Wheel of Fortune Review

Sony has published an official Wheel of Fortune app to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the show. It is definitely a faithful rendition of the classic and extremely popular game show, and even has a pass and play mode for playing against friends and family.

The game play is exactly what one would expect from the official Wheel of Fortune app. All of the same rules and procedures apply, from spinning the wheel and earning money, to buying vowels. When it’s the user’s turn, he or she can spin, buy a vowel, or solve the phrase. One nice touch is that spinning the wheel is actually done by swiping, although the intensity of the swipe really doesn’t have any effect on the spin. The game also starts with toss ups, in which a phrase or word has it’s blanks filled in one at a time and the contestant to solve it first earns money.

To speed up the pace of the gameplay, there’s a button that skips to the next important moment. For when things get really slow, it’s possible to just hold down the button.

One of the game’s strong points is that is supports pass and play to up to three players. The game even starts with a toss up, which would be really hard for all two or three players if the game were being played on an iPhone. On an iPad I could see toss ups being a lot easier for everyone.

The game has many achievements and integrates with game center. Also, the current game is automatically saved, so going back to game’s menu won’t cause a restart.

Users can build their own custom contestant or choose one of the default ones. The character builder is really comprehensive and has hats, hairstyles, glasses, and many other options for the appearance of the character. Each item can also be colored. Many of the cooler and more extravagant appearance features aren’t included by default and have to be unlocked. That being said, the 3D graphics in this game aren’t top notch and look a little weird. However, the characters are animated well and move realistically. There are different themes that users can purchase that change the look of the show and the host. The themes range from different eras of the show’s history to monsters, so there’s many to choose from. There’s also a shop with additional characters and items available for purchase, such as hero pack with super hero characters.

This is definitely the game for hard-core and devoted Wheel of Fortune fans. It has a lot of extra features that will probably be more than the average person would want, like themes for different eras of the show. However, the pass and play option is a really nice touch and Wheel of Fortune is the perfect game for playing with friends on a single device.