Deal or No Deal 2008

You don't hear as much about Deal or No Deal on TV nowadays. It's still going, of course, but the hype around it has died down a bit.

Perhaps they need to do a Weakest Link and boot the proles out in favour of celebrities. Or at least get Noel Edmonds to ring up René from 'Allo 'Allo! live on-air to boast about bedding his granddaughter.

On phones, Deal or No Deal is still hot stuff thanks to a monster-selling mobile game from Gameloft. However, chart success wasn't enough to stop EA Mobile from nicking the licence and releasing its own game based on the show.

It aims to be the definitive version. It pretty much is.

Why? The thing about Deal or No Deal is that – in the nicest possible way – its hardcore fans are mentalists.

They're near-religiously devoted to the show, they hang on to Noel's every word, and when they're not watching it, they're on the internet babbling about game theory and micro-economics in an effort to work out how to win.

The actual players are even worse. And all this strangeness is one of the reasons that even casual viewers have stayed hooked.

This new mobile game has been built for all these people, going beyond the basic 'play Deal or No Deal' approach of the previous version in two ways: providing a fuller experience of Contestants' Row, and by adding a Be The Banker mode.

We won't rehash the basic structure of the TV show – if you're at all interested in buying the game, you surely know how it works. Suffice to say the game mirrors the TV show: 22 red numbered boxes which you pick one at a time, hoping to eliminate the low prize values and keep the high ones, before winning a big sack of cash either because it's in your red box or because you outwit the mysterious banker.

Choose Quick Play mode and this is what you get. It's quick and snappy to play, and you can always try again if you flubber your options. When deciding whether to deal or not, you can ask a random fellow contestant what he thinks you should do.

But the main Deal or No Deal mode is where the impressive stuff begins. You get to choose a contestant – each with his own age, star sign, job and lucky charm – and enter a name.

Then, before you get to play yourself, you actually take part as a box-opener, giving advice when prompted on whether other players should accept or reject the banker's offers. It's a neat feature, although thankfully it doesn't drag on too long – there's no danger you'll have to wait for all 21 other contestants to have a go before you play.

But it's Be The Banker mode that will send the hardcore fans loopy (and let's face it, they're the only people who'd want to be a banker in the current financial climate). In this mode, it's you making the deal or no deal offers, with the aim of diddling contestants out of their winnings.

In the context of mobile games based on TV gameshows, this is innovative indeed, and shows laudable thinking about what fans might want in a game over and above the basic show structure.

Deal or No Deal isn't perfect. Take the in-game Edmonds, and his freaky-deeky mouth animation – imagine a photo-realistic Noel with a mouth that just goes "BAA-BEE BAA-BEE BAA-BEE," no matter what he's saying. And then run.

The dialogue can be a bit repetitive, too. Does Noel have to say, "He thinks you're going to like this offer!" quite so often when telling you The Banker's offer, for example?

Meanwhile, casual players might welcome a bit more help in Be The Banker mode, as you're asked to just pull a number out of thin air to offer players. You can imagine this being tweaked to give you a rough idea (if you choose) of what the AI banker might offer, so you can decide whether to try being more strict or lenient.

But these are niggles, not significant criticisms. As an example of taking a TV brand and not just doing the obvious thing with its spin-off mobile game, Deal or No Deal 2008 is great. A fiver for a mobile game that really strives to put you inside the show? Deal!