I must have seen Golden Balls on TV only a couple of times and I can’t say I’m a big fan of the show. Every time I think of Jasper Carrot I keep picturing him in the prime of his career, as the character Wiggy attempting to drive an ambulance, and to see him hosting a game show is quite a bizarre experience for me. I have a dislike for this particular type of game show in which all forms of intellect and general knowledge are thrown aside in favour of sheer luck. The back of the box describes this as a “psychological game” but this offers about as much in the way of psychology as Mallett’s Mallet back in the day.

You’re asked to choose a character when you start the game and I went for the Rock Singer because I adore his stupid little face. The first couple of things you’ll see when you start a game of Golden Balls are a video of the opening titles and a short introduction video from Jasper Carrot. Given that both these videos are even fuzzier than the in-game graphics it makes me wonder why they were included at all and I imagine it’s just an attempt at authenticity.

The graphics are very basic and fuzzy, the sound is repetitive and annoying, but I very much doubt either of those things will play a big part in your decision to purchase this game or not so I’ll instead focus on gameplay. I started a game with my character, the impish looking Rock Star, and my opponents were a Lawyer named Reginald, a P.E. Teacher named Ken, and a Bank Manager named Guy.

The first round kicked off and Ken stuck out like a sore thumb as the two balls he had on display (dirty bugger!) were both Killer balls (which doesn’t help with the innuendo) and he was unanimously voted off, Ken is rubbish.

In the second round I had two Killer balls out of five but only one of which was on display to my opponents so I decided that bluffing was the best approach. Neither opponent had a Killer ball on display, Guy said the game is about trust and that I should put my faith in him, and Reginald claimed to have the £50,000 and £75,000 balls hidden from view. It was touch and go for a moment and I was beginning to lean towards a vote for Guy until Reginald said “I can’t believe you have balls as good as these” – I’m not having that! I voted for Reginald, as did Guy, and it turned out that Reginald was telling the truth and actually had the 50k and 75k balls…and Guy had nothing.

I had to hold my hands up, Reginald was telling the truth and he did indeed have a superior set of balls, and my focus then turned to the final round.

This was it folks, we took turns to choose which of the remaining balls to bin and which to keep and in the end we were staring at a prize-fund of £20,095, the tension was palpable. I had to make the all important decision, choose ‘split’ and hope that he does the same, or choose ‘steal’ and hope that he was nice enough to go for ‘split’. As much as I disliked Guy’s moustache I was feeling in a friendly mood so I chose to split the cash. The outcome – Guy also chose the ‘split’ option and we shared the cash, bless his little cotton socks.

While this was clearly a fantastic result of epic proportions I’m left with a nagging question in the back of my mind – What’s the point? I guessed my way through that example and ended up with a virtual prize of £10,047 (I can only assume that the missing £1 was Jasper Carrot’s fee) and that’s all there is to it. I suppose that huge fans of the show might find some entertainment value here but I can’t see much merit other than it being a means to waste a small amount of time.

Golden Balls – “12 of them contain cash, how much? We don’t know! Four of them are Killer balls, where are they? We don’t know!” and I’d like to add – why would anyone want to play this game? I don’t know!

3/10

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