters (as opposed, I've always suspected, to it's TV equivalent), so more often than not you'll get it wrong. Challenging stuff.

As indeed is the main gameplay.W hen you've buzzed your buzzer to answer a question, you don't get a multiple choice of answers but just a number of dashes which show you how many letters the answer has. You then have to type in the answer, which assumes that you can spell reasonably well. Certainly this may be seen to discriminate against readers of other Speccy mags I could mention, but I'm sure YS fans will have no trouble.

Against the computer this is all a little on the easy side, but against your mates it's a giggle. My only real complaint is that questions do seem to crop up again and again - I've been asked whose backing group the Jordanaires were at least three times so far, which seems a little careless - but perhaps booster packs will eventually be made available (well, either that or they won't). but on the whole it's a well programmed and entertaining quiz game - certainly better than Triv.

Well played, Domark.

Spectrum 48/128 £7.95
Amstrad CPC £7.95
Commodore 64/128 £7.95

'FIVE AND SEVEN, FIFTY-SEVEN...'

Anyone remember the good old days of Celebrity Squares, when Bob had just began his career as a quiz show host? From the money-filled briefcase of that glorified noughts and crosses via Mr Babbage, the Family Fortunes display computer, Mr Monkhouse has reached the dubious heights of hosting Opportunity Knocks, so Bob Says. Then, of course, there's his Full House...

For one to four players. the computer makes up for any lacking numbers. Each player has a bingo card with 15 numbers which are lit by answering various factual but often trivial questions.

In round one, the aim is to light the four corners of your bingo card. A question is asked in the text area at the bottom of the screen and the first person to press their buzzer (an allotted key) enters the answer via the keyboard. To help you, the answer is marked out with dashes and spaces (like Hangman). An incorrect answer throws the question open to the buzzer again and you're 'wallied - unable to answer the next question. These rules also apply to rounds two and three.

The middle line of your card is the target in round two, where each player is asked questions individually. Card numbers correspond to different categories (which change occasionally), so the number you chose determines the subject.

It's a free-for-all, quick-fire round next until someone completes their card and wins the game. They go on to the Golden Bingo Card, where there are 15 questions to answer in one minute. On a correct answer the clock stops and a number nominated to either gain the equivalent in cash or reveal a letter. The letters, with luck, eventually spell out the location of a holiday.

As opposed to A Question Of Sport, Bobs Full House vanes little from just straightforward questions and answers so is easy to translate effectively to computer. Clear displays of bingo cards and questions are all that's necessary to capture the essence of playing Bob's game but TV Games have put a heavy emphasis on keyboard skills: multiple choice answers would have been far superior for most gamesplayers.

The questions themselves are loaded separately from the main program - much waiting is involved here. This would be bearable if not for the fact that the questions soon repeat themselves, a fault which will hopefully be rectified with question data-cassettes.

As a one-player game, Bob's Full House is of little interest, but with friends the competitive spirit jollies things along for a while. Ultimately, the limited question range and essential typing skills spoil the possible value of the product. Sorry, TV Games, you've been wallied.