A brief announcement: this review will not summarize the workings of the Wheel of Fortune gameshow. Everyone on the planet, even those without electricity and no television, has somehow managed to watch this show at least once in their lives. Rumor has it that questions about Vanna's outfits and Pat's toupee appear on the USA immigration tests. If you have somehow managed to avoid seeing or hearing anything about this show, I've neither the time or patience to explain it to you. Watch more television :)

What I will cover in this article is how the game translated to the Com, comparative to translations to other console and handheld systems, as well as what is (and should be) expected out of the conversion to the Com itself. Destined to be a short review for your reading pleasure.

WHEEL OF FORTUNE

From the design perspective, the game seems to possess few flaws. When you key in the correct puzzle solution, it scores it as correct; if you guess an 'c' and there is a 'c' in the puzzle, it gives it too you; etc. Design-wise, we have a solid translation that avoids the common bugs and quirks that have shown themselves in previous WoF conversions. Oh, and as with other WoF conversions, the AI will (every now and then) pick some low-prob letters in its guesses - 'q' is going to be right on the bottom of my guess list.

With that having been said, the only real avenue of critique remaining is a review of the special little touches that can fill out a game. First of all, Vanna is absent from the game - the letters simply turn themselves. I'll leave the reader to judge whether or not such an absence is worthwhile, altho I must say that I've found her presense in previous conversions has quickly grown stale (completists would probably want to see her in the game, with an selectable option to turn off her animations). A feature I would've appreciated would have been highlighting previously-guessed letters, but I don't recall any of the earlier translations having this feature, either. My most serious gripe (and its not too serious, at that) is how the high score does not reflect whether of not you won the bonus round. Kinda irksome.

If you like WoF, you'll find little to complain about with this title. With 750 puzzles claimed on the box (compares nicely with the SNES version's 4000 puzzles), you probably won't recognize a previously-played puzzle even if you do run into one within your short term memory span.

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