GameSpot editors' review
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CNET editors' rating:
stars
OK
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 10/28/1998
- Updated on: 05/02/2000
- Released on: 09/30/1998
- Originally published on GameSpot: Outburst (PC) Review
There have been few attempts to turn party word games into PC games, and probably for good reason. The games that currently exist such as Scrabble and Boggle do fine because there is a material component (a board or dice with letters) that acts as a visual cue to the gameplay. But when you try to dress up a word game like Outburst, which only uses cards with witty comments and a "quirky" host, you're bound to run into some stumbling blocks.
Outburst is a verbal party game where players divide into teams and try to guess phrases/words for a particular topic. For example, if the subject is "Robert Redford films," answers like The Sting and The Natural are valid. However, the answers are preselected so that points are only gained for guessing the answers chosen by the game's creators. The game progresses through the various subjects, and each team tries to get more right answers than the other.
The trick to making computer versions of board games or party games work is the additional effort you put into the product. With Outburst, Hasbro added some extra flash to the game, but it's such a rip-off of the great You Don't Know Jack series that half the time you'll be thinking the game was made by Berkeley Systems. The announcer has that quirky tone. There are fake commercials between categories that offer outlandish and sometimes disgusting products and even animated icons (goofy exclamation points) to represent each team.
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