I have to be honest, when this game showed up for review I had a WTF moment. I opened up the mailer and saw that this was the 2010 edition with 30 new mini-games and immediately one thought jumped into my mind.

There’s other versions of the Price is Right as a video game?!?

As it turns out the answer to that is yes. In fact there is one other version of the Price is Right as a video game. It was put out by Ubisoft in 2008. It was called the 2008 edition.

Now, in full disclosure, I love the Price is Right game show. I think it is brilliant on so many levels. When I was in college I watched the hell out of this show. On one hand it gets you excited and involved with the show. Who hasn’t watched and shouted out prices while contestants are out there screwing it up? Lots of flashing lights, cheering people, and pretty girls. It’s great fun.

And it’s the most insidious agent of consumerism ever invented.

The whole point of the Price is Right isn’t to sell airtime so the network can charge a bundle for commercial time (the raison d’etre for most TV shows). No. The point of the show is to sell you the prizes for all those mini-games they play on the show.

The show uses the flashing lights, cheering crowds, and girls to get the home audience involved in what is going on in the show. The crowd is yelling prices, the contestants are yelling prices, the pretty girls smile encouragingly, and you’re yelling prices at the screen. Everyone is getting all worked up over a can of dog food.

That can of dog food you’re going to see at the store later that day and think, “Hey, that’s the dog food from the Price is Right that the one lady got wrong. I said it was a $1.95…oooo, it’s on sale here for $1.50. I better pick some up.”

And you don’t even own a dog.

That’s how effective and insidious the show is selling things. It’s so effective the show has been exported to 36 different countries around the world. Each with their own host, pretty girls, and flashing lights. In China it’s called Gòu Wù Jiē Dào.

Even the Communists are doing it.

It’s too bad the home game really sucks.

It’s really really boring.

You know how you shout prices at the TV when the game is being played? Imaging doing that, except there’s just you, it’s really quiet because there aren’t any other contestants. Oh, and there’s no pretty girls except when a little video plays showing you the price you’re supposed to bid on.

Well, it’s the same junk from the show, they just turned them into video clips.

I will give Ubisoft this- they have faithfully reproduced the TV show as a video game. You get to create an avatar, it gets called down to the stage, and you play the TV game. You bid on stuff, and if you bid wrong you lose.

And then game is over.

Then you get to start again. Wow.

Since it’s only two player at the most the game goes quickly. Either you get up on stage right away, or you sit through 5 attempts. If you don’t get up during those 5 tries you have to start the game over. If you lose a pricing game, you straight on to the Wheel. If you when at the wheel it’s on to the Showcase Showdown. If you lose at the Wheel you start the game over again.

It is, at its longest, about 12 minutes. And it’s terribly dull.

Turns out guessing the prices of things is really boring if you don’t have a crowd of people also shouting out the price. And when a new car comes up as the pricing game prize it’s not nearly as exciting as it is on TV.

I never once jumped up and down. Or screamed. Or anything, really.

In fact, for the hour that I played this game I only got more bored with the whole process. It’s not Ubisoft’s fault. The video game is exactly like the TV show. It’s just doing that sort of thing on your own is really boring.

Now this may come as a surprise to some long time readers but I generally try to say at least one positive thing about a game during the review. For some time I was really struggling to find something positive to say about Price is Right 2010, but I’ve finally nailed it out. Here goes.

I doubt I will ever play a game that is more boring than the Price is Right 2010.

This game is so boring that the only way I can see anyone having this game in their game library is if they are one of the unlucky bastards who get called down to Contestants Row and never make it on stage. You know, the people who get the complimentary telephone and free copy of the home game.

That’s the only reason I can think of for the existence of this game: the Home Game give-away at the end of the show. That way the show has a home game they can send back with you because I can’t imagine anyone buying it.

Which the idea of that much money sort of floors me. The Price is Right has the sort of cash laying about to hire another company to make a video game just so they can give the game away. That’s a stupid amount of money.

Which is fitting I guess, because I just can’t recommend anyone spend their money on this game.

You thought I was going to do a Price is Wrong joke, didn’t you? Tell you what, why don’t you leave yours in the comments below.