Family Fortunes TV Edition

It's no secret that most gameshows choose the least intelligent contestants. After all, you don't want someone smart winning all the prizes and costing the production company money! That's why so often you're screaming answers at the dimwit on telly who doesn't know what the capital city of Germany is.

Still, the stupidity of the individual is nothing compared to that of a group of people. The Sinclair C5 was the idea of a sole person while the Nazi party took thousands to be ignorant.

This is why Family Fortunes is such a singularly frustrating game, both on the TV, where it was saved only by Les Dennis' cheesy presence (if you remember the original, anyway), and on mobile phone in the form of this, Family Fortunes TV Edition.

Faithfully following the format of its TV show inspiration, you play as one of the competing families who must choose the three most popular answers to a question, as chosen by a portion of the British public.

So, in response to 'Which foods would Gillian McKeith not recommend you eat?' you can't simply offer a response of your own, but have to choose from a list of the foods that a group of 100 gave in answer, hoping you can deduce the three most numerous.

You get three strikes to identify the top three. If you fail, the opposing family gets a chance to answer. Each of the three answers is worth points and if you don't get all three, your opponent has the chance to steal them by providing just one correct response.

This means that instead of testing your general knowledge in the realm of TV, you're merely asked to guess what the great unwashed masses said in reply to any given question. And this means there's no way you can know for certain what the three answers are.

This might not sound like much bother, but when you routinely get two of the three required answers correct, only to fail at guessing the third (the answers aren't ever obvious) it gets very annoying indeed. Things are only made worse when the computer opponent gets its guess right every single time, stealing your points.

There's no skill whatsoever involved in Family Fortunes, which really does suck any fun out of the game. It all comes down to luck and you'll rapidly become tired of picking random answers to questions and being outscored by an opponent that's never wrong.

Things get marginally better if you play a friend in the two-player or teamplay modes, as you're on an equal footing with your equally unfortunate chum. But still, the novelty of trying to figure out the three most popular answers given to 'Which TV character has a distinctive car?' wears thin in very little time indeed.

We'll close with a question-and-answer of our own:

Which TV-inspired quiz show should you buy for your mobile phone?

A) Strike It Lucky
B) Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
C) The Weakest Link
D) Deal Or No Deal

Any one of those will leave you a winner, while Family Fortunes will simply reflect a lack of intellect...

Family Fortunes TV Edition

As frustrating a quiz game as you're likely to come across
Score