Wheel of Fortune: Featuring Vanna White

Wheel of Fortune: Featuring Vanna White

NES - USA - 1st edition.

Developer Imagitec Design Publisher GameTek Published 1992-01-?? Platforms NES Genres Licensed, Word game Themes Game Show Series Wheel of Fortune Multiplayer Alternating versus Distribution Commercial

Wheel of Fortune: Featuring Vanna White is a video game adaption of the television word game show developed by Imagitec Design for the Nintendo Entertainment System, and published by GameTek in January 1992. It was the fourth and final Wheel of Fortune adaption for the NES.

Personal

Own?	No.
Won?	Yes. Easy difficulty.
Finished	2019‎-07-12.

I don't care much for the game show, and I don't like game shows simulated as video games. I played this game just to better familiarize myself with the NES catalog, and add it to my list of games I've beaten.

Review

3	3	3	4	4

Best Version: NES

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• The game does a much better job of adapting the rules game show of the time compared to the three previous games.
• The official theme song is used and the several of the sound effects fit with the show. There are even a digital voice samples from the TV show.

Bad

• The cartoon avatars look pretty awful and are poorly animated, the wheel is only three colors, and, despite the game's title focusing on Vanna White, the pixel art looks nothing like her.
• As with the show, there isn't much to the game. It's essentially competitive hang man. The show at least has a emotional element because people can win real prizes, but even that is missing from the game.
• On hard difficulty, unless the AI hits bankrupt or loses a turn, they'll usually solve every puzzle in a single attempt, skipping over common letters that aren't in the puzzle and even accurately guessing Qs and Xs out of the blue.
• By 1992, the SNES had already been released in the USA, so this game looked very dated.
• If you fail to make it to the final round, there is no way to skip having to watch the AI play it, other than resetting the console.

Ugly

• Nothing.

Media

Box Art

• 

  Box cover.

Documentation

• 

  Manual.

Screenshots

• 

  Title screen.

• 

  Vanna, I guess?

• 

  Spinning the Wheel.

• 

  Viewing the word board.

• 

  Final round prizes.

Videos

Longplay.

Play Online

NES

Representation

Strong female character?	Fail	You can play as a woman, but they're just sprite swaps. Vanna is also just pixelated window dressing.
Bechdel test?	Fail	The characters don't really have dialogue like in the game show.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	All possible character portraits are white.
Queer character?	Fail	There are no queer characters.

Credits

The game only directly credits the programmer, but some of the other staff has been discovered.

Roles	Staff
Program	David Wiebenson
Audio	Barry Leitch (as Imagitec Design Ltd.)
Graphics (uncredited)	Bill Jannott

Link