The Price is Right 2010 Edition

I waited to get TPIR 2010 edition after reading good reviews about the previous edition.

Let's break it down:

Graphics: Nothing special. It appears that this game, along with Press Your Luck and Family Feud 2010 all have the same basic graphics. Good but not great.

Fun: I really enjoyed the pricing games for actual products- and actual video from the game show. My only complaint is me wanting to be more accurate in the pricing games- for instance they show you a bag of IAMS cat food and ask you to price it. I have 2 cats- I know cat food, but I didn't know what size bag they were talking about, and ended up being way off in the price. It is minor details like that that can be a bit frustrating, especially if you consider yourself a pretty good shopper!
I played this game alone and with my husband. If you play alone you get two options: three strikes mode and classic mode.
Classic Mode takes you through an entire game show. So, if you don't get off contestants row the first time, you have 5 more chances. I preferred Classic mode.
Three Strikes Mode: In 3 strikes, you go through multiple segments of shows until you get "3 strikes" It was a little confusing at first, and then I just found that the game dragged on. With classic mode, there was a definite end point- so if I had dinner on the stove or a dog to walk, I could plan on it "after the show" Whereas with 3 strikes, you keep playing and playing and playing.... I honestly got burned out playing 3 strikes mode.
Party Mode is the mode you play with up to 3 other players. One of you wins, does a pricing game, and then back to contestants row you go! Fun, and it can get competitive, but nothing to write home about.

Overall, it's a decent game. It's not a game I could play for hours on end, but every once in awhile, it could be fun. This is also a really easy game to share with other couples on game nights, etc.

I own both The Price is Right and the new 2010 version, and while there are some definite improvements over the original, there are several changes that I'm not sure are for the better.

In the original, you choose between 8 different avatars, and I never found one that really fit me. (The brunette avatar's cheer is somewhere between a too-happy band conductor and Calista Flockhart having a seizure -- it's not pretty.) In 2010, you choose between 16 avatars, and if you choose to save your profile, you can customize that avatar's hair and clothing. There is some hair and clothing available when you start; the rest you unlock in single player mode. This is a definite improvement over the original; at least there is some variety.

The graphics are improved as well; the set looks more impressive and the players aren't quite as annoying. You're still limited by the Wii's capabilities, so it's not a big difference, but I like it better.

Other than unlocking new hair and clothing, single player mode is unchanged from the original. You still have classic mode and three strikes mode, and you still unlock video clips. However, all of the video clips were repeats from the original, which was a big disappointment for me but makes sense for new players who don't have the original. The new pricing games do open up new videos though. It's also become a lot easier to unlock them; you simply play the game, go through the showcase, spin the wheel.

Multiplayer is where the biggest difference comes from. If your guests don't have a profile set up, they can play any of the 16 choices in their original clothes -- but they can't name them. You are Player3 for the duration of the game. You can, however, use multiple Wiimotes, but it has to be the same number of Wiimotes as players; you can't have 2 Wiimotes and have 4 players. As far as gameplay is concerned, the original had one Contenstant's Row then all of the players get to play a pricing game. Now, you have Contestant's Row, the winner plays a pricing game, another Contestant's Row, the winner plays one of the remaining pricing game, then one last Contestant's Row. I realize this makes the game more realistic, but it also means your good-at-pricing friend can play all three pricing games if he wins all three Contestant's Row appearances. And of course, if you're playing 4 players (as we usually do), one person will never play a pricing game. I'm not a big fan of this version. To add to the realism, the person with the highest score at the end of the pricing games doesn't have to spin the wheel; they automatically go on to the showcase, and everyone else spins for the other spot.

As before, Contestant's Row and the Showcase Showdown features real clips from the series. The improvement here is more realistic pricing. The showcases seem a lot more expensive from the original, but at least you're bidding on the 2009 line of cars instead of 2008 and 2007. As mentioned, and as was the difficulty in the original, they did not do a good job of showing you the size of the objects you're bidding on. It's a bag of dog/cat food, or a package of Chex Mix, or a bottle of Advil ... and you have no idea how big it is. On the show, at least contestants can see the item and make an educated guess; here, it's a video clip from a distance, and you can't read the size on the package.

There are new pricing games, as well as the ones from the original, which adds more variety. Other than graphics, the games are still the same, and that's okay overall. (There are a few games which didn't respond to the Wiimote very well in the original, like Pushover, and they still aren't perfected here.) The wheel is probably the biggest graphic improvement, as it looks more three-dimensional and impressive.

I haven't really decided which version I like better. There are pros and cons to both. New players should stick with the 2010 version, but I think players of the original should rent this one and see if it's worth the price.

Awesome gaming experience! It's actually a big improvement over the previous version as the graphics are superior and the graphs are impressive. There are also twice as many games as in the previous version so it makes it all that much more interesting. Being a veteran gamer I can totally recommend TPIR 2010 to anyone!