Wheel of Fortune (Rare games)

Wheel of Fortune

NES - USA - 1st edition.

Developer Rare Publisher GameTek Published 1988-09-?? Platforms NES Genres Licensed, Word game Themes Game Show Series Jeopardy! Multiplayer Alternating versus Distribution Commercial

The video game developer Rare produced three Wheel of Fortune games for publisher GameTek, each based on the Wheel of Fortune word game show. The three titles were released on the NES from 1988-1990, and were essentially the same game, but with different puzzles. The three games include:

Released	Title	Notes
1988-09-??	Wheel of Fortune	General puzzles.
1989-10-??	Wheel of Fortune: Junior Edition	Children's puzzles.
1990-03-??	Wheel of Fortune: Family Edition	Simple and hard puzzles mixed together.

Personal

Own?	No.
Won?	Yes. All three games easy difficulty.
Finished	Wheel of Fortune: 2019-07-10‎ / Wheel of Fortune: Family Edition: 2019-07-11 / Wheel of Fortune: Junior Edition: 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 these games just to better familiarize myself with the NES catalog of games, and add them to my list of games I've beaten.

Review

3	2	2	4	4

Best Version: NES

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• The games do an adequate job of representing the game show.
• Unlike a lot of video game tie-ins, the developers actually included the Wheel of Fortune theme song and sound effects from the show.

Bad

• The games don't accurately represent several aspects of the game show. For example, the Free Spin wedge doesn't have a dollar value, it isn't taken off the wheel when someone lands on it, and you can't guess a letter if you land on it, instead you have to spin again. Also, none of the values on the wheel change per round, and they top out at $1,000, and each game is fixed to 3 rounds.
• The user interface is poorly designed. All the letters of the alphabet are displayed in a single line which makes inputting letters slower than it needs to be, and, when solving a puzzle, you can't use the gamepad to backspace. Instead, you have to move to the back arrow character on screen, which is annoying.
• The wheel isn't nearly as colorful as it should be, and "Lose a Turn" is strangely changed to "Miss Turn."
• Unlike most game show video games of the time, you don't get to pick a player avatar.

Ugly

• The games are incredibly slow-paced. Most of the game is spent waiting for a clock to count down or watching the wheel spin.
• All three games are essentially identical, only with new puzzles and a slightly altered title screen. Very little effort was spent trying to update the quality of the game engine, graphics, or sound. Even the manuals are very similar.

Media

Box Art

• 

  Wheel of Fortune.

• 

  Wheel of Fortune: Junior Edition.

• 

  Wheel of Fortune: Family Edition.

Documentation

• 

  Wheel of Fortune manual.

• 

  Wheel of Fortune: Junior Edition manual.

• 

  Wheel of Fortune: Family Edition manual.

• 

  Nintendo Power.

Videos

Longplay - Wheel of Fortune.

Longplay - Wheel of Fortune: Junior Edition.

Longplay - Wheel of Fortune: Family Edition.

Play Online

NES, NES (Junior Edition), NES (Family Edition)

Representation

Strong female character?	Fail	The only woman is Vanna White, and she's not important.
Bechdel test?	Fail	No women ever talk.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	The only character is white.
Queer character?	Fail	There are no queer characters.

Link

• mobygames.com/game/wheel-of-fortune_ - MobyGames - Wheel of Fortune.
• mobygames.com/game/wheel-of-fortune-junior-edition - MobyGames - Wheel of Fortune: Junior Edition.
• mobygames.com/game/wheel-of-fortune-family-edition - MobyGames - Wheel of Fortune: Family Edition
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel_of_Fortune_video_games - Wikipedia - Wheel of Fortune Video Games.
• tcrf.net/Wheel_of_Fortune_(NES) - The Cutting Room Floor - Wheel of Fortune.