Guess Who?

Reviewed by Michael Lafferty
Published by Hasbro Interactive

Age Group: Age 4 to 8, Age 8 and Up
Type: Puzzles/Memory, Thinking Games, Board and Card Games
Price: $20

Description:

"Does the suspect wear a hat?"

"No."

Remember the classic game where you have to guess whodunit by asking for clues to the description of the suspect, and then, through the process of elimination, you arrive at the right answer?

Hasbro Interactive has taken that classic game and translated it to the personal computer. The result? Guess Who? is a delightful combination of the classic board game and an interactive video mystery, with several little surprises along the way. Within the mystery, you are tasked with finding clues, or collecting the components of a mystery tool that will help an individual within the town. In order to do so, you must help eradicate a computer virus - which are in the form of games. Each game is a take off on classic arcade titles, such as Pac Man. In the Guess Who? version, you must guide a rabbit around a maze, eating the lettuce before the pursuing nets snag it. There are nine mini-games in all, each bundle of three attached to one of the three mysteries.

Gather the clues and components for the mystery device, eliminate suspects, and you will win the game.

Features:

  • Classic Guess Who? play includes single card, 2-card challenge and championship play
  • Includes all the suspects from the classic game
  • Three different mysteries to solve in the adventure mode with arcade style mini-games to play within the mysteries

Technical Aspects:

This program requires very little in terms of system requirements, but manages to reward the game player with bright, colorful, interactive graphics and solid audio. The animation is quite good, and the additional array of mini-games, coupled with the mystery, keeps the program moving at a nice pace.

The cover of this program may convey the essence, but fails to display the variety of the program.

Report and Conclusions:

Guess Who? is an enjoyable, challenging game for younger kids, and the kind of program which parents will find fun. It does teach reasoning skills, cleverly disguised as entertainment, and spices it all up with interactive animation, as well as few pieces of eye candy (or those little secondary animations you will find as you click around the screen).

This program is simple to learn and incredibly easy to play. The 11-year-old who field-tested it was able to jump right into the program without the benefit of browsing through the manual first. Though some of the arcade games did throw her for a loop at first (OK, it's her age - she isn't old enough to remember, or to have played those games), once the basics were grasped, the player interface allowed her to succeed without having to do contortions with the mouse or keyboard. "The mysteries are fun," she said. "You have to try to solve the mysteries and guess who did it. It takes a long time to play."

Guess Who? will intrigue and delight. It is a simple game that has made a nice transition to the cyber world.