FB The Challenge

The game of the show: the old wise man of the Fort grants you 75 minutes to foil the tricks and traps on the fort in order to win Napoleon's treasure within. To do this, you must use skill, force and intelligence, although considering that you do everything via a mouse or keyboard, it's more likely to be the first and last ones.

The game has its credentials certainly. The game opens with Pere Fouras musing to himself about what the contestants are going to be like. Pere Fouras with a French/American accent is really quite scary to be honest, but just like the show they then 'do' the opening sequence. This is niiicce, it's just the opening sequence to the French show but in a digitized format. Sadly, the music isn't quite in sync with the titles which is quite annoying, when the titles finish the music just fades out as opposed to drum roll ending of the TV show.

You can play with between 1 and 6 players using a clever coloured ball system. Befre the game, you select how many people play by putting coloured balls in sockets. There are still six virtual players whatever. When you come to actually select someone for a game, you take their coloured ball and put it on the door symbol, and if less than 6 people are playing then humans share the virtual player's parts. Do you see?

Anyway, the game begins with the Master of the Fort saying 'here's a fine looking team!', explaining what's going to happen and then announcing the 75 minutes begins on he gong. At this point, a film of Monsieur LaBoulle striking the gong is played, a very nice touch and indicative of the stylistic features following the whole show/game.

The first key is won by visiting the scary French/American Pere Fouras who has a riddle for yooouuu! You have to listen quite carefully because he says it quite fast (yes, he does actually say the riddle) and only repeats it occassionally if you give some answers. The interface for this is that you use your mouse to click on the letters of the word you think the answer is. To give an extra clue, the determiner is already filled in for you (that's 'the', 'a' whatever). If you get it right, and they are quite difficult, he gives you a key, if you don't get it in time he'll chuck it out the window and shout at you to get out. A digitised film of someone swimming for the key is shown, lasting about a minute, and yes, it does count against your clock.

If you get a key, you see a cut sequence of a key-ring flying through the air with the amount of keys you have whilst Woman Host says "Good! You've got another key," all the time. Vocabulary obviously isn't her strong point.

Excellently, we're treated to a first-person running around the Fort sesh between games, occasionally intercut with random pictures of tarantulas or snakes or tigers. They seem to last a random amount of time but otherwise don't give any clue or indication as to what's coming up next unless it takes you to the top of the fort, in which case you can be sure that the bungee jumping game is coming up next.

But what of the games? Well, there are 20 of them. Some are key games, some are clue games but sadly, many are both. To begin with, Maitre d' Fort annouces which which type of person will be best for each game (you have six types: Captain, Clever, Tough, Agile, Sharp and Strong) and you select one to take part in the game. The punishment for selecting the wrong one? Less time to do your task. The Maitre will also give a small clue as to what to do in the room and tells you about things obliquely because he has an evil streak. The top and bottom of the screens show a bit of the Fort's wall, time messages are shown along the bottom and the Logo is shown along the top. This is constant for the entire game, the middle two-thirds of the screen show all the action. Excellently, each game has it's own soundtrack based on the soundtrack to games from the show.

Some of the games work really well and they are all based on the show, and usually the more puzzly ones that have been used: The Amazing Headless Neon Woman, The Calculus Affair, The Floor Puzzle, the Anagram Cage whatever and they work really well because you aren't constantly trying to fight against the mouse controls. A great example of a good is is The Rat-Run which is just a maze with a bit of a puzzly element to it and it works well. Some games don't work at all well such as The Wall which is a bit pointless and the Bungee Jumping which seems extraordinarily difficult for something which doesn't seem that difficult on the show. The games are a mixture of polygon and film, the contestants and main parts of the games in polygon and filmic cut sequences when you enter and leave the room with the occassional cut during the game. You can get locked in and only one game stops you from pressing the space-bar to get out. Along with the water clock on the bottom of the screen (although perhaps a bit too small) and your team-mates shouting 'You're almost out of time!' being locked in isn't likely. Anyway, you'll keep playing games until you have you requisite seven keys.

If anyone was locked in they play the rat game in order tobe let out. A rat is put in a maze and if the contestant can guess whcih colour exit they'll come out of then they are let out and if they don't they're out for the rest of the game. Again, this is nicely similar to the show.

Next, it's the Time Hunters section which, and I can't stress this enough, AGAIN is very reminiscent of the show. Except there are only three games which are repeated ad-infinitum and get more boring the more you play it. They consist of a variant of noughts and crosses, the 'don't take the last stick' game and the only one that stands up to repeated play the 'remember the order of the balls' game, and even that loses something against a computer opponent. Each game you win earns you 25 seconds in the 'Treasure House', as the Americans are wont to call it. And you get three minutes for free, which is double what you get for free on the show. Whooo!

Next it's time for the clues, including another trip to Pere Fouras who does another riddle in the style of the clue riddles on the show, except again, annoyingly, much faster making it far more difficult.

After each game we are treated to a cut scene of the Fort where you can review the clues that have been earnt. If you won a clue in the last game then you are also treated to a cut scene of a clue cannister flying out of the screen revealing the clue. The clue games are played the same as the key games except with some different games and clue cannisters where keys would normally be. During these games you can't get locked in and the water timer is replaced by a cannister with an ever decreasing fuse. When you run out of time the cannister explodes.

Excellently, the clues are based around the French idea as opposed to the word links of the British show (although that doesn't mean there are none). The clues each have a connotation in common generally and that's the codeword: the word tht has a link with all the other words. This is difficult generally and you tend to need more clue games then you need on the TV show, although I think that's because they're slightly less oblique on the French show.

And when you feel like it (or when the time runs out) it's onto the Treasure House. This seems unnecessarily confusing to me first time but it kind of makes sense. You need to spell out the word using your players on the board. The person on the far left is the first letter, next person next letter etc... and whatsmore, because your virtual contestants are actually thick, they can't sidestep each other if they run into something else so you have to do some juggling and/or strategic planning. When yu think you've got it all sorted out you click on the tigers head (yet another cut scene) and we find out if you got it right or not. If you haven't you're ordered out of the room, appear to turn to stone and then magically disappear (?). If you get it right however, you are treated to the rest of your time to grab lots of gold and get out with it. Except that it's done exceptionally boringly. Given you could have about 4:00 of gold grabbing, a constant overhead shot is perhaps not the most interesting way of going about it. You see you little guys grab the gold and when you think they've loaded up with enough then you click on them and they run out of the room to deposit the gold. And then run back in again and do it again. And again. And again (repeat until fade). This is potentially one of the most exciting bits of the show, as on telly there are regular and fast changes of shot in order to keep the pace interesting and the longest it can possibly last is four minutes, therefore it is allowed to be exciting and finishes before it gets boring. Sadly, 5:30 of a single held shot where you click occassionaly does not in my eyes equal to a good and interesting end to a game or a show. Whatsmore, there's always the nagging chance in the show that someone may be caught out by the falling door and eaten up by tigers (even though that's never going to happen) but there is no chance here, they'll run out automatically with about ten seconds left.

And there are more faults with the game. This is completely subjective, and I don't mean this in a bad way, but with the limited range of expression that's used in the game it just does not seem to work with an American accent. The range recorded doesn't really stretch to much and the atmosphere doesn't 'work'. Sorry. And it more could have been made of the 75 minute time limit as well because it isn't actually real time, it only counts down when you are either running round the Fort or playing a game. It doesn't even count down when you're playing against the Games Masters in the Time Hunters bit for goodness sake. Think how much more challenging the game could have been if you lost time making decisions and looking over your clues. It's such a small thing but it's quite irritataing.

But the game is good fun for the first few times you play it although there really should have been more than twenty games, there have been well over a hundred in the games history and at least fifty per series so longevity is a problem. The Controls for many of the games are a bit, well difficult, although they're hardly overcomplicated. There's also the problem that it hasn't actually been released in the UK and you'll have to order it from somewhere but it undeniably has a good atmosphere (despite the American accents). It's better that the Crystal Maze CD-ROM if you want a comparison.

You can't help thinking what they could have done given a bit more time though.

Verdict: 5.5/10 - Good fun for a while and a nice representation of the show. Sadly it lacks in the actual gameplaying department but is saved by a couple of very playable ones.