1 vs 100
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| 1 vs 100

Every Saturday evening millions of Brits tune in to the lottery program on BBC1, hoping against all hope that tonight's going to be their night. It could - just could - be the occasion that they win 10 squillion pounds and need never again turn in another day of soul-crushing service to their obnoxious boss. To lessen the inevitable disappointment, they're shown another poor chump having his hopes dashed in a gruelling game show format.

It's called 1 vs 100, and it joins the likes of Golden Balls and Deal Or No Deal in the sadistic carrot-dangling game show category. Also in common with those games, Gameloft has produced a mobile game to accompany the show.

As a concept it bears much resemblance to Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, but with three nasty twists. Firstly, rather than calling on the support of a bunch of onlookers, contestants play against them. 100 of them, in case you hadn't figured it out.

Secondly, contestants can't cut their losses and pull out if they don't fancy their chances. They must answer multiple-choice questions, eliminating any of the opposing 100 players who don't get them correct until they're the last man standing or they get one wrong and lose everything. Ouch.

And thirdly, after enduring all this hardship, they can only win a maximum of around £250,000. That won't even buy you a house in a half-decent area of the country nowadays.

But still, the foundations of the game are solid (mainly because they're not particularly original) and, more pertinently, it makes for a decent mobile quiz game. To help you through you're given access to a limited number of bonuses. Dodges allow you to – wait for it – dodge a question if you don't have the foggiest what the capital of Lithuania is, though at the expense of any prize money for that round (you get £1000 for every opponent that drops out) and also half of the kitty you've built up.

The other bonus is a Double, which allows you to – wait for it – double your prize money for a single round. Pretty simple stuff, but it does add a nice slant to the fairly straightforward quizzing action.

The quizzing itself is nicely done, with varied questions and an intuitive interface. Like the show it poses quite a challenge, too, regardless of which of the three difficulty levels you choose.

Importantly for a quiz game, it's all presented very crisply, with all of the fonts and headers from the show present and correct. Another element of the show faithfully copied across is the likeness of Ben Shephard, though it's debatable how desirable such a feature is in the first place. Let's face it, he's no Noel Edmonds.

1 vs 100 is a well realized version of a pretty bog standard concept. As a show it simply lacks the iconic status of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, the gimmick/Edmonds factor of Deal or No Deal and the oddball complexity of Golden Balls. This inevitably limits what can be accomplished in a game somewhat.

Gameloft has done everything it could with the subject material, with challenging questions and slick presentation. It's a very accomplished quiz game indeed. It just lacks that extra layer of personality to raise it to the level of the best if its competitors.

1 vs 100

A nicely executed quiz game based on a show that lacks the sparkle of its competition
Score
Jon Mundy
Jon Mundy
Jon is a consummate expert in adventure, action, and sports games. Which is just as well, as in real life he's timid, lazy, and unfit. It's amazing how these things even themselves out.