In the third episode of our blog series in which we play videogames based on popular television game shows from the Eighties, we put our name forward for The Krypton Factor. Here’s how we got on…
Right, first thing’s first, we have to pick our contestant. The selection on offer is a cheery looking bunch. After scanning through the faces, Karen, a telephonist from Blackpool, catches our eye. But in the end we decide to go with journalist Glenn because he has a moustache.
ROUND 1 – Mental Agility
Is this an illustration of Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker, or a public transport notice advising people not to fall asleep on front headrests?
The first round sees you having to watch a sequence of numbers that flash up quickly on screen and then type them back in the right order. The numbers 5, 1, 3, 8, 3 and 2 appear and that’s what we input. That was simple enough. But wait…we answered wrong?! It turns out the correct answer was 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 8. The game could have warned us it wanted them in ascending order. Nil pwa.
ROUND 2 – Observation
Cool glasses... If you're massively into snooker
For this round you must look at two pictures and read two versions of a terrible story – usually about a man who went on a romantic getaway with his dog – and then flag up the differences between them. The story is so long and tedious we switched off after the fifth word, which is why we also scored no points in this round.
ROUND 3 – Response
Ah, the popular tomato petting round
This is a simple button bashing event, but one in which you must hit two sets of buttons simultaneously, working the legs and arms, at different speeds to propel an exercise bike/home gym machine (dubbed the ‘Ergobuggy’ apparently).
ROUND 4 – Physical Ability
Sadly the best bit of the entire show is poorly represented in this game adaptation. You see you don’t actually get to steer the contestant through the obstacle course; instead, you assume control of their brain, helping send stamina and strength signals to their arms and legs when needed – arms when climbing, legs when sprinting. We think that’s the idea anyway. We managed to score some points anyway.
ROUND 5 – Intelligence
Intelligence in The Krypton Factor is measured on your ability to complete puzzles. Surely this falls more under the banner of lateral thinking rather than intelligence? Anyway, this round is fairly easy so some easy points were ours for the taking.
ROUND 6 – General Knowledge
The final round is a quick fire question and answer session. The questions are fairly simple, and are generally of the ‘who directed the movie Top Gun?’, and ‘which river runs through X?’ ilk. We got a few right, but still ended up with a pathetic 30 points overall. The answering system is slightly flawed though, as rather than type out your answers you’re entrusted to tell the computer whether you answered correctly or not, giving scope for a bit of cheating if playing solo.
It’s all pointless anyway, because we were playing solo so despite our terrible efforts we still managed to walk away with the coveted Krypton Factor cup… or as Superman calls it, the poisoned chalice.
