Hollywood Squares Review

I have a profound respect for game shows that manage to hang around for a long time like Hollywood Squares did. It lasted in the realm of cutthroat daytime television for nearly four decades. But after being cancelled in 2004, you'd figure that licensed Hollywood Squares products would cease to exist. And you'd figure wrong, for Hollywood Squares has officially graced the PlayStation Network.

The video game form of Hollywood Squares' gameplay parallels the real thing. Nine panelists sit in a three square-by-three square grid, with two competing contestants using those nine panelists' answers to various questions in order to create a successful line with X's and O's (a la Tic-Tac-Toe). If a contestant successfully concludes whether a panelist answered a given question properly or not, an X or O is earned.

While Hollywood Square's rules and gameplay will be familiar to most television-watching Americans, the distinct lack of celebrity panelists will come off as rather alien. Having a celebrity panel was Hollywood Squares' main draw for years (hence the name of the show), but in the video game iteration on PSN, only the center square contains an actual celebrity pulled from the ranks of the show's mainstays late in its life (Jeffrey Tambor, Kathy Griffin, Brad Garret and Martin Mull). The other eight squares consist of basic avatars that nonetheless serve an identical purpose.

Then again, a lack of celebrities marks only the first problem in a long line of issues that places Hollywood Squares firmly in the "bad game" category.

For starters, Hollywood Squares comprises very little actual gameplay. Part of this can be blamed on the inherent nature of Hollywood Squares on television, which was usually heavy on the comedic banter and lighter on questions and answers to progress the game. With all of that removed (save for some rehashed video clips for the actual celebrity in the coveted center square), you'll just go through the motions. This is especially pronounced when playing online, in which you can't see anything your opponent does while the laughably NES-era broken English sentence "Waiting Opponent to Answer Question" appears on the screen.


And while the actual host of the latter years of Hollywood Squares, Tom Bergeron, delivers the questions, you'll still find them dated and monotonous. For instance, one question could be asked about who Angelina Jolie's father is (Jon Voight), another question could be about who Jon Voight's daughter is (Angelina Jolie), and a third question could inquire about who owned Seinfeld's George Costanza's car before he did (Jon Voight). Similar obsessions exist throughout the experience with actors like Alfonso Ribiero, musical groups like the Black Eyed Peas and movies like The Dark Knight.

The predictable AI doesn't make things any better. The AI will simply answer more and more questions correctly the further you get through the single-player game's 20 individual shows, though you'll never actually see the questions they're getting or the answers they're giving; only whether or not the X or O was earned. By playing through the entirety of the "campaign," you could unlock different clothes and accessories for your in-game avatar and plenty of useless in-game cash, but chances are you won't want to waste the time. But hey, if you want to cheat, you can do that too since the game lets you pause on the question screen, freezing the clock and allowing you to scramble to Google for the answer you seek.

I wanted to like Hollywood Squares. I really did. But it joins Ludia's other swings-and-misses like The Price is Right (which I gave a 4.0) and Press Your Luck (which I gave a 5.0).

In other words, nobody should get the square.

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