Wheel of Fortune (Wii)
The American game show Wheel of Fortune has been adapted into video game form many times and as a result, it can be a bit difficult for individual adaptations to really stand out so long as they adapt the show right. For Wheel of Fortune on the Wii though, it’s defining difference is immediately apparent, all the characters depicted with proportions like bobbleheads that can be a touch off-putting especially since hosts Pat Sajak and Vanna White are adapted into its style. Once you’ve played it for a bit though, the appearance of the cartoonish characters starts to feel like a solid fit and in the case of the somewhat customizable contestants, it can even give the game a bit of charm or silly fun.
Wheel of Fortune on the Wii is an incredibly faithful adaptation of the game show with perhaps the only thing missing being commercials and branded products. The rules are reproduced exactly as someone familiar with the show would expect. Three contestants take turns spinning a wheel as they try to guess the words to fill in a set of blanks. The only hint besides the empty spaces will be a theme for the word choice, and the topics in this adaptation seem fairly broad and mostly safe bets. Food, places, objects, and common phrases feel like they crop up a lot, and even when a celebrity is used as an answer, the game tries to be selective with notable entertainers like the Marx Brothers or sports legends like Joe Montana. You might still be stumped on occasion, Roots is a famous series and book but Alex Haley’s name being part of the answer might still put it out of reach, but the topic selection does seem pretty amenable to a wide range of players and knowledge sets so someone might be able to get a leg up in a subject they’re more knowledgeable about without it feeling like you need incredibly specific interests to keep up.
As for how players will be guessing the words, this takes place by each contestant spinning the wheel on their turn to determine how valuable their guess is about to be. After landing on a money tile, a player can guess one consonant, the player getting that cash multiplied by however many times that letter appears in the current puzzle. If it isn’t present, no money is earned and the next contestant starts their turn, but after a successful guess, you can spend a bit of your cash to guess a vowel if you feel you need the help or you can attempt to solve the puzzle. The Wii Remote makes letter selection easy as you just point and click what you want to guess, and it’s even mildly involved in the spin as you need to flick it as a power meter rises and falls to determine how hard the wheel will spin. Only the player who solves the puzzle will get to keep the cash they earned in a round and most full games will contain three or more puzzles the group tackles together. There are also toss-ups where all three players watch letters automatically fill in and buzz in when they think they can guess the word, this used for easy money and to determine turn order. A modified version of play also usually arises in the last puzzle of a round to imitate when the show was going long on time, the wheel spinning foregone as everyone gets to guess letters one at a time and earn the same amounts of money if they get consonants on the board.
The last main form of play present in a regular round of Wheel of Fortune is the bonus round where the player who earned the most money gets to tackle a puzzle on their own. Usually a small word or phrase, the player picks three consonants and a vowel while the game automatically provides the fairly common letters R, L, S, T, N, and E and then a guess must be made to see if you win the bonus. Wheel of Fortune on the Wii obviously won’t pay out with real money, but there are in-game rewards and achievements to earn. Hitting monetary benchmarks is mostly just a goal for the sake of reaching it, but you can win actual rewards like new city-themed studios like a Hawaii or New York location. These are essentially going to be random unlockables though and it does feel a little unexciting to win more immaterial cash rather than something like new clothes for your profile’s character. You can play as one of your system’s Mii avatars though if you like, and it is definitely exciting when you do finally snag a prize like a new studio, making that victory feel stronger and any loss in the bonus round actually carry some weight beyond mere entertainment value.
Notably, compared to an older adaptation like Wheel of Fortune 2003, Pat Sajak and Vanna White both provide their voices for the game and perhaps most important of all, any computer controlled opponents you face actually try to win. They might not always be the smartest, but at the same time, there are multiple difficulty levels you can set and even on Hard it feels like you have a fighting chance. You can play with other human players, and there are even a set of minigames that can only be played if you are playing the game in multiplayer. The minigames are mostly just mild rule changes to how the game is played though, like in Most Frequent where players guess 3 consonants and a vowel for a normal puzzle and whoever got the most letters on the board then gets to attempt a solve and potentially win a costume piece. There is a collection tied to your player profile as well where you can view the prizes you’ve earned, and the game does make sure if you win a vacation it does a nice presentation of the destination to lend a little more authenticity to its efforts to emulate the show.
There are a few other systems in Wheel of Fortune that take from the show like the wheel having specific spots that might clear away all your money for a round if you land on them, make you lose a turn, give you a jackpot bonus, or let you guess letters for free without risk of losing your turn. Really, Wheel of Fortune on Wii feels like it has all the fundamentals you’d hope to find and there are rarely any hiccups in how the game runs. Only one egregious issue occurred when I played it, a tie between me and a computer player resulting in a tiebreaker round where only one letter appeared on the board when multiple where supposed to fill in and then you buzz in when you think you can guess. Instead, I was forced to guess, but after I couldn’t guess with just the letter O to go by, the letters did start to appear, the computer player guessed it correctly… and the game let me move onto the bonus round despite losing. The AI can win rounds overall so it wasn’t a mercy or anything, but this was the only notable oddity (besides integration of the imprecise Wii Speak peripheral for calling out your answers) in a video game adaptation that otherwise captures the simple fun of trying to figure out a fill-in-the-blank puzzle while also making its prizes have a little bit of meaning behind them since they can be actual unlockables.
THE VERDICT: Once you’re used to Wheel of Fortune on Wii’s bobblehead designs for its characters, it provides almost exactly what someone would want out of a Wheel of Fortune game adaptation. A good range of answers for its puzzles that don’t feel too esoteric, a nice presentation with the hosts voiced by their real life counterparts, and some of the flash and glamor of the show’s presentation style. It’s an easy game to play and understand and it’s fun to test yourself against fellow players or AI opponents, and while it sometimes plays it safe with minigames that don’t stray from the fundamental play much, its unlockable studios and other goodies can also add small stakes that make you want to come out on top for reasons beyond just the satisfaction of a victory.
And so, I give Wheel of Fortune for Nintendo Wii…
A GOOD rating. While there is no online play and it would be nice to be able to play minigames with computer players, if you want a version of Wheel of Fortune to play on your own with a group of friends in person, Wheel of Fortune’s Wii adaptation is almost exactly what you’d hope for. Quibbles about art style preferences aside, it makes sure the presentation of the show’s element feels faithful and exuberant. The rare glitch I encountered feels like it merits mention and there could be others lurking in other unusual situations, but mostly games went off without a hitch and since Wheel of Fortune’s fundamentals are already entertaining, being able to play it yourself at home makes this an enjoyable game despite it taking few efforts to stray from the expected design. A few extra modes in the vein of the minigames could have given you more to do than standard play and more could have been done to make prizes in general more rewarding by expanding the types of unlockables with purpose or uses, but it’s also hard to criticize the game for maintaining its focus rather than getting lost in gimmickry. There could be better Wheel of Fortune games if they did embrace the chance to really let loose in the virtual space, and while mostly an improvement over Wheel of Fortune 2003 in most regards, it could also have spiced up its presentation some by taking cues from that game’s greater commitment to location themes.
Wheel of Fortune on Wii brings over that tension of spinning the wheel and hoping it lands on big money instead of bankruptcy. It has a wide range of well picked solutions for its puzzles to make guessing accessible for a wide range of players. It even reproduces much of the music, effects, and vocal performances you’d expect to see in something that is trying to adapt the long running game show. The big goofy heads feel like the only barrier some people might need to get past to enjoy the game, and even then they’re such a small element and likely preferable to an attempt to make the hosts look more realistic since they’d likely only turn out even more uncanny. Wheel of Fortune games will keep coming out most likely and future ones may have features like internet play that some would deem more valuable, but if you have a Wii and crave some Wheel, this game show adaptation is happy to provide almost exactly what you’re hoping to find.