Sale Of The Century

The days when primetime TV game shows were hosted in East Anglia may be just a fond memory to us grey-hairs, but there's plenty of us around.

And until Player X adds 3-2-1 to its game show roster and figures out a way to bring Dusty Bin's brain-bending riddles to mobile, we're stuck with Nurridge's legendary quiz, Sale Of The Century.

Kids, this was the Deal Or No Deal of its day. Except with a few too many toes.

Anyway, the format follows the original show closely, right down to giving you a little character to play. The aim is to win enough cash to buy everything in the Sale Of The Century showroom. How? By working through four rounds of questions, winning dosh for correct answers and losing it for wrong ones.

In between rounds, there are 'instant sales', where you can buy items for knockdown prices. To win, you have to have bought at least one instant sale – which depletes your cash – and have the most points after the four rounds.

Got that? It reminds you that in the old days, game shows were devised by twisted professors of logic (again, see 3-2-1 for ultimate proof). There's also the option to play alone against your mobile, or against a friend, with both of you laying thumbs on the same handset.

Actually, the latter works well. Player One uses the '1', '4' and '7' keys for buzzing in, while Player Two uses '3', '6' and '9'. The questions are all multiple choice, but since you lose money for wrong answers, buzzing in as soon as the question is revealed isn't a successful tactic.

Obviously, ripping the phone out of your opponent's hands and running round the room until you know the answer is, but that may lead to violence.

The system works fairly well, although it seems strange that you can't use the buzzing keys to answer the questions too – you have to switch to the '2' and '8' keys to move up and down the list, and the '5' key to select an answer.

Before you ask, the questions aren't as old as the TV show. They've been updated for modern times, so you're as likely to be answering questions on The Stone Roses' first album, the capital of Afghanistan, and the movie Gladiator. (The who's first album? – less grey-haird Ed).

It all moves along quickly, and there are plenty of chuckles to be had at some of the (very) dated pretend prizes on offer – what's a fax machine again? – although there are also more modern offerings chucked in, like a 60GB MP3 player.

People might smile at the thought of this game, but will they buy it? Publisher Player X clearly thinks so. We're still not entirely convinced of the merits of a game like Sale Of The Century when there are mobile games around based on more modern game shows like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and Deal Or No Deal, but if you do have fond memories of the original show, you won't be disappointed by this effort.