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You don’t have a show on the air for forty years without change. Especially in these
modern times, change is the only thing you can depend on. So when one of the most celebrated
game shows wants to make a statement, sometimes all it has to do is dig around in the attic
for a while. There’s some stuff up there waiting to be found, right?
Oh, why look! There’s a box of unmarked VHS tapes. And for whatever reason, you’ve
got a beautiful woman in your living room. And she’s very interested in identifying
these tapes. Normally I’d just offer her a seat and some crackers and cheese or something,
but she seems quite adamant about rummaging through this box of nostalgia and labelling
these old Price is Right episodes. Who am I to keep her waiting?
So you pop in the first tape, and you’re taken back to 1983! The set looks different,
the prices are different, the prizes are beautifully quaint... until you realize that you, right
there, holding the wiimote, in 2011, have to think of how much a dinette set cost almost
thirty years ago. Dinette sets were not on my mind in 1983. Y’know what was? BEING
A FETUS. ‘Cuz that’s all I could do at the time. Fortunately, after the One-Bid,
you emerge from Contestant’s row and are greeted by... your old friend, PLINKO. And
some of you might say, “Wait a minute, That middle slot’s supposed to be 10,000, not
5,000!” And I’d say, “Yes, as of Oct. 15, 1998. That’s when it was changed.”
This game isn’t for your hardcore gamers, but for your hardcore Price is Right fans,
dissecting each episode as it happens on their internet messagebaords, it’s a celebration
of the changes that made this game what it is. Sure, anyone familiar with the show can
play it and have a decent enough time, but there’s a group of folks out there who would
absolutely lose their **** if something really obscure were to pop up. Something, say, that
had only been played twice in the show’s four-decade run. Something like...
… yeah. Professor Price. Alongside all your favorites, up to and including Rat Race, the
newest game - and the first developed with Drew Carey’s input. Unfortunately, neither
the esteemed Mr. Carey nor the legendary Mr. Barker (who’s actually a vampire, or so
Craig Ferguson would lead me to believe) make appearances in digital form, though exceptional
performance in a given show can yield an archival clip of TPIR footage from the year represented.
But for all the potential nostalgia, the game feels woefully... unpolished. Some of the
captions during prize descriptions are misspelled, the audio cuts in and out abruptly, and the
vocal cues - while well-read - are often redundant and serve to call out the artifice of this
particular representation. And the other contestants... I mean, what the hell is wrong with that guy’s
eyes? Someone call House in here! We need a medic! He’s got... TEAL jaundice!
If you’re a huge fan of The Price is Right, down to knowing the air date of the first
playing of Spelling Bee (Sept. 18, 1988), then you owe it to yourself to enjoy this
game, despite any technical shortcomings. If it’s just another game show to you...
well, obviously you’re not a loyal friend and true.