Deal Or No Deal

Deal or no Deal is the official Nintendo DS game of the TV programme that puts you, the player, in the hotseat as you try to win a bundle (or otherwise) of virtual money. Just as in the television programme, there are 22 identical sealed boxes, and one of them contains a quarter of a million pounds. In what is basically a game of pot luck, you have to pick one of these boxes as your own, and work your way through the rest, eliminating them one by one, until you either accept an offer from the game's banker, or settle for what you already have. Just like on the telly!

In Contestant mode, you choose a box of your own. Then you open five boxes in the first round, and three in the second. At the end of each round, the Banker will call and offer you a sum of money for your box; you must decide whether to accept or turn down the offer. To break up the game's repetitive nature, there's a minigame called Three Box Trick where you must correctly pick out which box the mug is hidden in. If you keep a close eye on the moving boxes and find the mug three times, you're more likely to get a generous offer from the Banker. Banker mode lets you observe the contestant opening boxes and at the close of each round, you make the financial offer with the help of the calculator.

There's an unlockable Forfeit mode too, in which money is replaced by different forfeits. Naturally, whoever plays the smartest game gets to dictate what the forfeit is. Why not find someone to play with and get them to tidy your room? The on-screen keyboard enables you to detail what you want others to do, but be reasonable, eh? Deal or no Deal on the DS is ideal for those that can't get enough of the living beard that is Noel Edmonds and his strangely addictive show. This game could never reproduce the same kind of atmosphere, but it's an amusing enough diversion for the hardcore '22 choices of box fan'.